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<blockquote data-quote="Jake Scudder" data-source="post: 23868" data-attributes="member: 195">Re: Unions.Well there are different sides of working as a IATSE stagehand. There is the &quot;local guy&quot; route which is working calls that your local has jurisdiction over. Getting on the casual hire list, as mentioned, is probably the best step toward doing this. It can lead to steady employment, depending on your market. It can even lead to full-time employment if you become one of the department heads in a local venue. Tim and Justice are much more qualified to speak about this.The other side is to work on a union touring production as part of the road crew. You can make a decent living doing this, although with modified contracts the average wage has probably dropped over the last few years. That said, there are very few non-union theatrical touring jobs these days so the union is technically getting more jobs. There is no one path to this. For me it was 3 years and 9 months from the time I mixed my first theatrical production to the time I mixed a Broadway 1st National tour on a full Pink Contract. That&#039;s probably fast but I happened to catch a few very lucky breaks along the way and then had the chops to back up those opportunities. If you have specific questions I&#039;ll be happy to answer them but there really are so many different paths into touring that it would be foolish to try and lay out an outline. The one thing I will say, regardless of what you decide to do, is make sure you are the type of person that people WANT to work with. Everybody has bad days. Everyone makes mistakes. These are much easier to survive when people want you around in the first place. Being on time and being competent are expected. I&#039;m speaking more towards being personable and knowing how to communicate with people. When you are able to make people comfortable and deliver excellent results you will have more work than you know what to do with.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jake Scudder, post: 23868, member: 195"] Re: Unions. Well there are different sides of working as a IATSE stagehand. There is the "local guy" route which is working calls that your local has jurisdiction over. Getting on the casual hire list, as mentioned, is probably the best step toward doing this. It can lead to steady employment, depending on your market. It can even lead to full-time employment if you become one of the department heads in a local venue. Tim and Justice are much more qualified to speak about this. The other side is to work on a union touring production as part of the road crew. You can make a decent living doing this, although with modified contracts the average wage has probably dropped over the last few years. That said, there are very few non-union theatrical touring jobs these days so the union is technically getting more jobs. There is no one path to this. For me it was 3 years and 9 months from the time I mixed my first theatrical production to the time I mixed a Broadway 1st National tour on a full Pink Contract. That's probably fast but I happened to catch a few very lucky breaks along the way and then had the chops to back up those opportunities. If you have specific questions I'll be happy to answer them but there really are so many different paths into touring that it would be foolish to try and lay out an outline. The one thing I will say, regardless of what you decide to do, is make sure you are the type of person that people WANT to work with. Everybody has bad days. Everyone makes mistakes. These are much easier to survive when people want you around in the first place. Being on time and being competent are expected. I'm speaking more towards being personable and knowing how to communicate with people. When you are able to make people comfortable and deliver excellent results you will have more work than you know what to do with. [/QUOTE]

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