in this video we will begin our discussion on theater as art impersonation performance and work so you're going to receive a series of lectures talking about these four things theaters art theaters impersonation theaters performance and theater as work before we break them down I think it's very important to understand that within all of these elements those four items that I just listed there are only three types of people who work in the theater to be more specific there are three general job descriptions for work in the theater and if you're ever employed at a theater you're going to work either under one of these three categories or a combination of these three categories they are the artists the crafts person and the manager so if you get a job in the theater you're going to work as an artist a craftsperson or a manager or some combination of the three those are the only three types of folks generally speaking that work in a theater and on theatrical production so let's talk about the artist first there's a reason that when we list the three types of people that work in the theater we start with the artist because in our world the artist is top dog I'll be the first to admit that we might sometimes get a little full of ourselves and think we're a little more important than we actually are but I will also be the first to say that we also are a little more important than a lot of people understand I would say somewhere along the line you know starting with our soldiers and our firefighters our police officers medical professionals and so forth all the way down to the bottom of the scale wherever that might be we might be slightly above the center line we do serve a significant purpose so even so since we're not talking about the real world we put the police officers and so forth at the top we're going to talk about the world of the theater the world of the theater on where the artist is top dog because without the artist are plural the artists in the theater the rest of us who like to show up and do the things that we do would have no reason for doing so so let's talk about the artist first the artist is one who creates from imagination the artist is the person who creates from imagination wouldn't it be wonderful to make your way through life lucrative Lee simply because you have an ability to imagine that goes beyond the ability of others well in the theater and in other artistic realms the artist is just that person so the question now that I often like to ask in my traditional classrooms is this kid art be taught what do you think can you talk to be taught to be an artist can someone learn art think about that can art be taught the answer is no you can't teach art go back to the definition of art that we had in previous videos man's attempt to capture the human spirit and to touch upon intellectually elusive meanings can we be taught to do that can we be taught to imagine the answer's no you know we could be taught what art is we can learn about it that's kind of what you're doing in this class but to be the actual artist who can observe society and find some creative abstract fresh way to capture who we are and present it to the masses in a way that moves us to change our behavior is something that we cannot learn all right and that's why the artist is top dog so the artist creates from imagination let's compare the artist in the theater with the craftsperson of the theater if the artist is the one from imagination then the craftsperson is the one who can turn that idea into material who can turn it off an artist's imaginative concept into material and bring that concept to life on the stage now the question is can craft be learned the answer to that question is yes we can all learn craft we can learn the craft of painting we can learn the craft of sculpture the craft of acting you know directing and so forth we can't learn to be artistic with it something has to exist from within from that to to happen but we can all learn to be pretty good at the craft of these items so the artist is the person who creates an idea like a set design or a costume design or a lighting plot or something like this the crafts person and sometimes referred to as the technician you know when we talk about lights and sound and so forth is the one who can turn that idea into reality I liken the work of the artist in the crafts person to that of the architect and the Builder think about this the architect is the one with the creative concept who who creates these beautiful buildings that capture a time and a style Art Deco or whatever the case might be and the Builder is the person who reads those blueprints and brings it to life which leads me to tell you this the same as the architect and builder the artist the crafts person shared this similar philosophy and that is the artist must know the craft but the craft person does not have to know the arm if you're a designer in the theatre you are the artist you must know what it might take to bring that idea to life you don't have to be good at it an artist just has to know the craft but the crafts person does not have to know the art just like the architect and the Builder the architect has to stand the principles of foundation and wind resistance and gravity flow and stress points and stuff like this they don't have to be good at building that thing that's on the Builder the Builder needs to know how to look at the blueprint and bring that concept to reality same thing with a craftsperson in a theater they look at the plans provided by the various artists and they bring their concepts to reality I would argue I actually wouldn't argue I think most architects might admit that you know their their actual building skills are quite lacking I was a friend with an architect for quite some time who designed hotels and he had a little cabin out the woods and he kept talking about yeah I've been working on his cabin for 6 or 7 years now and I'm not letting anybody help me and I'm struggling with him I said you're struggling with it you're an architect he said I'm not saying I'm good at swinging a hammer I'm not good at using a saw but I'm trying to get better they work he worked in a nice air-conditioned office with pencils and computers and all of this kind of stuff and then would hand for the hotels and his work over to people who were experts think about your home you would love for the person who designed the Taj Mahal to provide a redesign plane for your kitchen but you want the person who built the Taj Mahal to do your cabinets that's how the artists and the crafts person worked together in the theater know the artist is top dog the artists are the ones that are most expensive they're the fewest and the furthest between