Angie Jasper, Director of Cultural and Community Events for Chatham University

 

Angie Jasper embodies grace under pressure. Her stage management career took her from The Second City to Chicago Shakespeare, iO to Quantum Theatre. Now she’s settled into a cozy office in Dilworth, but her day-to-day is creatively chaotic. As the Director of Cultural and Community Events for Chatham University, her job includes orchestrating the Eden Hall Summer Series and brainstorming ways to bring our community closer through shared experiences. Layering the challenges of artistic adventure over the demands of academia is tasking, but Angie somehow manages to greet every moment with a big smile and a strawberry smoothie. She attributes it to the “Yes, and…” mentality of improv: a complication is an opportunity for reinvention.

 

Case in point: I lost the first recording of this interview. As I attempted to dissect the GarageBand files on my computer, I sent Angie an email. Subject line: “I Am So Sorry.” Angie replied. She was leaving for Chicago in less than an hour, but she said she was free. I asked if it was a bad time. She wrote back: good to go.

 

Few people who are as elegantly innovative as Angie are also as extraordinarily kind.

 

 

 

Angie Jasper: I went to Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio, and my degree is in theater and communication arts because my parents said that if I was majoring in theater I would also have to major in something else. And then I got my Masters – an MBA from Point Park University a couple of years ago. Like four years ago, maybe. 

 

 

Definitely, working in theater you’re working with a lot of creative types, so they’ll throw out these really random and crazy genius ideas and you have to figure out how to make that work. And I feel like I do that on an almost everyday basis, where I get some problem and have to come up with the solution. And it might be a really out-of-the-box problem, and therefore you have to have an out-of-the-box solution to bring it together. So theater really preps you for that, and it also preps you for working with really big personalities, and also gives you a great team mentality of working together to get the end result. 

 

 

 

 

After undergrad, I received an internship at a regional theater company in Columbus, Ohio called CATCO, and I was a Stage Management Fellow for a year. Made absolutely no money, but it was one of those experiences that I knew would just really help build my resume professionally and really set my career on a great path, on a great track. So I did that for a year, and after leaving CATCO I moved to Chicago and worked for The Second City and Chicago Shakespeare, Improv Olympics (IO), and a couple of other theaters in Chicago. I stage managed for them and got my Equity card pretty early on in my career, much earlier than what I’d kind of ever planned out and anticipated. And then I was kind of thinking about getting out of theater and really wasn’t sure if it was the move that I wanted to make. I wanted to get closer to my family, so Pittsburgh came up on the radar. I worked at Quantum Theatre as their Production and Stage Manager for a show and then decided that it was time for me to start to make a transition out of theater and wanting to do more administrative work. So I left Quantum and started at the University of Pittsburgh working on Shakespeare in the Schools and their Theater Department, as well as going back to school full-time. So I did both of those together. After I graduated with my Masters, I was lucky enough to have a job offer from the Pittsburgh Convention Center as an Event Manager pretty much within the same week, which never happens but it was genius. And then I worked at the Convention Center for 2 ½ years, found my way to Chatham doing events for the Advancement department, and then was promoted 6 months ago to the position that I hold now. 

 

 

You know, it’s interesting. In theater, you’re working with a lot of different departments to bring a show together. You have costume, set, lighting, sound, the director, the actors, all of these different departments that kind of really have to come together, and all of them have a very specific role in a play or in a production. And I feel like that’s kind of the same way academia works, in that everyone really has their own niche of what their main focus is. And to really have a good, successful event, you’re utilizing all of those talented people here and bringing that together for a cool event. It’s definitely different. In the theater world, everything happens fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And I feel like in an academic setting, there’s usually a wait period, and then there’s a go period. … Academia and theater are similar in those ways. 

 

 

Go for it. I mean, especially at that time. I even feel that way now. You only get one opportunity with this life, right? We’re not in a dress rehearsal. This is it. Do what you love. And if you go in and decide, This is what I want to do my whole entire life, or you get into that industry and you’re like, Wait, this isn’t anything that I thought about it, don’t be discouraged. There’s always so many really cool opportunities out there to go and take advantage of. You know, I came from a very small town in Ohio, had been to theater productions, had never really acted, hadn’t done much, but I knew I wanted to do something in the arts. And just by really exploring the different avenues of acting, technical – really what was a good fit for me – and just went with it. If it makes you a little bit nervous and a little bit scared, that’s usually good. It means it’s something that you should pursue and do, because then the payoff is just so much more than if you’re playing it safe all of the time. 

