When Rafael Espinal, commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), was growing up in the Cypress Hills neighborhood of Brooklyn, he dreamed of being a creative worker in his home city. But, as Commissioner Espinal told Broadway News, “the pipeline, tools, opportunities weren’t really clear to folks like me,” and so after studying film in undergrad but unable to find a path towards an actual filmmaking career, he went into politics. That’s the reason the commissioner showed up at Roundabout Theatre Company’s black box space at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center on April 24 — to watch the final presentation by a cohort of trainees who had been given a pathway to work in the creative arts.
These trainees are members of the Theatrical Workforce Development Program (TWDP) tech division, an initiative that launched in 2016 to offer vocational training in backstage work, specifically in four areas: scenic carpentry, lighting/electric, audio and wardrobe. The program was spearheaded by Roundabout Theatre Company, who recruited partners like the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE, the union for professional backstage laborers), MOME, the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and more. TWDP is part of Roundabout Theatre Company’s annual investment of over $4 million in education and community partnerships.
One impetus for the program was the goal of diversifying the theater’s backstage work environment. While the program is open to all New York residents, the Roundabout website emphasizes its encouragement of those from historically underrepresented groups to apply. The training program doesn’t require a college degree and it pays participating fellows.
It made sense for Roundabout to take on this vocational training since the company’s education department was already teaching technical theater skills in high schools throughout the five boroughs through Producing Partners Residencies and On-Site Experiences. “We were well-positioned to launch this program, because we had been teaching tech people theater for many years in the city prior to 2016,” said Jennifer DiBella, Roundabout’s director of education. “Our teaching artists [going into the high schools] are working professional artists, technicians and designers.” Many of those same teaching artists could easily take on instruction for TWDP.
TWDP is a three-year program that consists of a training year, job development year and freelance year. The first year begins with a six-week “Made in New York” boot camp, supported by MOME. Throughout the fellowship, each trainee, or fellow, learns across the four tech disciplines — specializing in one — and is matched with a TWDP alumnus as well as an IATSE mentor. The 2026 cohort is the eighth since the program started a decade ago (due to the pandemic disruption).
