BWW Blog: Find Your Future Job at Careers.Broadway

When one thinks of jobs on Broadway, the first career that often comes to mind is actor, or maybe director or designer. However, each and every Broadway show has about 200 to 400 people working on it at any given time. Actors, directors, and designers only make up a fraction of the many, many jobs it takes to keep a show running.

At the International Thespian Festival, Rachel Reiner shared a workshop titled, "Non-Performance Careers in the Theatre."

Mrs. Reiner has made a living in theatre, but not by performing. As Director of Audience Engagement for The Broadway League, it is obvious that Mrs. Reiner has been quite successful in her pursuit of non-performance careers in theatre.

Throughout her workshop, Ms. Reiner encouraged students, saying, "If you are meant to do, if it's in your soul, find a way."

While many people love theatre, not everyone's skill set and passion lies within the performance side of the industry. You might ask, what jobs are out there for those who want to work in theatre, but not perform?

Mrs. Reiner shared an invaluable resource in careers.broadway, a website that the Broadway League created.

This website was developed in order to raise awareness for jobs in theatre, promote diversity in the industry, and consolidate career information. Careers.broadway is extremely helpful for students who want to make theatre part of their careers, but aren't sure where to start. Careers.broadway has more than seventy different jobs in theatre to explore. It is a database of jobs curated by those already working in the industry. Each job on careers.broadway has its own page to explain what the profession is, what skills are needed, and the path to land a career.

Due to the variety of theatre jobs listed, a student is sure to find their dream job.

Some of the jobs are more on the creative side, such as costume designer and director, while others are on the administrative side, like accountant or licensing agent. Many of the jobs listed on the site were unexpected, like entertainment lawyer, intimacy coach, special effects designer, and child guardian.

To conclude her workshop, Ms. Reiner gave final pieces of advice for students looking towards the future.

In order to find the job that's right for you, Mrs. Reiner encourages students to be honest with themselves, identify what they really love doing, and make a plan to get there. She suggested that after discovering a career interest, a good first step is doing an internship. This helps one discover what they are and aren't passionate about fairly fast. I encourage you to peruse careers.broadway. Who knows, maybe you'll discover your future career?