Opportunities

In the STAGE Lab, we embrace a fundamental philosophy we believe is essential to doing great work, and to that work having an impact. Our philosophy is central to fostering an enthusiastic, positive and respectful culture. Those who come to work with STAGE must embody these qualities, which include:

• Respect, honesty, and integrity and generosity of spirit
• Passion, optimism and the willingness to embrace risk and learn from failure
• Genuine desire and patience to learn new skills
• Creativity and innovation
• Willingness to work on new projects in new ways, to not be limited by your own way of doing theatre and/or science
• Flexibility to embrace a different point of view or approach from your own
• Tolerance for — and the ability to be undaunted by — uncertainty, frustration or roadblocks that arise in any project
• Adaptability to change in process or direction
• Ability to concentrate and work rigorously

If you want to be rich, famous and/or a star, this is not the place for you. If you're looking for an opportunity to be creatively inspired, immersed and nourished, you're in the right place.

Fellows are provided with a truly unique experience: the chance to be part of a small, exclusive program while engaging in original work under the mentorship and guidance of professionals and University of Chicago faculty. They are given a rare chance to continue their training and receive a stipend as they explore the campus and the broader Chicago community for future employment prospects and/or decide whether they wish to pursue an advanced degree. The fellowship affords numerous opportunities to acquire the professional skills and creative confidence essential to success as graduate students/postdoctoral scholars, and as professionals in academic, industry, nonprofit, government and other diverse careers of one's choosing. In today's dynamic and competitive job market, partcipation extends an advantage in attaining an advanced degree and in the job-seeking process across any field of study and practice.

• Learning by Doing: Fellows will gain a deep understanding of both the scientific process and of theatre-making. Expanding imaginative and intuitive skills, and learning to think and act spontaneously, are inherent benefits of the Lab's work. Through the art of storytelling, STAGE fosters a clearer understanding of oneself and others, and finding one's own voice. The work process allows participants to discover synergies among their passions, talents and interests.

• Leadership: Training beyond traditional boundaries provides a foundation critical for communication, engagement and leadership in any profession. Working in an environment in which scientists, engineers and artists collaborate across disciplines leads people to think and work in new ways, provides tools for carving out a unique career track and offers a "leg up" in today's competitive job market.
• Creative Alliances: The Lab's highly inclusive and interdisciplinary environment catalyzes a collaborative creative community and the development of life-long work partnerships.
• Innovation: Fellows have access to equipment, software and the tools that let them take technology from an idea to realization. This permits scientists to be creative in a different way, which then stimulates creativity in their scientific practice. It also leads artistic professionals — who may not have access to new technologies or the ability to execute multiple prototypes — to new ways of thinking and doing.
• Mentorship, Networking and Career Development: Fellows will be given opportunities to network with scholars at the University of Chicago and neighboring institutions, such as the Museum of Science and Industry; the Chicago theatre community; and national and international professional artists and scientists, with the express intent of gaining broad personal exposure. The University of Chicago provides a powerfully stimulating environment in which practical endeavors flourish alongside intellectual pursuits. Fellows are encouraged to take advantage of numerous campus-wide mentorship programs.

Support for fellows is typically in line with other stipends within the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. Applicants with their own funding will be additionally supported up to the level of the prevailing STAGE fellowship stipend.

The PME and the STAGE Lab at the University of Chicago grant a certificate in Practical Research at the Intersection of the Arts, Sciences and Technology to all those who complete two years of the fellowship.

Under the leadership of experienced professionals and faculty members, and utilizing STAGE’s work process, fellows generate original scripts and performances of full-length multimedia theatrical works with thematic links to science. Each participant assumes multiple responsibilities on Lab projects. These responsibilities are tailored to the skills of the fellows who are selected, and while not everybody is able to do everything, each fellow works on as many aspects of the theatre-making as possible. In addition, a high degree of initiative is expected in addressing the needs of a project. To this end, the University of Chicago provides a rich platform for learning and a wealth of resources, and fellows are encouraged to combine skill sets, as well as to teach and learn from each other.

On a daily basis, story creation sessions are typically alternated with prototype creation sessions. The story creation sessions involve everyone writing on their feet, through improvisation. A significant amount of time is spent improvising; writing through improvisational acting is key at every step along the way. As actors improvise, technical people simultaneously improvise sets, lighting, sound, projection, costumes, etc. If the morning is spent with everyone improvising, the afternoon might be used for everyone to flesh out the prototype(s) of the theatrical design elements that were discovered in that morning’s improvisations.

In this way, the script and the technical elements inform each other and grow together throughout the iterative process. Dramaturgy and structure come into play in shaping the script that eventually emerges, and prototypes grow into fully-realized production elements. While of course some things have to be “set” in performance, the desire is to always keep the piece alive in as many ways as possible.

A project typically takes between 1½-2 years to develop. Projects are worked on in rotation, meaning that fellows will work on two or more different projects over the course of two years. We let one project gestate while we work on another project. This allows for the ideas to percolate and mature, as well as for the projects to inform each other. For example, Project A might be worked on from January through March, while Project B might be worked on from March through June. Project A might then be resumed July through September, meaning Project B would be resumed in September through December, and so on.

