The BACKstage Exam
The Educational Theatre Association(EdTA) and the United States
Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) have collaborated to launch the
BACKstage Technical Theatre Pilot Exam, a digital test for high school students
designed to measure their competency in a broad range of technical theatre
knowledge.
The exam, written by a team of teachers and industry
professionals, is
being field tested during the 2020-21 school year. It will address a broad range of technical theatre
knowledge and be conducted in two parts—a pre- and post-test—with one hundred
and seventy-one high schools in 39 states and Taiwan participating.
Several thousand students are expected to take
the pre-test between September 7 and October 22, 2020. The post-test will be
available April 15 to June 1, 2021, paving
the way for the launch of the final field-tested
exam.
The preliminary goal of the pilot is to refine the test through
an analysis of scores to determine the suitability of individual questions for
most high school students regularly engaged in technical theatre instruction.
EdTA and USITT hope to make the BACKstage test publicly available within a
year after the completion of the field testing, with the ultimate goal of
gaining state and industry recognition for the test as the benchmark that
indicates students’ readiness to enter the entertainment design and technology
industry or to pursue further study at the higher education level.
VIEW the list of Pilot School Sites as of 09/02/2020
