This semester I Assistant stage managed for ‘Dream A Little Dream’, an original dance piece produced by the Brandeis theatre arts department. At first, I was really apprehensive about taking up the position, but 6 and a half weeks later, on closing night I can say that it was one of the best decisions I made. Yes, it was a lot of time commitment and I had to eat dinner at abnormal times like 4 pm because call time was 5.30 but it was one of the best experiences I’ve had so far at Brandeis. Here are some of the reasons why I loved working on the production and why it will always be special to me.
1. Building a family.
When you spend so much of your time with a group of people creating a beautiful piece on stage you become friends and start looking out for each other. This show gave me so many valuable friendships and I learned so much about the people I was working with. Yay! For more friendly faces on campus.
2. Knowing exactly what your evenings look like.
Going to rehearsal every day for 6 weeks becomes a routine and you manage your time accordingly. It’s crazy how you surprise yourself by being so much more productive in a short period of time because you know you won’t have your evenings to get school work done. It also was a great way to end the day and a distraction from stressful classes and work.
3. Working with professionals.
So much of this campus is student-run which is great. But working on a department show, you work with professional adults who do theatre for a living and it is a whole new learning experience. Being on time and updating paperwork is so important and it forces you to be professional and that teaches you a lot about the real world and makes you realize that there is life after college (sad, I know).
4. Learning about yourself
I learned so much about myself because of this production. I learned what I liked to do and I also learned about the jobs I hated but had to do anyway. It taught me to see the bigger picture.
5. Memories
Most important were the memories and the bittersweetness of something coming to an end. I will always remember this production and the people on because everyone was so different and unique in their own way but together, we made a great team.