# How much do your departments help each other?



## Parisii (Aug 25, 2009)

At the theater I spends most of my time there is quite a lot of departmental back scratching going on mainly between scenic and costumes and it has helped us circumnavigate our small budget quite a bit. Basically we (scenic) have in our spare time refurbished a sewing machine table and leveled out resurfaced the layout tables in our costume shop, and they have turned an old leather jacked into a specification welding coat and are helping us restore an old hamper we got free into like new so we have a decent place to put soft goods.

I was wondering if anyone else does this and what improvements to your shop/theaters you have been able to produce using this method as a team?


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## mixmaster (Sep 3, 2009)

Parisii said:


> At the theater I spends most of my time there is quite a lot of departmental back scratching going on mainly between scenic and costumes and it has helped us circumnavigate our small budget quite a bit. Basically we (scenic) have in our spare time refurbished a sewing machine table and leveled out resurfaced the layout tables in our costume shop, and they have turned an old leather jacked into a specification welding coat and are helping us restore an old hamper we got free into like new so we have a decent place to put soft goods.
> 
> I was wondering if anyone else does this and what improvements to your shop/theaters you have been able to produce using this method as a team?



I help our recording classes record live events, help assemble hardware, etc. In return those students help work big shows so they get some live audio expierence. We trade crews with Production And Performance classes too. Within our Event Tech Dept though, all our students are expected to work together to put on events, out of the same budget. We don't differentiate between costumers and carps and sparkys and squeaks in the student crews.


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## kiwitechgirl (Sep 4, 2009)

In terms of show production, there is always overlap between set/props, props/wardrobe, props/LX, set/LX and occasionally wardrobe/LX, and so there's a lot of collaboration that goes on - the LX boys might spend a day at the workshop making star flats with fibre-optics because the set designer has asked for it - the LX boys are much better at running fibre-optic stars than the set boys! Or, a couple of years ago, a set had about 500 festoon fittings built into it and so that was a massive co-operative project between the set guys and the LX boys. 

In terms of actual departmental stuff rather than show stuff, it does happen, but not to such a great degree. We all know that Wardrobe has some really useful tools which they'll lend us (provided we return them!) and so consequently, if one of their lights stops working rather than call maintenance one of the LX boys will go and sort it out for them. And if I give Wardrobe chocolate then they take up the legs of my jeans for me....The two departments which probably work closest of all together though are LX and stage management; we have adjacent offices and while we don't really have staff in common, I often get loaned to the LX department to rig and focus if I'm not busy, and am likely to be operating a show early next year, and one of the LX techs has been my ASM/mechanist on the last two big musicals - and will be on the next one - simply because he was a) the best person for the job and b) available. I've also recently borrowed one of the LX department's best casuals to stage manage a kids' show (we do a kids' show every holidays and many of our staff have started out working on them as they're a fantastic introduction to theatre) and I think in the future she's likely to become someone who is incredibly useful to both departments.


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