Jerad Schomer
Principal
Jerad manages day-to-day operations of our New York studio, while providing high-level design consultancy and project management services with specific emphasis on theatre design, stage engineering, and technical services.
Jerad trained as a Scenery and Lighting Designer, and has a broad range of experience working collaboratively on creative and technical teams across the industry, from opera to musical theatre, and from visual arts installations to live music production.
At Charcoalblue, Jerad oversaw the construction phase of St. Ann’s Warehouse, our first completed North American project. Since then, he’s contributed notably to completed projects such as Broadway’s newest space, The Hudson Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, and the Luminato Festival.
Jerad joined us with ten years of professional experience in the performing arts and construction industry, having worked as a scenery and lighting designer, technical director, scenic painter, rigger, and production manager on a variety of productions and across the performing arts sector. He has designed and managed productions in rotating repertory, world premiere plays in off-off-Broadway theatres, and music-art mashups in world-class international venues.
Notable previous work includes five years spent at the Metropolitan Opera as Technical Project Manager working on many productions including Robert Lepage’s Ring Cycle. He also spent two years at Park Avenue Armory, first as ATD, and then as Technical Director, leading the technical efforts on Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford’s Macbeth, and Robert Wilson’s The Life and Death of Marina Abramović.
Jerad has also spent time designing and drafting rigging systems for New York based theatrical services company IWEISS. There, he originated system drafting for dozens of theatres around New York and the country, including the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, a new Broadway space which opened in 2009.
Jerad with some of the New York team, Summer 2017.
Jerad and Clem co-wrote a piece for 'Into the Culture Cave', a book celebrating the transformation of the Hearn Plant in Toronto for the Luminato Festival.
Jerad gathers for a photo with Simon and Jake at our 2017 Christmas Party.
What's the greatest lesson you've learnt as a Theatre Consultant?
The simple solution is usually the best.
What first sparked your love of theatre or performing arts?
I got into theatre because of a simple high school crush (unrequited...). Somehow that led to me sitting in the auditorium of the Metropolitan Opera listening to a working orchestra rehearsal of Wagner's Prelude to Siegfried - one of the most remarkable pieces of music I'd ever heard - while revising show running paperwork for the first new production of the Ring Cycle at the Met in over 30 years.
What qualities should a 'great performance space' have?
Intimacy, connection, scale, and a bar nearby.
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