In the early days of my career, I had a lot of trouble with the fact that I was a Drama major. Employers tended to think that I was just marking time at a job until I ‘got discovered’. And back then, I didn’t have a good answer for their objections except to say that it wasn’t so.
Now, I know better.
One of the biggest things you learn when doing theater is that when the curtain goes up you have no excuses. Either you know your lines or you don’t. Either the costumes are finished or the actors are onstage in their underwear. Either the lighting people know their cues or the cast is standing there on the dark. There’s no way to hide from the audience when the spotlight is on you.
In short, theater may be a highly creative art, but talent alone is not enough. You need to be able to get the job done.
And that’s a transferable skill.
What I do today is worlds away from the productions of Brigadoon or The Desert Song that used to consume my life, but the focus on execution is exactly the same.
In my leadership classes at USF, we heard a lot about how managers focus on getting things done, but leaders focus on “vision”. There’s a lot to be said for that concept. But more and more, I’ve come to believe that you should never underestimate the power of execution, because without it, you don’t get to lead anybody anywhere.
Very true! Vision and execution are two halves of a sphere. If you lack either, the project isn’t going to roll very efficiently, just wobble around.
Don’t forget about teamwork. Not many majors can really teach the importance of group efforts and interdependency.
While Lux never fell into this category, far from it, too many people in theater think that teamwork does not include them.
And it really helps if the person with the vision can execute some part of it. I’m pretty good at the non-costume aspects of stagecraft, I’ve never met a non-professional who is better overall, but always the best designers are ones who have talents in some areas that exceed mine so I can learn from them.