Regan O’Malley is currently electrics apprentice at Chicago’s award-winning Steppenwolf Theatre.  

1) Major(s)?: Theatre and Dance, graduated spring 2018

2) Did you do any research/projects in your time as a Theatre major? My senior year I did a group study with Steven Schmidt to learn AutoCAD, a drafting program. I got to use the program to make layouts based on his own drafts, and learn about different aspects of technical direction.

3) Did you have any internships or other jobs during college? I worked as a student electrician for the theatre department my junior and senior years. I was also a tour guide for the school, and worked for the Undergraduate Admissions Communications Team!

4) Did you travel while you were a student or after you graduated? I never got to study abroad unfortunately, but two months after graduation I packed up and moved to Chicago!

5) Have you had any internships/apprenticeships/other jobs after graduating? I’m currently the Electrics Apprentice at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago!

6) Where is your hometown, and where are you located now? I grew up in Fresno, CA, and now I live in Chicago.

7) Anything else about you that you’d like to add? I started in theatre relatively late, so I didn’t have a whole lot of experience and I was really intimidated to try new things. Once I started doing electrics and stage management I gained a lot of confidence! Getting involved in tech work was so much fun, and taught me a lot about the caliber of work that’s expected in the professional world. The best advice I can give to anyone in the department is to try as many things as you can- act in a show, work on a crew, get involved in the technical departments. That’s the best way to figure out what parts of theatre you like the best. And bonus- having technical skills and crew experience make you really marketable when looking for work!