I am in the middle of the summer season of my first professional theatre experience and I just graduated from Mars Hill College with a degree in musical theatre. I am now working in Horn in the West which is a historical outdoor drama and I am in the chorus and PR Quartets as well as a soloist and an understudy. I am also stage managing Where the Wild Things Are and I am in a dance concert. What was your first professional theatre experience?
Good News! at a local civic light opera. Not the biggest professional show ever, but it was the first show I got paid for, so it was a big deal. Plus, I was working with a few Equity members. I was in the dance ensemble and got to work with a choroegrapher who had worked with legends like Gene Kelly. Needless to say, it was an amazing learning experience and I can't wait for more like it.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
My first professional Company was Northern Lights Playhouse in Wisconsin as Musical Director.
I had a lot of paying jobs at Community and High School theatres (I Musical Direct, not act) - but the first professional company for the summer was NLP.
You learn to play the straight man, the lines become routine - never really saying what you mean - but i know the scene will change :)
My limited "professional" experience was doing shows at the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan. Never made it on stage, I was a techie. I ran lights for several shows and was ASM. As a typical apprentice I also worked box office, costumes and played for the bar show. It was one of the best summers of my life. I loved it and learned so much!
THE LOST COLONY directed by Broadway legend, Joe Layton in 1984.
"For me, THEATRE is an anticipation, an artistic rush, an emotional banquet, a jubilant appreciation, and an exit hopeful of clearer thought and better worlds."
~ an anonymous traveler with Robert Burns