While learning acting skills from the Equity actors who are participating in The Repertory Project, a joint effort of The New Harmony Theatre and University of Southern Indiana Theatre, has been rewarding for USI theatre students, another important skills students have learned has been time management. Theatre students it balance college classes, play rehearsal and performance, and jobs. Most theatre students work full-time and to go to classes full-time.
Theatre major Josh Lenn scheduled classes this fall semester around the repertory experience. “I knew this season would lend itself to some long, long hours” Lenn’s part-time landscaping job lends itself to peaceful, mundane moments that are too few in his busy schedule.
Theatre major Rachel Schenk carries 15 hours of class work, works part-time and has roles in both fall productions. She said “Managing my time … just requires finding little moments here and there to get something done. An hour here to run to the library. Fifteen minutes there to read a chapter.”
Being in two entirely differently productions on consecutive nights for four weeks has been a learning experience both on and off stage. Schenk, a Mater Dei graduate, has had experience on stage in her high school productions, but juggling two plays and two directors on alternating nights has been an huge mental exercise. “It has been a crazy shift between a comedy and a darker drama 
every night. I have learned so much from both directors.”
Lenn, whose previous experience was in Reitz High School’s shows, honed his carpentry experience at Civic Theatre volunteering to strike (take down after a production) sets. “It was like reverse carpentry,” he said. He has learned technical skills from his work as master carpenter for The Repertory Project. “I learned how to build the spider web set suspended from the ceiling of both productions. We made it out of PVC pipe and used heat guns to make waves and angles of the web.”
Being able to participate in The Repertory Project this fall and The New Harmony Theatre’s summer season allowed Schenk to develop a sense of how much work it takes to mount a theatrical production. She played a middle-aged Theresa Salieri in “Amadeus” and served on the technical crew the rest of the season and ran sound cues with three other students. She said “We were in a small room and couldn’t leave once the play started. It was hot, and cramped and easy to lose your focus. I think of the technical crew as the unsung heroes of the theatre.”
Lenn spent this past summer as props assistant for The New Harmony Theatre. “I was able to keep my focus wore headsets every night and heard all the sound and lighting cues. I knew if something went wrong before most everyone else.” He concedes that the worlds of performance and production are completely different. “Sometimes it is just nice to build things and get away from the emotion of acting,” he said.
Lenn and Schenk appreciate what they have learned from the Equity actors onstage and in the master classes. “We are learning the classroom approach versus the real life way to do things. I compare it to jumping in a pool. Here at USI, we learn to test the water and make sure it is not too cold. The Equity actors tell you it is okay to jump in the water,” said Lenn.
After he graduates, the romance of the open road and the idea of a national theatrical touring company appeals to Lenn. Schenk will head to Chicago to audition with the aspirations of eventually heading to New York and applying to graduate school. “There are always opportunities to get out there and do your stuff. The theatre world isn’t that small,” she concluded.
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