Set painter for a small theatre

My sister does this - both in her spare time and professionally, and has for many, many years.

As for degree required? None, though she would need some skills and natural talent - conceptualising paintings on a fairly large scale, especially. As with a lot of things, who you know gets you in a lot faster than a piece of paper would. Someone would most likely get in first by volunteering, and showing they've got 'the stuff'.

As for the rest, it completely depends on the production, because each one has different demands. For all of it, it would depend on how many different scenes are needed, the director, how much time they have to prepare before they're set to open, and many, many, other factors.

If it is a small community theater there would be no pay at all. It would likely be a completely volunteer effort. When you get into professional theater, which can still be very small and shoestring budget stuff, we are talking still a very small amount of money and very little pay and probably no degree required although the people who do this are usually vastly overqualified and have degrees in scenic design and other aspects of technical theatre. The only scene painters who make "real" money are Broadway/large regional theatre/large touring productions. I have a friend who is a union scene painter on Broadway and still she doesn't really make much money. When it comes to scene painting in most places the same people who design the sets and work crew are painting. I am a union actor in Chicago and believe me, you would be hard pressed to find a less profitable line of work.

In addition to the above, unless she's just really specific and only volunteers to do that, that's generally not a job unto itself in a small theatre. Sets are put together by everyone, or the tech people are few and do more than one job, and set painting isn't a whole one. Lighting or sound yeah, and those people will likely also still do some other stuff.

I'd suggest you contact a local community theatre and see if they can help you.
My experience with things like that are from Norway, and set painting would be a voluntary effort, or to be more specific, it would be done by those of the cast that felt up to it.

Even though it may be the case in the US that community theatres have set-painters, I would not find it realistic in a novel. Maybe an artist that does murals and theatre set paintings? But as I suggest above, contact someone in your area and find out how it really works. (Or somone where you plan to set the novel.)

I'll leave you with one question I can't help but ask; Why does she have to be a community theatre set-painter?

I did it ages ago for our community theater, along with several others. Volunteer, none of us had any real art training. The local theater has a paid set painter, but she does murals and faux finishing as her real job. She charges the theater a nominal fee and credit in their publications, plus she gets free tickets. She does the sets alone, though simple sets, like painting furniture or a backdrop are usually done by volunteers. The woman who does the costumes also paints simple sets and does a lot of the styling for the set, furniture, pillows, props, etc.

But really, what do you need for your story?

Jeff

I'm thinking that the community theatre I knew of was mostly on a volunteer basis, though I don't have any direct experience with them to say for certain. At the university I went to, the theatre department did hire students to work part-time (to help with their education) on the set, but that included painting sets, building sets, sewing... and not everyone was paid. Most students did it to fulfill class requirements or because they wanted to bolster their resume.

Echoing what others have said -- in a small community theatre, no one is paid for set painting. In fact, almost no one is paid at all. Very occasionally someone will be paid for something specialized that the theatre can't find volunteers for (e.g. sound, orchestra members), but set painting is one of those things you make the actors do if there aren't enough volunteers to work on the set.

Which brings me to: in community theatre, especially small ones, everyone is expected to help out in general, especially the performers. Many community theatres even have a *requirement* for some amount of sets/lighting/costumes contribution from actors, because there are usually far more people who want to act than there are people who want to do behind-the-scenes stuff, and set painting is one of those things that's unskilled enough that you'll often get lots of actors doing parts of it.

tl;dr: I've never seen a paid set painter in a community theatre, and I've been active in more community theatre groups than I can easily count. Sorry!

I worked at one community theatre that had a group of a few men who designed and painted all the sets -- that was their contribution to the group. This was a close-knit community in which a significant portion of the residents were involved in the theatre group.

At another community theatre, I directed two shows that were designed by one of the actors (he liked to do both acting and set design), and he supervised the rest of us painting.

All volunteer.

It's also possible that there could be a small professional theatre in the town, using some professional actors in lead roles, professional directors and stage manager, in which case there might be someone on payroll who is either a staff designer or master carpenter also responsible for painting (executing the tricky parts, overseeing volunteers when applicable). Probably not enough income to support oneself. And there would have to be enough of an audience from outside the town to sell tickets to if they're paying salaries to some members of cast and crew, especially where unions are involved.