After two or three such rotations, each project will present "open rehearsals" before an invited audience. The feedback obtained from these presentations is then used to refine the project. After one or possibly two additional rotations, projects are typically taken on tour or moved to a venue in downtown Chicago for a full-fledged production.

The above information is meant only to give a general idea about scheduling. Ultimately, scheduling may vary widely. We outline a schedule at the start of each project and adapt our schedule to the needs of that project as they arise throughout the development process.

Fellows will also have opportunities to participate in STAGE Lab projects that are already underway. In particular, fellows working on projection design may assist on a science-themed Web Series utilizing a development process similar to that of the Lab's theatre projects.

The STAGE Lab's creative process takes precedence over the individual process; it is team-driven and focuses on the work as a whole. This does not inhibit individual creative expression; on the contrary, everyone's ideas, talents and contributions are the very foundation of the process, and STAGE fosters an extremely supportive and collegial atmosphere that is playful, liberating and creative.

The best way to think of us is: scientific research lab meets devised theatre company. This engenders a more complex development than that of conventional theatre-making but leads to work that is utterly original and exceedingly imaginative. Those accepted as fellows will be taught our methods and learn them “on the job.” If you prefer short-term projects, already have an established work process or want to do things in a certain way, this is not the program for you. Again, please assess yourself honestly and apply only if you are certain you have the personality, willingness and ability to give over to our Lab’s collective work process.

We are different from a traditional theatre company in the following ways:

• The mindset of our Lab is much closer to the mindset of a science laboratory than it is to that of a theatre company. In a traditional theatre-making process, each participant may work from their own philosophy and with their own method, with a strong sense of ownership about and satisfaction from their personal contribution to the work. In contrast, we work as a team and follow the Lab’s work methods, with the flexibility and patience to see where our iterative creative process takes the work, not where we want the work to go.
• We take time to play and give ourselves the freedom to fail and make discoveries. It is sometimes not possible to find enough time and room for such exploration in the traditional way of making theatre. 
• We are excited by our productions, but we are equally excited about the creative process that leads to them: the explorations, the detective work, the uncertainties, even the failures and what we learn from them. 
• In traditional theatre-making, the roles of the participants are usually highly specialized, and each person’s boundaries and expectations are well-defined. While there is a director at the helm of STAGE projects, our work process allows you to go beyond the limits of your specialization(s) and to contribute to the creation of the story well beyond your core skill set. As an active participant in collectively building the story, you are immersed in the development of the entire script. In our process, we find taking much more time with far less structure to be freeing and exhilarating — as well as essential for making new discoveries. 
• Our work is thematically linked to science and technology, and technology figures prominently in the staging of our work.

We are different from a typical science lab in the following ways:

• Fellowship participants are provided an opportunity to gain additional education and training in a unique type of research. This is not research in the established academic sense; it involves practical engagement in every aspect of creating theatrical work about science and technology in content (subject matter) and form (staging that involves technology).
• The STAGE Lab’s mission is not entirely about science communication. We are striving to create new methods of thinking about art and science and technology. How can each discipline contribute to and enrich the other? Where does a true blend of these disciplines take us?
• We want to create new stories that are relevant to the lives we lead, lives influenced by science and technology at every turn. What is more, we are using technology — the language of the present and the future — to tell these stories in new ways.

  

This is not a traditional job or school application. We realize our work and our work process are not for everyone. This is something we both understand and respect. It’s all about knowing each other well. We’re interested in finding out:

Why do you want to work with us?

How do you envision working with STAGE will help further your career goals?

Because our creation and development process is extremely unstructured and involves a lot of give-and-take, it’s essential that people be collaborative and comfortable with uncertainty. We are genuinely trying to identify people who are a good fit for our team, people who are passionate about doing the kind of work we do, in the way we do it. In this spirit, we want to know you as well as we can to ensure the success of this collaboration.

What has been your work process?

What kind of work have you been doing?

What brings out the best and the worst in you?

In addition, we're looking for people who are curious, who like to play and be playful, who by their very nature contribute to a light-hearted atmosphere yet are serious-minded about their work. We want people who like to create stories and who are very skilled at doing so, who are good at solving complex problems and puzzles, who don’t buckle in the face of obstacles.

What’s your story?

Where do you go for inspiration?

What do you want out of life?

Relevant Skill Sets

We are looking for people with hybrid interests and skills, i.e., scientists who have had some theatre experience and/or theatre people with experience/a strong interest in science and/or technology. Fellows will be selected for their talents and interests but will not be defined or limited by them. Our foremost requirements are alignment with our philosophy, a genuine interest in the work we do, dedication and hard work.

It is helpful to have several of the following skills:

• Acting
• Carpentry/building
• Choreography/dance
• Cinematography
• Computer skills/coding/mathematics
• Costume design
• Dramaturgy
• Electronics
• Film editing
• Improvisation
• Language(s)
• Lighting design
• Mechanical engineering
• Music
• Product design/prototyping
• Projection design
• Science/engineering
• Set design
• Sound design
• Storytelling and new methods of storytelling
• Writing
• Special skills (e.g., everything from filmmaking, visual arts and photography to dialects, acrobatics, magic and sword swallowing, etc. to even those tinkerer/dabbler interests that materialize only in your basement)