Being a stagehand in a venue or on a site is hard work, but it is where most people in the live entertainment industry start out in their careers. This is for various reasons of course. Some like the hands-on experience before applying to larger roles, some like the networking and shadowing opportunities it can bring, and some like to get an overall knowledge before deciding a specialty. Whatever the reason may be, there is also some understanding that stagehands do the majority of the grunt work. This is why it is considered a starting point, or closing point, to one’s career in the industry. Whether you are just beginning your career, or having it come to a stopping point, these are tips from long-standing stagehands who have been around the block and seen many shows come and go. These rules of a stagehand can be carried from any country, and help you make your stagehand experience last until you decide your next steps.
One of the biggest components of a stagehand’s job on tour is load in. We often joke that we’re not paid to run the show, we’re paid to load it in and out and fix problems.
Duncan Northern is the CEO and President of Tinc Productions. He started at Tinc in 2012 as a stagehand, working his way up to President in 2018. Born and Raised in Colorado, his background as a technician and stage manager culminated in his eventual progression into Production Management. He is dedicated to bringing top shelf production supervision and technical direction to a wide variety of projects.
Stagehands are the unsung heroes of every theatre production, preparing everything needed to make a show a success – props, scenery, lighting, sound and special effects. Of course, they cannot make shows happen with their bare hands only. They are expected to bring tools to every job. In this post, I am going to reveal 11 essentials our crew members usually carry from job to job.
When I was in high school, my family’s go-to TV show was NCIS. We’d put it on in the background over dinner, or watch reruns on the USA channel when nothing else good was on TV. By the time I left to go to college, I must have subconsciously taken in hundreds of episodes!
Many believe that in the early days of theatre it was mostly sailors who functioned as stagehands and riggers. While they were on shore leave, or once they were retired. The legends go that in London, for example, there were even underground passages leading directly from the docks to the big theatre venues in town. The sailors ran from the ship to there, did their duties in the theatre, got drunk after, and went back to their ships in the early morning.
Emily Joe has been a working professional in theatre, film, and television for just shy of a decade. She gained her experience and knowledge from working in various regional theatres ever since high school and recently made the jump to pursue film and television, holding previous roles of Stage Management PA at the Pasadena Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse and several other regional theatres and more recently as Art Department PA for Netflix and on the Amazon series Hunters. Emily is an all-rounder and ‘jack of all trades’, describing herself as a creative, which manifests in her work and hobbies which include photography and playing drums and guitar. During the quarantine period she was prop master for Laura Bell Bundy’s music video, American Girl.
Working for the entertainment rigging company enables me to listen to many interesting and inspirational stories from stagehands and theatre technicians. Their first-hand experiences usually show that the industry should have done more to create a safer and better working atmosphere that encourages all enthusiastic people to enter the industry.
