Casey and Finnigan
I’m taking a really fantastic class this semester called “Leadership and Management.” There are seven of us in the class–two each of producers, production managers, and stage managers (and one lighting designer, who’s married to one of the production managers), and each of us is working on projects with several people in the class. I’m working with three of them directly, and the lighting designer is working on my show as well, so there’s an element of working with her, too, although it’s not quite as directly as with the others in the class.
It’s basically a discussion class. Well, actually, not “basically;” it is a discussion class. We read several chapters of a book on leadership (Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” for Managers, Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, and Developing the Leader Within You are the textbooks for the semester) and then spend three hours talking it, both in broad, philosophical terms, as well as how it relates to our day-to-day work in theatre, whether that’s at the school or professionally.