Practical Technical Theater
The Complete Solution for Technical Theater Classrooms
This series of instructional DVDs is perfect for the teacher who feels more at home with a prompt book than a hammer, and would welcome a new, visually oriented teaching tool for their tech classes and production crews.
Developed by master theater educators Bob and Marti Fowler, the series is engaging and fun for students. The lessons in this series will help turn your students into valuable theater technicians who know what to do and how to do it.
Note: DVDs are available in Canada and the US only.
Pricing: US$229 per DVD + $9.95 s/h.
Canadian customers pay $CAD equivalent, currently $233.03
Each DVD becomes your classroom textbook and is packaged with a CD-ROM which contains Lesson Designs that use Cooperative Learning and Multiple Intelligence Strategies, Resource Sheets, Written Assessments, Scoring Guides, Writing Prompts, and Performance Rubrics. It is a complete curriculum for technical theater classrooms.
Introduction to Technical Theater
A great overview of theater professionals and their responsibilities. This program is also applicable to acting and survey classes.
- Classifies the different roles in the theater hierarchy from producer and director to tech director and various technicians.
- Takes your students on a video field trip of four stage types: Proscenium, Thrust, Arena stages in professional, state-of-the-art facilities and a Thrust stage in a school gym.
- Tours a professional theater from the ticket booth to the green room.
- Visually subdivides the stage into the nine traditional acting areas.
Hosts: Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler
Basic Set Construction & Theater Safety
This program demonstrates how to become a safe and efficient stage carpenter.
- Identifies basic safety rules that apply to any theater, including set strike.
- Demonstrates how to safely use common hand tools in three categories: measuring and marking, cutting and shaping, and joining tools.
- Tours a completed interior set, then takes students back to the shop for lessons on constructing practical set pieces such as platforms, stair units and wagons. Scale drawings and computer generated graphics reinforce the construction techniques shown.
- Demonstrates flat construction, including joining techniques such as how to use hinges and lash lines, battens and keeper hooks, and how to dutchman.
- Explores options for dressing out a set with props.
Hosts: Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler
Lighting for the Theater
This hands-on primer will produce results on your stage by giving your students the skills required to light a stage evenly, establish basic moods, create some basic special effects, and troubleshoot many common problems.
- Illustrates basic lighting concepts for live productions.
- Provides step-by-step process for lighting a show.
- Puts lighting theory to work, allowing students to design and execute a basic light plot.
- Explores the creative uses of various lighting instruments and control equipment.
- Analyzes basic lighting concepts, such as plugging, patching, subbing and cueing.
Hosts: Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler
Audio for Theater
A great overview of theater professionals and their responsibilities. This program is also applicable to acting and survey classes.
- Analyzes the components of a typical theater sound system: wired and wireless microphones, mixing consoles and signal processing, speakers and their placement, intercom and stage announce systems, playback systems for sound effects, and power sources.
- Compares and contrasts different microphones to help students understand how to use the right tool for the right job.
- Illustrates the practical aspects of what an audio engineer needs to know to survive in today’s live entertainment environment.
- Has great recommendations for troubleshooting feedback, fuzzy signals, speakers cutting out, and other common problems.
Host: Audio Engineer David Eisenhauer. Eisenhauer’s credits include live shows such as Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Enrique Iglesias and John Mellencamp.
Stage Management
Filled with hands-on demonstrations and real world tips for students, this program will have your students running shows like professionals in no time!
- Identifies just what a stage manager does, from pre-show conferences to closing night.
- Illustrates rehearsal skills like taping the stage, making prompt books, using blocking and cueing shorthand, and other tricks of the trade.
- Focuses on technical rehearsals and performances, including pre-show protocol, how to actually call a show, and how to avoid, prepare for, and, when necessary, handle common problems.
Host: Tom Martin, a professional Director, Stage and Production Manager for the last 28 years. Tom currently serves as a resident Stage Manager at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, and is Associate Producing Director of the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis.
Set Design
This program illustrates how to maintain top notch production values in facilities that range from the high school "cafetorium" to state-of-the-art theaters.
- Categorizes various types of common interior and exterior set designs: Box Sets, Unit Sets, and Wing and Drop Sets, as well as combinations of those three types.
- Demonstrates how to analyze a script to determine technical demands.
- Offers hands-on group projects such as researching for period plays, working with the director and other designers to achieve a specific style, and considering directional compositions in the design.
- Analyzes common aspects of set design including sight lines, furniture placement and traffic patterns, and basic scale drawing.
Hosts: Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler
Lighting Design
This program is an extension of, and should be used after, Lighting For Theater. It explores advanced concepts of lighting design by investigating the process of designing and executing a complete light plot that incorporates many special effects.
- Demonstrates how to analyze a script with "designer’s eyes," and the collaborative process of working with the director and other designers.
- Compares and contrasts common representational and presentational production styles.
- Analyzes color theory, angles of light and other design considerations.
- Explores how to design a hanging plot, how to create instrument and patching schedules, and how to cue a show on both computerized and manual lighting controllers.
Hosts: Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler
Business & House Management
Enter the working world of the "business of show business" with this program. Develop a system to build patron loyalty, manage ticket sales, create budgets, and prepare for the unexpected.
- Discover new ways to publicize your plays, fill the seats in your theater, and make the program grow within your school environment.
- Outlines the best strategies for managing ticket distribution, preparing and printing programs, handling facility preparation and maintenance, training your staff in performance protocol, and handling emergencies.
Script written by Lana Hagan, faculty SIU Edwardsville and EdTA Leadership Coach. Ms. Hagan has presented Business and House Management workshops at conferences across the US. The program is hosted by Bob Fowler and Marti Fowler.
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