So you want my arts job: Venue Technical Manager

If you possess a broad range of technical skills, are calm under pressure and can solve problems creatively, then being a venue and technical manage may be the role for you.
Shane Grant, La Mama Theatre’s acting Venue Technical Manager, discusses his role for the So you want my arts job? series. A dark-haired, middle-aged and fair-skinned man with a greying beard and glasses smiles for the camera against a green background.

Shane Grant is La Mama Theatre’s acting Venue Technical Manager and an experienced lighting designer. He has been acknowledged as an ‘absolute genius’ (Theatre People, 30 July 2016) for his lighting design of Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis, and earned a Bachelor of Arts (Performing Arts) from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne some time ago.

Grant is an artistic director with Metanoia Theatre and has toured the world, operated venues and technically managed venues (Gasworks, Mechanics Institute Brunswick, St Martins, La Mama), written shows, performed shows, stage managed shows, sold tickets to shows, produced shows, sold drinks in the foyer at shows, built props, built sets, built theatres and given the St Crispin’s Day speech that gets everyone over the line on opening night – sometimes all with the same production.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts