Nicholas Bader
Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department student Nicholas Bader is the company manager for the Summer Repertory Theatre Festival in Santa Rosa, California. Bader, a senior in the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre Technology, worked at Summer Rep last summer as an assistant stage manager, and was asked to return as the summer stock company’s company manager this year. He will also be stage-managing the festival’s closing production, the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Clybourne Park. Next year, while completing his degree online, Bader will be working as a Stage Management apprentice at Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee for its entire 2017-18 season.
“When I started at Columbia College Chicago, I knew that I wanted to be a stage manager,” recalls Bader. “But growing up in a small town in Ohio, I had very little to no experience with [what that job means] in practice. Two years ago, when I took my first stage management course at Columbia, I not only found a career, but my passion. I’m extremely lucky that Columbia provided me the opportunity to not only learn from an amazing professor, but work with other distinguished faculty members. Although I’ll be finishing my last semester online through Columbia, I know the opportunities I have had because of this program have prepared me to take the next steps in my professional career this summer and this upcoming fall.”
Now in its 46th season, Summer Rep (1501 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa, California) is a professional summer-stock company that produces a dynamic seven-week season of plays and musicals in repertory. Located in the heart of the Sonoma County wine country, it is renowned for offering advanced training for young theatre artists from around the country for careers onstage and behind the scenes on Broadway, in national tours and regional theatres around the country, and in film and television.
Summer Rep’s 2017 season schedule consists of West Side Story (June 16-29), Chicago (July 5-18), A Raisin in the Sun (July 5-18), The Drowsy Chaperone (July 23-August 5), and Clybourne Park (July 23-August 5). For more information, call 707-527-4307.
