Rose Hamill ’16
Manager. Leader. Communicator.
Stage manager Rose Hamill ’16 handles the unseen work that makes success possible at Broken Nose, which won the Chicago Emerging Theatre Award in 2018.
The resume of Rose Hamill ’16 shows that her professional stage-management experience dates back to her college days. During her senior year, encouraged by her faculty advisor, Hamill became the stage manager—and later the managing director—at Broken Nose Theatre. Today, she handles the unseen work that makes success possible at Broken Nose, which won the Chicago Emerging Theatre Award in 2018. Hamill schedules rehearsals, draws up contracts for actors, rents performance venues, and manages finances. In short, she holds the whole award-winning operation together from behind the scenes.
While studying Stage Management at Columbia College Chicago, Hamill sharpened her skills by working on student productions. One of her senior requirements was to manage a production for Main Stage, the Theatre Department’s series of faculty-directed plays. It was the largest project Hamill had ever tackled, pushing her to become a better communicator and stage manager. “Theatre is one of the most collaborative art forms out of necessity,” Hamill says. “Everyone has a specific job, but everyone’s job affects every other job. The management is at the center of that spoked wheel, making sure that everyone gets the answers they need.”
Another key leadership quality, says Hamill, is the ability to read people and respond accordingly. “The way you treat a colleague [who’s] experienced a death in the family will be different than [how] you’d treat a colleague who is volunteering their time and showing up early,” she says. “So being a leader, first and foremost, means being understanding, while also balancing out that everyone is there to complete a goal.”
