A Day in the Life of a Visiting Instructor of Theatre Arts/Production Management

A Day in the Life of a Visiting Instructor of Theatre Arts/Production Management | brokeGIRLrich

It has been a hot second since I’ve done one of these, but I spent the last several months foraying into an entirely new adventure of teaching and it sure was an interesting semester.

For this particular breakdown, I’m going to revisit what a day looked like back in the BEFORE – when we could all meet in person.

Also you might wonder, how did I get this job? Well, I’m an alumni who has stayed connected to the program for the last fifteen years, so when the department decided they wanted to add another position, I was already well on their radar.

It was 100% connections in this case, can’t even lie. I have a varied and interesting resume in stage management and an M.A. instead of an M.F.A., so I was blatantly shocked to get the job. I mostly figured I would learn more about the academic interview process when I threw my hat in the ring… which I did a bit, an M.A. gets paid less than an M.F.A.

I certainly have learned a lot about the academic process over the last few months and I am still puzzled by most of it. But I am grateful for the opportunity I had the last few months to learn about the “ivory tower of academia.”

Tuesday/Thursdays

8:00 AM: Wake up. Shower. Make breakfast. Check emails.

9:30 AM: Leave for work.

9:45 AM: Begin the parking hunt.

(Hopefully) 10:15 AM: Have found parking spot. The best thing about this is that my first class on these days isn’t until 12:30 PM and yet if I got school after 10 AM, there was absolutely no chance there was going to be any parking.

10:30 AM: Settle into my office. Check emails again. Go get coffee from the coffee cart ladies.

11:00 AM: Double check everything for my Survey of Theatre class (I had to teach three classes as my full load).

12:20 PM: Walk over to Survey of Theatre Class

12:30 PM: Teach Survey of Theatre Class – I always found this class fairly stressful as I taught an awful lot of things that I hadn’t studied since college. I was kind of fascinated to learn what stuck and what didn’t and what my true feelings on some of these topics were though, because I would prep lessons on some topics and be like “oooo, I do enjoy medieval theatre” and sometimes I would prep a lesson and be like “huh, who knew? I totally don’t care at all about Restoration theatre” (though the scenic design history around that time is pretty cool).

1:50 PM: Class ends. Check my mailbox in the arts and humanities department because my class is right by it and my office is comparatively in Timbuktu.

2:30 PM: One day of the week it was the theater faculty department meeting. The other day of the week I’d use this time to lesson prep and/or work on projects related to the current productions and events we had coming up. Sometimes, because I was super lucky to work with two friends I went to college with, we’d get coffee together for a little while during this time.

4:30 PM: On Tuesdays, it was the production meeting for whatever production the theater department was working on. As part of my job, I was the department Production Manager.

One Thursday a month, 4:30 PM was arts faculty meetings, which was all the faculty from theatre, dance and music.

On other Thursdays, this was Theatre Company Meeting. All the theater majors, minors, and kids from other majors who were heavily involved in the department, would meet to go over department announcements, plan events, etc. We would have guest speakers sometimes or do things like resumes, interviewing tips, etc.

6:00 PM: Rehearsal for whatever show was up until 10:00 PM. I didn’t have to be at most of these until we got into tech week, though I usually tried to hang out once a week and watch rehearsal, usually on Tuesdays.

10:00 PM: Home. TV. Sleep.

Monday/Wednesday/Fridays

8:00 AM: Wake up. Shower. Make breakfast. Check emails.

8:45 AM: Leave for work.

9:00 AM: Begin the parking hunt – an easier hunt on M/W/F because it was earlier and it’s a university full of commuters who try to stack their classes on Tuesday/Thursday too.

9:15 AM: Put things in office. Double check lesson plans for both of today’s classes.

9:45 AM: Walk over to Pageants, Parades, and Protests class.

9:55 AM: Teach Pageants, Parades, and Protests. This was a general studies course that was essentially just assigned to me when I got hired, which was hilarious because I knew nothing about the topic and mentioned that when it was assigned to me. So… the students and I learned about these things together. Sigh. I definitely hope to never, ever teach it again.

11:10 AM: Class ends. Walk over to Stage Management I class.

11:20 AM: Teach Stage Management I class. Literally the highlight of my week. My students were so clever and engaged. I flipping loved teaching them.

12:35 PM: Class ends. Eat lunch.

1:00 PM: Office hours. I very infrequently had visitors just show up. I got a lot of lesson planning and grading done during this time frame.

3:00 PM: Office hours end. If I had more lesson planning or grading to do or work for production managing the performances, I would hang out longer and do it. Though if I had stuff I needed to do at home, I would go home and get that stuff started there while I finished working from home. I did manage to have it set that by Friday this was just the end of the day and the weekend started, which was pretty nice.

I actually considered taking up a hobby or something because I actually had time.

At the beginning, I was averaging like 8 hours of work for each hour I had to teach. I’m really excited at the prospect of maybe someday teaching Stage Management I or Survey of Theatre again, because I know that work load will be considerably lower to prep for the class.

Like – I know there’s still prep and keeping up with current trends and changes, but it’s not like a frantically overwhelmed feeling of just trying not to drown, which is largely how I felt all semester. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I was officially hired like three days before the semester started… so frantic was really the name of the game all semester.

Clearly, during tech week of the one production we did before COVID this semester, that week was kind of nuts. All the classes and meetings I listed above still happened, along with everything that needs to happen to put up a show.

Not only was it a tech week schedule each evening, we were also shooting the promo video for our department during it, so it was a bit much. But a bit much in a academia schedule was still nothing compared to the ridiculous hours on so many of the tours I’ve been on.

Anyway, like so many others, my budget line was a COVID fatality, so this position will not exist next semester. A lot of universities are definitely struggling with everything going on at the moment and a lot of the budget deficits are being made up by cutting positions that aren’t tenured.

Personally though, I’m very excited to adjunct Stage Management II online next semester, it’s literally all my favorite parts of the job without all the parts I don’t enjoy… except the incredibly small adjuncting paycheck. But you can’t have everything you want in life, I guess.

If you’re interested in what some of my other days looked like in other jobs, check out those posts here: