How to translate your theatre work experience for a second job

Sometimes in the theatre profession, we may need to take on a second job. If this second job is not in the theatre (which it probably won't be) it can be hard to translate experiences into phrases the interviewer will recognize. 

I recently got a second job to help pay for my move to graduate school. While preparing applications I began to think of how to word my experiences in a way that a non-theatre company would understand and instantly recongnize. The following is a sample of what I came up with.

"Good Team Worker"

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"Time Management Skills"

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"Customer Service"

Theatre is a cooperative and collaborative industry. We all work together and bring our own unique talents to build one amazing show. 

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Theatre professionals have the ultimate deadline: opening night. We all work towards this time limit to create a quality product, the show. 

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When an artisan creates a product from the designer's renderings, the designer is our customer. Running a show also allows us to practice our "disgruntled customer" skills. 

There are many other things in theatre that can be translated into "interviewer speak". These three are just some that I used when applying. Ideally we should never have to take a second job, but from time to time it may be necessary. We have experience in all these areas interviewers are looking for, we just need to know how to reword them. Happy job hunting!