Theater producer Susan Dietz said she feeds on the adrenaline of the stage, the danger of not knowing what to expect. Because once the curtains rise, there’s no going back.
Ever since seeing her first play, Dietz said she has been captivated by the presence of real people on a stage portraying stories in real time, with no opportunity for editing. Dietz has collected 35 years of producing experience that she said she wishes to share with students in UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Professional Programs.
Dietz has collaborated with Joe Rosenberg, director of the Professional Programs, to develop a new course in the school called “Producing Theater Now” that is designed to give students skills needed to succeed in everything from regional shows to Broadway productions. The class, which will incorporate Dietz’ own life experiences, will be the Professional Programs’ first theater-based course.
Beginning in February, the class will take place four nights a week for five weeks, with each meeting being three hours long. In addition, students will meet in UCLA theaters on Saturdays for immersive workshops on lighting, sound and all the physical aspects of theater.
“What they will understand is the actual nuts and bolts of the industry,” Rosenberg said. “It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to produce a musical and I want it to end up on Broadway,’ but how do you get there and what’s the process?”
Dietz calls the course an intensive “boot camp” that will cover everything from making a budget to script development to legal concerns, so that once a student has completed the course, he or she will be prepared to enter the workforce.
“It’s very hard to teach producing from a textbook or from a lecture because every producing project is different and there are (always) new kinds of problems that arise when you go from production to production,” Dietz said. “And so I feel like the best approach to this is anecdotal.”
Numerous theater professionals will lecture during the course, including Broadway publicist Rick Miramontez, CEO of the LA Stage Alliance Terence McFarland and current producer of the Broadway show “It’s Only a Play” Tom Kirdahy.
“As opposed to being taught how to be a producer in a theoretical way, here is somebody with a lot of experience and success who’s done the job that they’re going to teach,” Rosenberg said. “There isn’t anything that (Dietz) hasn’t seen or been involved in in her years as a producer.”
The theater course’s main goal, like the other classes in Professional Programs, is to connect students with industry contacts. UCLA alumna Angela Sostre, a former student of Professional Programs in film producing, said she gives credit for her success to the program’s allowance for networking. She is now an instructor at Professional Programs herself, teaching students about her career, line producing.
“For the first two or three years of my career, pretty much all of my jobs came from UCLA contacts from the network that I had built up,” Sostre said. “That’s why I have been so dedicated to that program, because it really was sort of a life changer for me.”
In addition to creating a network of established mentors for these students, Dietz and Rosenberg have made it a goal to place students into jobs where they can utilize the skills they will have learned after finishing the class.
“It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a goal,” Dietz said.
“Producing Theater Now” is currently accepting applications until Dec. 15, and Dietz said that the minimum requirement for an applicant is that they must be adamant theatergoers who are passionate for the craft.
“I think (producing is) the hardest job in the entertainment business, because you don’t get paid unless something gets made,” Rosenberg said. “You’ve got to have really thick skin. And while certain people may fancy themselves as producers, very few actually make it and are successful at it … We’re looking for those people that sort of have that in their DNA.”