Kaylene Bryan
Freelance Stage Manager for Charlotte-area theatre companies
Education: B.A. in Theatre, with a concentration in Design and Production, UNC Charlotte (2017)
Hometown: Paterson, New Jersey, and Indian Trail, N.C.
Kaylene Bryan became “completely hooked” on theatre as a child by attending her parents’ church musical rehearsals. She started singing in school and church choirs and took her first theatre class in middle school.
“By high school, I’d realized I wasn’t the most comfortable person onstage,” she says, “but my theatre teacher, Lisa Stafford, saw something in me and suggested I try stage management.” Soon Kaylene was managing her first play, which subsequently won the Excellence in Stage Management award at that year’s North Carolina Theatre Conference. “I was hooked all over again, but in a whole new way,” she says.
Entering UNC Charlotte, Kaylene immediately got involved in the theatre program as a stage manager and Robinson Hall Technician and says she made sure to soak up everything she could in regard to professional theatre processes and production management.
“That foundation has carried me through every production since. So much of what I learned there shows up in my work every single day.”
Kaylene gives high praise to Rachel Watkins, the stage management lecturer at UNC Charlotte. “[Rachel’s] expertise, no-nonsense attitude, calm under pressure, and genuine warmth shaped both how I work and how I show up in every room I walk into. There’s a steady, direct, and warm balance I consciously carry with me. Rachel is the kind of mentor who keeps her former student’s names in the room long after graduation.”
Kaylene says that learning from faculty at UNC Charlotte who are actively working in the industry has been invaluable.
“I’ve gone on to work alongside my former professors as colleagues in the field, and I’ve been able to walk into professional spaces and suggest improvements to production processes because I was exposed to clearer, more consistent ways of making live theatre at UNC Charlotte.”
Kaylene now manages shows across the Charlotte theatre landscape, most frequently at Theatre Charlotte. She also works a “day job” running office administration and people management for an environmental drilling company in South Carolina.
“The skills transfer more than you’d think,” she says. “Theatre teaches you to stay calm, communicate clearly and lead under pressure. As it turns out, that’s useful pretty much everywhere.”
Among her favorite Theatre Charlotte productions thus far are “Little Shop of Horrors” and “The Play That Goes Wrong,” both of which presented exciting technical challenges. She also had an extraordinary experience at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte with the production of “Esperanza Rising.”
“I’d read the book as a kid and loved it, so getting to help tell that story to students in the Charlotte area felt like a full-circle moment. Children’s Theatre of Charlotte is an incredibly professional environment, and working alongside fellow CoA+A alumni Isabel Gonzalez and Julio Hernandez made it even better. The run was demanding, and doing double-show days back-to-back (up to 12 performances a week!) taught me how to stay level-headed and confident, even when I was exhausted. Leading under that kind of pressure was genuinely one of the best things that’s ever happened to my craft.”
When asked about her advice for current students, Kaylene says: “Soak up every single part of the experience. The beauty of studying in the COAA is that you’re learning professional craft in a space where it’s okay to make mistakes.”
She also emphasizes the value of an education in theatre.
“Beyond the craft, being a theatre student makes you a genuinely well-rounded person. You come out on the other side having navigated culture, technology, technical processes, on-the-fly problem solving and creative thinking, often all in the same production run. Those are transferable skills that will take you anywhere, and they’ll make you a valued asset in every room you walk into for the rest of your life.”