JAY HOLLOWAY ’69
Among the first graduating class of St. John’s Mask and Wig, Jay Holloway has been working in the entertainment industry as a stage technician for the past 56 years.
In 1966, he joined the St. John’s Theatre Department in their second season as a properties hand for Oliverand The Music Man. He was later promoted to Props Department head for performances including My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, Fiorello, and Little Mary Sunshine. During his senior year, he was awarded the Outstanding Crew Member Medal by a jury of his peers. For the next 53 years, his pursuit of technical theatre excellence would not have been achieved without the exceptional guidance and leadership of the Mask and Wig’s first director and producer, Gene Morrill.
After graduating from St. John’s 1969, Holloway attended Fairfield University on a theatrical scholarship as the Connecticut college’s playhouse manager and technical director, working on 16 productions including audio design, lighting design, scenery design, and set construction. The summer between his freshman and sophomore years, he worked as the technical director for Rockville, Maryland’s, Recreation and Parks Summer Theatre Program, the youngest person ever appointed to that position.
He left Fairfield to pursue an opportunity with a documentary film production company as unit manager, camera operator, lighting director, grip, still photographer, and audio director. Additional productions include television commercials for Save the Children Federation in the Andes of Columbia; a series of documentaries for the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; the prison reform system in Pennsylvania; Dick Gregory’s bicentennial run in Chicago; and Planned Parenthood of Georgia in Atlanta.
Anxious to get back into technical theatre in 1975, Holloway was initiated into the Connecticut local of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada (I.A.T.S.E.) as a 35mm film projectionist. He later pursued regional theatre assignments at the Westport Country Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Darien Dinner Theatre, and Levitt Pavilion working as a stagehand, follow-spot operator, and lighting technician. He was later elected to the I.A.T.S.E. executive board as president and then business agent, responsible for negotiating contracts as well as filling labor calls. He has been a member of the I.A.T.S.E. for the last 47 years.
During the next 30 years, while performing his duties as a theatrical union representative, Holloway was a high school audio-visual teacher and theatre director, as well as a systems programmer for General Electric and IBM. He received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Iona College in 1995. In 1997, he and his wife Denise and sons Jason, Daniel, Matthew, and Andrew, relocated to Atlanta where he continued his theatre career with a new I.A.T.S.E. local as steward, video projection, audio technician, properties department head, and lighting technician working for the Atlanta Ballet, the Atlanta Opera, Family Feud with Steve Harvey, Wild ‘N Out for MTV, Sunday Best for BET, Cirque du Soleil, The Weather Channel, BET Hip Hop Awards, MacGyver, All My Children, New York City Dance Alliance, Joyce Meyers Ministries, Live Nation Amphitheaters, Junior Theatre Festival, City Springs Theatre Company, and the Fox Theatre, among others. In 2019, he was in the audio department for the Super Bowl LIII pre-game and half-time shows at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.