Stage Managing

When I moved over to the Fullerton campus, I was brought over as one of the two main production leaders for the team there. Since Amanda (the other production leader) and I are currently the only two people who are experienced with all areas of production, we decided that we would take turns stage managing for the services. This week ended up being my turn.

Basically, a stage manager makes sure that everyone else on the production team knows what they're doing when they need to do it. The manager is there to troubleshoot any problems, give cues for slide or lighting changes, and to keep track of the time-line of the service. Although I've observed what the stage manager does many time back at the main campus, I've actually never done it myself before. Last night was my first experience in somewhat taking a step back and directing people rather than doing things myself. I was a little nervous and hesitant going in. I was afraid that I was going to miss the right cues or not know what to do if a problem arose; however, like most situations that I fret over, the night ended up being quite easy and surprisingly simple. The volunteers I oversaw already had a pretty good understanding of what they were supposed to be doing.

Reflecting on this night, I feel like I learned two important lessons. The first is that I shouldn't be timid about taking charge and leading by delegation. Often I would rather lead by example, but as a stage manager I had to learn how to let go and let other people do their jobs. The second is that I learned to not sell myself short as an effective leader. I usually get nervous about exercising authority over people when I still feel unsure about what I'm doing myself; however, this was a good experience to remind me that although I still feel like an intern at times, I still have the ability to lead other people with my knowledge and experiences.