Carina Leland
Carina Leland
I graduated from Chapman University in May 2025, earning a BA in Theatre, emphasizing in tech. One of my main areas of focus is stage management, as I love absorbing the creative energy and ideas in the rehearsal room, and enjoy keeping the virtual and physical space organized. At Chapman, I filled my time by participating in mainstage and club theatrical productions. As a board member of Chapman On Broadway, an entirely student-run musical theatre club, I started the only all-skill-levels inclusive ensemble on campus and served as the technical director/production manager for the club’s first two musicals since the COVID-19 pandemic. I also dabble in film with a minor in Business of Entertainment and as a member of Delta Kappa Alpha, a professional cinematic fraternity.
I believe that a well-rounded experience in theatre helps me to be a better stage manager and production manager. I have taken classes in lighting, projections, theatre for social change, theatre management, acting, dance, and voice. I desire to help others tell their stories. I believe in giving everyone a chance to be onstage, as I was often the one getting chorus roles or small parts in middle and high school.
I am pursuing a career in stage management and production management, with interest in developing the proshot industry. As an Oregonian, I grew up going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and can't believe I am working there professionally! I also recently traveled to London for the first time and now dream about pursuing a career on the West End. Originally a dancer and singer, I still hope to be in a choir and take dance lessons for fun alongside my career in technical theatre.
Memories
Artistic Manifesto
I do theatre because it is the most versatile and all-encompassing form of art. It is the combination of so many others: take sets, costumes, and projections from visual art. Take song and dance from other performing arts industries. Take complex stories and suspension of disbelief from books. Put all of this directly in front of you; it’s a magical experience because the story is being created in real time. Even if you are able to go on a film set, special effects often come together in postproduction. Theatre is the closest thing we have to magic. Art gives so much life and personality to the world, and has endless possibilities to impact. To paraphrase a quote from the Dead Poets Society, doctors, lawyers, and the like enable us to live in this world, but art is the reason we live. Why not combine so many aspects into one and create infinitely more possibilities?
Theatre is my connection. My connection to the people around me, to people I don’t understand, and to the world. Creating a production not only needs actors, directors, stage managers and designers, but administrators and audience members. It is the culmination of ideas from so many different people, and also the birthplace of ideas for others. By being in the room with creatives, I am thrust into endless new perspectives. I know I don’t have all the best ideas in the world, but by being in the room with creative people I will constantly find new pieces of information. I facilitate others’ dreams as a stage manager because often it is so much more interesting to learn about the people around you than to constantly think of yourself. And oftentimes I learn about myself in the process. Theatre is my place to learn.
