Blog 2- Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

Linda Bisesti. 

 (310) 993-3735

Southern California Shakespeare Festival 

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?   

Linda has been in the theatre business most all of her life. I am not mentoring directly with linda. Linda introduced me to Joyce Hwang, the Southern California Shakespeare Theatre Company stage manager. 

  

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.

How much time do you spend outside of the theatre working on things for the show? 

How involved are you with set design and building?

How do you stay organized?

    

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

Well one skill I have gained from this is some pretty serious janitorial skill. I tend to do a lot of the dirty work and chores around the building for the stage manager. This is okay with me because of everything else I have learned from my experience thus far. The picture below is of one of the note taking techniques that I had to use when asked to take notes for a few actors. These note taking techniques are what everyone in the company and department uses to practice their lines and get better. Im definitely going  to incorporate

this method into the plays at iPoly this year.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

I am going to continue with stage management as my topic.

This is the stage for the CalPoly shows. It's amazing how fast they set up the sets!

Blog 1-Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

 1.What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

• The three that were most helpful for me were one really good one, one really bad one and one that was mediocre. The really great one that I saw was actually about a boring topic, but she made it very engaging and fun to watch. This one showed me the potential that a senior project has. The really bad one showed me what not to do. It was really bad. Then, the mediocre one showed me a good activity and gave me ideas for my own project.

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

• One thing I learned from interviewing a senior was that the project doesn't have to be miserable. If you make it fun, then it will be fun. The senior I interviewed told me that no matter the topic, if you engage the audience it will go well.

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

• I am most likely going to choose theatre management as my topic because I have been doing that for 2 years and it is a passion of mine. I don't think I will get bored of it and my mentorship will give me more skills to apply to my stage managing in drama.

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

• What is the best way a stage manager can make a show run as smooth as possible.

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

• I spoke to Hannah Tran who did technical theatre as her senior project and she said she did a mentorship at citrus college. I think that citrus college is a great place to mentor because they have a great theatre program and I can get some skills out of it. But for during the summer, I think Im going to mentor at the Chino Play house. They do summer plays that I can get involved with.