News & Notices
Institute Teams with EdTA to Present PDI
Christine Troscher, USITT Education and Training Coordinator, interacted with most of the 300 delegates to the 2013 EdTA Annual Conference September 26-29, at the Guthrie Theater and The Depot Renaissance Minneapolis Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The event was a four-day professional development opportunity for middle and high school theatre educators at which the Institute presented an intensive training program.
Ms. Troscher, who answered questions and provided information and materials at the Institute's booth, said she was surprised by the varying degrees of the facilities she heard about but not by the enthusiasm of the theatre educators' passion to make their production work no matter what the condition of their space.
USITT members Dan Culhane, Josh Peklo and Trevor Long worked with Executive Director David Grindle to create a six hour PDI in conjunction with EdTA. This allowed USITT to offer attendees advancement towards a graduate degree or earn credit required for continuing education.
The PDI was presented in three, two-hour sections. Mr. Long, assistant production director at the Guthrie, presented the initial session and discussed managing technical theatre in a department of one person. Mr. Culhane, an ETCP Subject Matter Expert in Rigging and USITT Treasurer, followed with a synopsis of rigging and safety, and Alicia Wold, the Guthrie's costume rentals general manager, concluded with costumes. Mr. Peklo, the theatre's technical director, led a separate, 90-minute backstage tour focusing on the two load-ins going on at the time in two separate theatres.
Using this model, USITT and EdTA hope to develop and roll out the USITT/EdTA Summer Intensives. The goal is to host four of these each summer in locations throughout the country. The Institute is working with several venues which are very interested in holding these one-day sessions.
