The table saw in Wichita State's scene shop is quiet before the first technician arrives. A student props a scale model on a workbench, checks the cut list, and starts to measure a flat that has to be square enough to fly safely above actors. Somebody taught her that. Somebody will need to teach the next class how to do it without assuming they arrived with a full tool belt.
Wichita State University has opened a search for an Assistant Teaching Professor/Educator of Performing Arts, a non-tenure-track position in technical direction and scenic design. The job sits where classroom instruction meets the daily demands of producing theatre: teaching, shop supervision, production support, and student mentoring in one role.
It's the kind of position that often goes unfilled longer than a committee would like, because the person who can do all of it well is rare.
What a Non-Tenure Track Teaching Role Means Here
Non-tenure track does not mean limited to a single semester or stripped of responsibility. It means the appointment is renewable, teaching-centred, and evaluated primarily on work with students and productions rather than on an independent research agenda. The Assistant Teaching Professor/Educator title signals a career teaching line, common in practice-based disciplines such as theatre, music, and design.
In a performing arts department, that distinction matters. The scenery doesn't build itself while a faculty member writes a journal article. The position exists to keep the shop running, the season on schedule, and the students trained in real production processes. A non-tenure-track line can still carry a full teaching load plus production evenings and weekends.
What Technical Direction and Scenic Design Actually Cover
Technical direction is the discipline of turning a scenic designer's drawings into something that can be built, moved, and flown safely. A technical director estimates costs, orders materials, drafts construction drawings, manages the scene shop, schedules student crews, and enforces safety practices. Scenic design is the artistic side: composing the visual environment of a play or musical, choosing materials, colour, scale, and the movement of scenery in service of the story.
At a teaching institution, the same person often slides between both roles. Here are the kinds of duties a candidate should expect to see named in the full posting:
- Teaching undergraduate courses in stagecraft, drafting, technical direction, scenic design, and production planning.
- Supervising student technicians during evening and weekend production calls.
- Managing shop inventory, equipment maintenance, and the budget for scenic materials.
- Collaborating with directors, designers, and the production manager on a multi-show season.
- Maintaining a safe shop culture, including tool training, chemical handling, and rigging checks.
Some departments will also ask the person to mentor student designers or coordinate practicum credits attached to production assignments.
Why the Scene Shop Is a Classroom First
I learned early that the students who sign up for stagecraft are not always the ones who grew up building sets in high school. Some arrive with theatre experience and no power-tool experience. Some arrive with construction experience from a family trade and have never read a ground plan. A good technical theatre teacher is the one who notices both and doesn't teach to an imaginary middle.
In a hands-on course, clarity and sequence matter as much as talent. Show a student how to set a blade height before asking them to cut. Mark the exit paths before the first emergency drill. Check that instructions assume nothing, because a student who misses a single safety step in the shop carries that gap onto a professional stage later.
What would it look like if a technical production course were built for the student with the fewest shortcuts? It would start with the tool, the drawing, and the physical object before it starts with graded deadlines. That's the kind of teaching line this Wichita State posting is designed to fill.
The Production Calendar Is Part of the Curriculum
A scene shop does not wait for a convenient time to be busy. The first tech rehearsal comes whether or not the flats are painted, the wagon tracks are laid, and the overhead electrics are hung. A teaching technical director spends as much time planning backwards from opening night as planning forward from syllabus week.
Students who work a full production call learn different things than students who only read about them. They learn that a four-by-eight flat is heavier wet than dry, that a counterweight system has to be loaded in sequence, and that an actor will make an entrance through the one doorway you didn't think to reinforce. Those lessons stick because they happen under pressure with real consequences.
This is why a non-tenure-track line in technical direction cannot be treated as a set of classroom hours with production bolted on. The production calendar is the syllabus, and the season schedule tells a candidate what the actual workload will be.
The Larger Pattern Behind the Job Title
The rise of non-tenure-track teaching positions is not a quirk of one theatre department. The American Association of University Professors has documented that the majority of US faculty members now hold non-tenure-track or contingent appointments. In practice-based arts departments, teaching-intensive positions often carry programs that cannot operate without stable production faculty.
For candidates, that means reading the posting with an eye toward longevity. A renewable non-tenure-track line can be a strong fit for a theatre professional who wants to teach without pursuing traditional tenure, but the written terms matter: contract length, promotion path, support for professional development, and whether the production load is manageable alongside teaching.
The American Association of University Professors tracks contingency in academic employment. The United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) is one place technical theatre educators and practitioners swap advice on shop safety, drafting standards, and academic job searches. The professional network spans regional theatres, universities, and live event companies, which is increasingly useful for graduates who move between all three.
Before You Apply: Questions Worth Asking
A job title doesn't answer the questions that determine whether a post is workable. When the search committee hosts interviews or when a candidate reaches the campus visit, these are fair questions to raise:
- How many mainstage productions does the department produce each year, and who carries the scenic load?
- What is the typical teaching load for this line, and does technical direction count as part of that load or as an added assignment?
- What software does the department use for drafting and rendering, and is there a budget for training?
- Who is responsible for rigging inspections, fire-curtain checks, and shop equipment maintenance?
- Is there a promotion path for non-tenure-track faculty, and what does professional development support look like?
Strong programs answer these without squirming. They know their production calendar, they know their shop square footage, and they know that safety and teaching time are not optional extras.
How to Apply
The search is listed on Wichita State's employment portal. Candidates can review the full job description and submit materials through the official posting. A parallel listing is available on AcademicJobs.com, where applicants can set a reminder and read the quick view of the role.
Because the position combines design and technical direction, candidates should be ready to show both a portfolio of scenic design work and documentation of technical direction: construction drawings, budgets, production photographs, rigging plans, or shop management examples. A teaching statement that describes how you run a scene shop class is worth more than a general paragraph about loving theatre.
Most search committees will ask finalists to demonstrate teaching and to walk through the scene shop. If you're the candidate who can point to a rack of tools and explain how you train a nervous first-year to use each one safely, that's the person they're trying to hire.
The student at the table saw won't remember the title of the faculty line. She'll remember whether someone stood next to her when the saw blade whined, showed her how to set the fence, and trusted her to make the cut. That's the job.