 

 

I think what surprised me the most is how tight-knit that community is. And I feel like maybe it’s that way in a lot of industries, but especially in theater, it’s such a tight-knit, really supportive community. And that’s something that I was really taken aback by. They want everyone to succeed. It is a competitive market, there’s not a lot of jobs out there for actors, for technical people, but everyone’s genuinely happy and supportive when people get great positions, when they move on and find great jobs, get cast in this amazing role. It’s such a creative [pursuit], and you’re putting so much of your heart into it, everyone really just huddles around you and gives you support while you’re building and while you’re growing. 

 

 

Yeah. It’s a really warm and fuzzy place.

 

 

I love that I can walk around campus and know people. I like that really small, intimate setting that we have here. I like that there are all of these really talented and amazing people and students that are exploring and learning themselves. Today, I went to the poster session for the nurses PhD candidacy, and I know nothing about that field. But it’s amazing to see all of these great people, and for them to be able to explain it to me in a way that I understand it  – it’s constant learning and giving back-and-forth. It’s really great.

 

 

What is your vision for the Eden Hall Summer Series and cultural events on campus going forward?

We’re definitely having it next year. We learned a lot this year and so we’re really starting to look at – after these two events – what went well, what we should fix, how we should morph the series. But it will definitely happen again. I really want to put more of the focus on the concerts that we’re having and theater events that are going on out there. I’d love to have a huge festival out there, a music festival – tents across the street, food vendors, a really great, amazing lineup – so maybe a couple years down the line we’ll be there. But I’d love to have a big music festival out at campus.

That is fun.

It would be awesome.

What is the biggest thing you learned from this summer?

Well, I’ve learned the most about the community that’s out there. It’s a very family-based community. Also, people have lived out there for quite some time. Meeting the neighbors – the one gentleman said, You know, I lived right up the street for 43 years. So really getting to know the neighbors and know that community and also understand what interests them. Can I bring certain movies out there, certain concerts? What are they interested in? [I’m asking] what their lifestyle is, which is very different from my lifestyle. So I really learned a lot about the community and what they’re looking for and how to engage them.

What is your advice for any undergraduate student?

Travel abroad. Take advantage of that and study abroad if you have that opportunity. That’s the one regret that I have from undergrad. I took a 10-day trip to London and Ireland in undergrad, but had always kind of toyed around with the thought of studying abroad for a semester, and I never did it. And when I hear people’s stories about when they went and studied abroad for a semester, it’s just amazing. It’s one of those times when you’re not going to have that opportunity again to go for six months and live in another country and still continue to learn and have all that. So definitely take advantage. And Chatham has such a strong international program, and with Maymester – really take advantage of that. That’s an amazing program, and you’ll learn so much and you’ll grow so much from it.

 

Lightning Round:

If you could have any character from a play or musical be your best friend for life, who would it be and why?

Mercutio, because he would be the fun-loving guy. He’s witty, and he has a good time.

Favorite food or drink on campus?

 The strawberry smoothies from Café Rachel. And I hit up the salad bar quite often. Those are my two.

Favorite spot on campus?

When I was in Beatty House, I loved the Beatty House porch. That’s really a great little spot.

You have a friend coming to Pittsburgh, and you can only take them to do one thing. What do you do?

Pirates game. Done.

Favorite show you’ve ever seen live?

There was a production at Chicago Shakespeare up in their studio. It was done by a group from Africa that came in and they were touring around. It was this beautiful piece – very simplistic – with simplistic lighting, and all they had were these wooden bowls on the stage, and they would use them to represent water. It was just beautiful and moving and awesome.

Short answer, though, is Moving Out by Billy Joel. It was mind-blowingly good. I’m a huge Billy Joel fan, and the dancing was just out of this world. And how they just intertwined all of his great music to make this beautiful story – that was amazing. And I think I will never see that show again because it was so good.

You get to recommend one show to someone, and it’s the only show they’re going to see in their life. Which one is it?

Oh, man. Well, I love Shakespeare. And when it’s done really well, that’s something that I think is beautiful. So I would probably say, a really great production of Macbeth would be an ideal thing. Because you have the romance, the weird romance between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, and that’s a whole complicated thing. You have murder and action and witches. There’s a lot happening in there that I feel could really draw somebody in. And, you know, Shakespeare – everyone is really intimidated by it. But your ear switches to it as soon as you’ve been in the house for ten minutes. Your ear adjusts to it, and then you understand what’s happening.