all right second would be the crafts person those folks are pretty expensive as well all right but they have to work together so let's talk briefly since we let my artist a craftsperson about the difference between art and craft all right we did we made a separation between art and entertainment now let's make a separation between art and craft often as I discussed in a previous video we think that if something is beautif if something looks perfect a painting let's say our work of maybe a sculpture or something like this we think it's a work of art simply because it looks real it looks perfect it's masterful no all I've described so far is the craft it's it's the intention of the artist with that work that makes it art does it move us does it change us does it capture who we are and so forth we talked about the bowl of fruit with the orange in it looking pretty and having an entertaining quality quality in our dining room but you placed that same orange from the same artist in the hands of the Ethiopian child in that other painting all of a sudden the the orange moves from being a piece of entertainment to a piece of art both of them might look very beautiful both paintings might look very realistic you might have to stare at them forever that Discoverer didn't determine if one is a photograph or not but both of them a boat but only one of them is a work of art think of editorial cartoons editorial cartoonists are artists they usually on a weekly basis usually in newspapers and so forth they capture a sentiment of a nation they capture you know how we feel about a political issue or an election result or you know something like this their work is actually not much better than our children and grandchildren can produce in a second or third grade classroom that it's very sketchy very sloppy you've seen these cartoons but that's not the point while they are arguably poorly crafted the art is in the message the art is in you know whether or not the stick figures in that sloppy cartoon moved us to action or moved us to adopt a new interpretation of a policy or to move us to forgiveness or something like that most editorial cartoons are very sloppy poorly crafted but highly artistic in message the third type of person who works in the theater we said artists talk dog craftsperson wait toward the top but in highly expensive now we move to the third is the manager now managers come a little less expensive managers are folks like you and I if you work as a manager in a theatre that means you have a skill that you've developed through an education somewhere or maybe some some experience a background of work if you might have worked as an apprentice as a carpenter or an electrician or something like this and they hire you to work in a theater in a managerial capacity and because there are many of us out there that have those kind of skills we come pretty inexpensively we're pretty cheap you know if you can you don't have to have any theatrical experience or even I love for the theater to get hired in a managerial capacity in a theater if you can run assembly line you can get a job in the theater and a managerial capacity if you can captain a softball team or a football team in high school you can be hired in a managerial capacity at a theater managers have skills not necessarily an artistic sense or even a crafted sense but they have people skills so to speak to make sure that their teams can put their part of the production together and make it presentable to an audience so what type of managers are there in the theater I'll name a few I won't get deep in into it but we have the stage manager the house manager box office manager business manager and crew manager or managers crew managers if you're a manager in the theater you're one of these that I just listed and we're going to talk about them you either manage people or you manage money are you manage both managers and the theater manage people money both so let's start with the stage manager stage managers manage people all right the stage manager is kind of the walking boss the person who takes over once the production phase begins the run of the show begins because the director is through with his or her work you know at the end of the preparation phase so now the stage manager kind of gets to walk around calling the shots and bossing people around stage managers are responsible for just about everything making sure the show starts on time everybody's in place everyone has arised the audience and is where they need to be so stage managers manage people for the most part they manage the people backstage backstage being a figurative term when we say backstage we mean all the things that take place in that production that are not on stage because you know sometimes I mean always people are also working in the booth behind light boards and sound boards and stuff like this they are not necessarily backstage but they we call them backstage workers because they are behind the scenes so to speak so stage managers make sure a show starts on time people are in place for their entrances and exits that people are kind of well behaved backstage and not talking making a lot of noise they walk around as a if those props off the floor something's gonna step on them and break them and stuff like this they you know coordinate with the people on the other side of the curtain to make sure that they're ready the audience is in place to start on time now who are those people on the other side of the curtain that I just referenced their house managers house managers also manage people they work in coordination with the stage manager to make sure that their people are in place who are those people is the audience house managers manage audience members they make sure that the audience is in place the audience is in the right seat that they have a program that they know where the emergency exits are and the bathrooms and stuff like this they manage the audience through a crew of Usher so house managers kind of improvement they make sure that the ushers see to it that the audience is ready to go and when when the show when the curtain rises and the show begins so house managers manage people also we have something known as the box office manager box office so what is box office box office is a term you hear quite a bit in the theater what's box office really referred to any of you know box office as kind of in in its definition in its meaning has evolved over time the word box office today is figurative it simply refers to ticket revenue money brought in from the sales of tickets that's what box office managers do they over they oversee the ticket sales in other words box office managers manage people and money so why do you know