CREATE PA: Film & Theater Works! is a joint project of the Pittsburgh Film Office and Pittsburgh Public Theater. In conjunction with union locals, they’re expanding a Film Office program that offers training for crew jobs like electrical worker, grip and hair stylist. Wardrobers, carpenters, set decorators and accountants would also be trained through the program, for either stage or screen work.
For most of Pittsburgh’s big theater companies, the season is winding down. And film and TV productions have been halted for weeks by the writers’ strike. But Wednesday, in Downtown Pittsburgh, two local institutions announced a program to create new pathways to behind-the-scenes careers in the stage and screen trades here.
CREATE PA: Film & Theater Works! is a joint project of the Pittsburgh Film Office and Pittsburgh Public Theater. In conjunction with union locals, they’re expanding a Film Office program that offers training for crew jobs like electrical worker, grip and hair stylist. Wardrobers, carpenters, set decorators and accountants would also be trained through the program, for either stage or screen work.
“This initial training will give you enough that you’re going to be comfortable behind the stage or behind the screen when you show up for your first day of work,” said longtime Film Office executive director Dawn Keezer at the launch event, held in the Public’s lobby.
“This is an opportunity to be trained formally to be able to then participate in the industry in a way that I think people only dream about,” said the Public’s managing director, Shaunda McDill.
The addresses took place against a backdrop of posters for notable feature films shot in the region, including “Fences,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” The Film Office, which markets the region to the film industry, says film production is an important economic driver, bringing $2.5 billion in spending to the region since its creation, in 1990.
Other speakers Wednesday included Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, and State Sen. Camera Bartolotta. The latter is a Film Office board member and outspoken advocate for state tax credits for film and TV productions. Mamie Stein, president of IATSE Studio Mechanics Local 489, also spoke.
McDill introduced CREATE PA’s first and, for now, only employee: Morgan Overton, formerly Mayor Ed Gainey’s inclusion, diversity, equity and access manager. As the program’s workforce director, Overton is tasked with developing the program’s infrastructure and recruiting students. She starts work Monday.
Davis noted that many stage and screen crew jobs do not require college degrees. In that way, he said, the initiative echoed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s order eliminating a four-year college degree as a requirement for holding 65,000 state jobs.
Funding from the state’s Department of Labor and Industry kick-started the Film Office’s Pittsburgh Film Works program in 2019, Keezer said. Delayed by the pandemic, the initiative finally began last year and has since graduated three classes of 12 students each, of grips, electrical workers, and hair stylists. The free training sessions were held on a series of Saturdays. Prior to the writers’ strike, all 36 students were working in the field, she said.
Keezer said CREATE PA is unique outside New York City in training workers for both stage and screen — where many of the skills are the same, and so are the labor unions (though the locals can vary).
Those who complete the courses will be paired with a mentor and have a direct path to union membership, Keezer said.
She said CREATE PA has a $500,000 budget for its first year but that more funding is expected. She said she expected the program to expand across the state, and to eventually train “hundreds” of students.
Is there demand for all those film and theater workers? Keezer said she believes so. TV series like “The Mayor of Kingstown” and “A League of Their Own” have been shot here recently, as have films like the Tom Hanks feature “A Man Called Otto.” And plans are still moving ahead for The Film Furnace, a soundstage on a former steel-mill site in Rankin.
While CREATE PA is not currently accepting new students, more information is available at the Film Office web site.
