Tav Driscoll never planned on being where she is. That is, the theater. “I just thought I’d do theater on the side,” she said. Then she discovered stage management.
The English and theater arts double major was thrown into stage management by her adviser, Tim Troy — and the rest is history. Driscoll worked about 12 shows this year as the production stage manager for the theater department.
“You have to really love it,” she said of her work. During one of her favorite productions in her four years of stage-managing, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Driscoll often logged 30 hours of work each week.
Not that she’s complaining — in fact, the more crazy things get, the more exciting it is to be the stage manager, according to Driscoll.
In the fall of 2005, she went with the cast of “Language of Angels” to the American College Theater Festival.
The cast performed three times in one day, but before they could perform at all, the full set had to go up and lighting cues had to be coordinated. “We had four hours to set everything up,” Driscoll remembered.
Her aptitude and love for stage management are taking Driscoll to Berkeley, Calif. to intern at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre — one of Berkeley’s most prestigious regional theaters. There, along with 14 other interns, she will work with production management for one year.
Driscoll hopes to continue on in the realm of production management after the internship ends, either in live theater or in film.
Still, like every soon-to-be college graduate, her mantra is, “It all depends on the jobs that come up.”
The 36 or so shows that she has worked on should get her somewhere. For Driscoll, the future looks bright from behind the scenes — as bright as the lights on the stage.
Senior of the Week: Tav Driscoll
