Brian Koehler, the head technician of the PAC, tests the audio for the main stage in preparation for ‘Motion Flux.’ Photo credit: Nikolas Samuels
By America Castillo APRIL 22, 2016
Often people go to shows and focus on the performers and tend to forget about the tech crew working behind the scenes to make sure the show is alive and running smoothly.
Brian Koehler, technical director and head of the technical department for the Performing Arts Center at Moorpark College, is the man behind the scenes or as John Loprieno, interim dean of performing arts, calls him “the all-powerful God of the PAC.”
As theater manager, Koehler is in charge of coordinating all technical components, designing scenery, scheduling, running the scene shop and leading the student workers.
“Nothing happens in this building without Brian’s efforts to make it happen,” said Loprieno. “His dedication to the performing arts and the college as a whole is unwavering and he is there with a pep talk on the late nights or a quick joke when tensions are rising. He is both Yoda and Obi-Wan all wrapped up in one.”
Koehler began his career in the technical arts by accident when he was going to school at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for theatre and arts and was looking for an interesting job to work at. Having no previous experience in the tech world, he walked into the theater technical program and asked if he could try it. Koehler admired his college tech professor for not turning him away and allowing him a chance to try something new.
“That’s why I like working at schools,” said Koehler. “That’s the theater to me and that’s what I want to be for anybody else who walks into the theater department on accident and wants to see what it’s like.”
It’s never a regular class with Koehler. Most of the time students are doing lab work such as building sets, learning to work with lighting, audio or how to make a performance go smoothly.
Jake Arpaia, 20-year-old theater arts major, explains that Koehler has people work on projects by themselves or in groups. Koehler teaches and shows his students something and then has them do it under the supervision of a more advanced student. Arpaia feels that shows the amount of trust Koehler has in his students.
“He’s not the type of teacher who just walks away,” said Arpaia. “Often he is working along with the students building walls or furniture or even painting gigantic walls. He’s a very easy guy to reach.”
Loprieno can see that students have great admiration for Koehler along with utmost respect due to how smoothly he runs the program.
“He has created a well-oiled machine backstage that keeps this facility moving and producing 24/7 during the school year,” said Loprieno. “His students learn from the excellence he models for them and he does all of this with a great sense of humor and a spirit of fun.”
Arpaia recalls when he was a new student at Moorpark and was scared that he would mess things up, so he’d ask other students to do things he knew he could do, but was scared to.
“When Brian noticed that, he said, ‘It’s okay to mess up and if you mess up it should be massive that way you know not to do it again,’ and it made me more comfortable during the labs,” said Arpaia. “Brian is the kind of mentor that has me seeing the problems in myself and striving to better myself in those problems.”
Koehler believes that it’s good for students to have some knowledge in art and design and even some computer programming to work in tech, but that shouldn’t stop someone from trying a class with him. Koehler highly encourages students to try new things and step out of their comfort zone since he often hears of people who wanted to try a class, but got scared because they had no knowledge.
“Come on in and try it,” said Koehler. “There’s never any drawback to trying it and this is the perfect place to try it. Worst that can happen is that you decide it’s not for you.”
Koehler feels the tech side of it is just as important as the actors performing on stage and wants people to understand that everything that’s on stage is a choice that was made.
“Scenery isn’t just a place for people to perform on, it’s a character as well,” said Koehler. “It should have a history, a story, and a reason. You’re creating something for people to perform with, not on. There’s a unity of everything on stage.”
Koehler believes that he has been successful with his job if he can get a handful of students to walk away with almost the same experience he had: just a college kid who walked into the theater department by accident and ended up loving it.
The world of performing arts at Moorpark College would be nothing without the technical arts department crew and their teacher, Brian Koehler.
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