Technical training for teachers
Lucy Rix
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
There are a plethora of CPD resources out there for the technical elements of teaching theatre, but sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start. To help, Lucy Rix shares her favourite virtual training sessions
As a new Head of Drama in a mainstream secondary school I had plenty of anxieties about being ‘in charge’ of the school's theatre and control room. Despite having spent three years training in Technical Theatre and working in that environment before becoming a teacher, I still felt that my knowledge wasn't up to scratch (as technology is always moving on) and I worried about lighting my productions and producing decent video footage for exam boards.
Drama teachers are expected to be able to focus lanterns, run a lighting and sound desk and produce excellent video footage as well as teaching our subject day to day. And sometimes it's hard to know where to go for good training.
The start of a CPD journey
In my first teaching job, most training was done face to face, and I benefitted hugely from a visit from Skip Mort who is the author of a brilliantly useful training/teaching manual all about lighting. He visited my school and delivered a workshop about the basics of lighting for me, some members of the English department and also the caretaking/premises team (at Skip's suggestion – he felt it was important that staff in these areas were competent with the equipment in their venue and he's so right). I would highly recommend Skip's book' Stage Lighting: An on-the-job reference tool as it contains links to some excellent video tutorials and ideas to use either in the classroom or to teach yourself.
Fast forward to 2018 and I attended another piece of brilliant training delivered by ETC at their headquarters in London. The reason for my attendance this time? I had started work at a FE College and had no idea how to use their lighting board – I spent two days being trained on the features of the board and how to programme it. What amazed me was that this course was free (and I even got lunch and a free T-shirt!) Looking at their website it seems that face to face training is not currently offered but there are training videos and online opportunities if you go to courses.etcconnect.com.
Online courses and webinars
Last year brought some great opportunities for drama teachers to gain CPD in technical areas from their own sofa. What follows is a selection of online courses/webinars that are available for teachers to secure more technical theatre knowledge:
‘School Productions: From Page to Stage’ was an online conference held in March 2021 by Drama & Theatre, but the videos are still available online at the cost of £118.80 (includes VAT) which gives you access for 3 months. Looking at the very comprehensive timetable for the conference; I would probably want to watch every session so would need to plan my three months access carefully to make sure I didn't miss anything. A selection of the highlights are: ‘Lighting on a budget’ by Guildford School of Acting (GSA)'s Mig Walsh, ‘Empowering young people in backstage roles’ by Hilary Stats from Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Graham Caplin's sessions on licensing for sound and finding effects; and a vitally important topic for which I don't think there is enough support: filming shows for exam board moderation by David Duthie from The Space. There's even a session delivered by Alex Thomas from Magdalen School, Oxford about creating audio productions.
In a similar vein, a recent collaboration between Open Drama UK and We Teach Drama is their series of webinars entitled ‘Think Like a Designer’, which launched in January 2021. This is billed as being ‘high quality, innovative CPD for drama teachers’. The sessions were delivered by leading theatre designers in sound, set, costume and lighting, with specific takeaways and learning outcomes. Open Drama UK's page on YouTube currently shows a series of videos about stage illustration for different stage set ups including thrust, traverse and in-the-round. There is also a really useful video on how to use Q-Lab. Again, this is something I had to teach myself as a drama teacher so that I could use it for school productions but these days there are many more accessible videos out there designed for teachers to learn these skills.
Another great learning resource that I have used is Rob Sayer's (senior lecturer in Production at Bath Spa University) onstagelighting.co.uk. I took a micro course in learning about DMX systems with Rob in 2017, and since then he has developed lots more training materials including getting started with Q-Lab. If you've haven't taken a look at Q-Lab and you're a drama teacher, it's really worth it for productions as the free version allows you to do so much in terms of lighting and sound cues.
There are many more ways to pick up some online training in technical theatre but hopefully you'll have found something in this article to get you started!
For information on CPD sessions and workshops at the upcoming Music & Drama Education Expo, or to register for a free space, visit www.mdexpo.co.uk