why do we use the word box office to reference ticket sales okay in the old days you know at the you know prior to telephones and the internet which came much later and so forth you could only buy your tickets at the store house meaning the theater you bought your milk at a grocery store you buy your tires at a and you know an entire shop now you know you have to buy your tickets to the play at the theatre so many of you may have seen these old buildings or at least photos of them the building that I operate the downtown Playhouse used to have one of the very things I'm discussing right now they were box offices there were little glass ticket booths boxes that were constructed into the front of these old theaters and you know you would have a person sit inside that booth with a little you know half circle cut to slide the tickets under and receive the money and so forth so that people could show up and inquire about a show and purchase a ticket so why did they do it that way well think of it like there's a lot of there's not very much downtime in a theater but in terms of the public's access there's a lot of downtime the public isn't in a live theater very much all right so you know back in the older days you would put this person in that little box because it would cost less money to heat and cool that space rather than put the coal in and fire up these big buildings or you know when air conditioning came about cool down these big buildings simply because one person needs to sit there and sell tickets they built these little boxes out there which was much it would save them a ton on utilities and people would show up and do it there over time the need for the box office disappeared when I was in college and graduated college and first started producing shows on my own we didn't use a box office anymore but we used another dinosaur that is kind of now outdated called the hub the ticket hub you might know what the word hub means from clicking around a computer screen but that is yet another term that is evolved from from a practical purpose a hub was a was a site was that was a location that would sell tickets for you if you operated a theater maybe a bank or maybe a department store or even a grocery store you know you would have somebody go around with boxes of tickets they would take them to Target or Walmart or to one of the banks or something and say well you sell these for us at the cash register people knew because they would hear on the radio you know get your tickets for rumors at Target today they'd shop at Target and then you and they'd ask them hey by the way I'd like to pick up four tickets for a certain date for the production of rumors they sell them at the end of the week one of the theater people would go collect the money say thank you and that's how the hub worked for the longest time that's the way they did is they did it for rock concerts they did it for country music shows monster truck pulls theaters even ball games sometimes you can buy your ticket at a whole profession ball games over time the hub was eliminated because the computer came along and now everybody buys her tickets on internet I'm an old man I remember the first time I bought Eagle any ticket online there were Eagles tickets and I did not how to know how to operate that computer and I'm clicking around trying to figure out how to do it some guys walking me through the process I'm doing a gift I do the credit card and he says now you know hit print I said what hit prints big old sheet of paper comes out and then another one I said what's this he said those are your tickets I couldn't believe it I said tickets I said these are my tickets what's to keep me from like printing off 20 or 30 of these and selling them myself of course he's in prison I said okay copy that I'm with you there but that was a brand new no longer box office my my my method had become extinct that was the hub now we're doing it online so yeah the whole process of purchasing tickets for admission has changed however the terminology has not box office refers to ticket revenue only ticket revenue only why take it revenue I mean when they talk about a movie or a play opening up on its first weekend oh the Titanic brought in you know twelve million dollars at the box office I don't know if that's higher low or whatever you know why are they referring to ticket sales only why aren't they talking about t-shirts and coffee mugs and action figures and all the other stuff that you might sell in conjunction with that product well in the theater the most important dollar is the one that comes from the ticket you might say why dollars a dollar well if you're not buying that ticket if you're not putting that dollar on a ticket you're not going to put a dollar on a coffee mug or a t-shirt or anything like this so box-office revenue is is key box office is the measure for everything else and box office managers manage people and money to manage the money sold from tickets and they manage the crew that's out selling those tickets after box office manager yeah business manager and the business manager is just that the business managers pretty much the accountant the person responsible for paying the bills making sure that every cruise phase within budget that the set crew stays within budget hopefully in the costume crew and the you know the utilities aren't jacked up too high and you know stuff like this and they they manage the money business managers manage money money only and the final type of managers would be that of crew managers crew managers just as it says are the people who manage the various cruise yeah I'm set design but now you have to have a crew of people who are building it you know carpenters again people who might not be that interested in the theater but have the skill to build electricians sometimes even plumbers there's a lot of water used in productions sometimes you have crew managers who manage lighting crews tech crews set crews people are pulling the counterweight the ropes on the fly system the counterweight system are pushing scenery around prop screws I told you while ago there's a crew of Usher's so crew managers manage people a director is somebody who actually serves in all three capacities a director has to serve as a in an artistic capacity a managerial capacity and obviously has to manage scores of people sometimes hundreds of people ultimately so director is the one person involved in production that works in all three capacities so the three types of people that make up the theater are artists craftspeople and managers knowing that in our next video we will begin the elaboration on what we discussed earlier and that is theater is art impersonation in performance and work