Valley Youth Theatre recently had a virtual telethon gala to raise much needed funds for Valley Youth Theatre in lieu of their annual in person event.
This was actually the most successful gala ever, and it was wonderful to see donations and viewers from all over the world. VYTal Affair-athon featured over 100 VYT cast members and alum, local media hosts, and sponsors sharing performances and messages of "what VYT means to me/the community".
Of course one of the highlights of the whole 9/5 hour long event was the surprise donation from VYT Alum Emma Stone- $32 000 in honour of our 32 seasons, but the performances are amazing!
To pull off this incredible event, they hosted two days of socially distanced safe recordings in our theatre with a small band, and brought in over 50 performances! For those who were not local or available when we did the recording days in June, we asked them to record their own performance and submit it.
In addition to the main media company editing individual performance videos, they had a VYT alum and a friend of VYT, NYC choreographer Tony Spinosa, help with editing the ensemble numbers. It truly was an international collaboration!
Check out the wesites below for more information.
Valley Youth Theatre website
VYTal Affair-athon performance videos broken down individually
Information about Tiffany -
I graduated from Pitt in 2006 with a BA in Theatre Arts and a BS in Psychology embarking on a career in stage management, so those two degrees were really handy! I spent the 06-07 season interning at a small dinner theatre in Naples, FL which closed permanently at the end of that season. From there, I made my way to Tempe, AZ to meet up with an old friend from Pittsburgh who had offered to keep a roof over my head while I looked for that first job. It turned out that my first job was with a company in Tempe called Childsplay who were embarking on their first national tour, which I had the pleasure to stage manage. It was just me, my two actors, our luggage and our set/props/costumes, packed just so into a cargo van for 4 months (broken up into two legs). When I wrapped up the tour, I was hired as a house technician at our local Broadway roadhouse- ASU Gammage- where over the years I was able to work with the union as well as house crews and network the local community. I ended up freelancing all around the greater Phoenix area as a technician and stage manager until 2013. The summer of 2013 I was one of multiple candidates for an open stage manager position at the local equity house. Unfortunately, due to some communication mishaps from the production manager, I missed out on that position, and it was too late in the summer to get any contracts for the upcoming season so I took my part time office job full time for a year. In August 2014, a friend in the industry in town notified me that Valley Youth Theatre was hiring a production stage manager if I was interested. I was hired in September 2014 and transitioned to the admin side of the company in August 2016.
What was the Valley Youth Theatre fundraiser handled this year?
Every August for the last many years, VYT has hosted its annual fundraising gala in conjunction with our August production. Typically it’s a 5-6 hour event including live and silent auctions, local restaurants, and performance samples of the open production. With COVID 19 hitting when it did, we knew we had to pivot as we would not be able to hold out August production let alone our gala as it has been.
What was the best part of being involved this year?
Insight into media production. A parent of a child who’s done a couple shows with VYT recently, runs a local production media company called Two Second Media and offered their services to us in support of a virtual gala. I’m pretty sure when those initial conversations happened in April, no one imagined just how big of a production it would turn into- a 9.5 hour, Jerry Lewis style telethon for the new age. Getting an insider’s view in the week leading up to and being on com during the event, gave me a unique point of view into how similar but different video production and theatre production operate.
What knowledge or experience was new and helped you grow as an artist through working on this event?
Everything!! Haha! Because we were doing some live segments and a lot of pre-recorded segments mingled together, we actually needed two sound people- 1 to run the in house board and mix the mics, and one who monitored and engineered the final broadcast sound mix. This was discovered a little last minute and I was volunteered by my boss, probably because of my “whatever needs to happen” stage manager attitude. I’ve never mixed mics in my life and had basically no rehearsal or practice time! It was one of the most stressful days at work I’ve had in a long time, but also the most rewarding when it all wrapped and both the owner of the production company and the professional sound engineer told me I did a fine job especially for no experience.
Do you have any advice to current or incoming students about career paths after school?
Make sure you know how to tweak your resumes, how to find jobs before graduation. There is a lot in this industry that is being in the right place at the right time or knowing the right people, but that isn’t the only way to get a job. Also, do your best to say yes to every opportunity that you can because it’s important to never stop learning or networking.
What do you wish you knew when you were here at Pitt that you know now?
Stage managers are often undervalued and underpaid. I had no idea what to ask for when I was starting out in my career and thought asking a company for double what I’d made as an assistant stage manager would be good. Later on, I learned that I could have and should have asked for me. Don’t be afraid to discuss pay with trusted sources and friends, otherwise there’s a good chance you’ll short yourself.