#63 Alex McNamara | From Jail to Yale: The Technical Director Behind Built Pretty
Alex McNamara walked into this episode with a Klein 11-in-1 impact ratcheting screwdriver, a bit holder from Home Depot, and a tape measure she was about to teach us a secret about.
She also walked in with one of the more remarkable career stories the show has featured — from theater major to Yale School of Drama, from installing the Hamilton turntable at the Public Theater to leading 600 workers on a $300 million build in Saudi Arabia, from 1,600 Instagram followers a year ago to 350k+ today.
She's a technical director, welder, rigger, Broadway carpenter, and the founder of Built Pretty. And she got here, she'll tell you, because the trades saved her life.
Highlights — What You'll Learn
Why the Klein 11-in-1 is the tool she gives as a Christmas gift to everyone she knows
The tape measure secret that fixes your inside dimensions immediately
How sobriety at 22 led her directly to the trades — and why it worked
What it was like to install the original Hamilton turntable without knowing what Hamilton would become
How she managed 600 workers in Saudi Arabia on a $300 million Soundstorm build
The honest reality of being a woman in carpentry and rigging
How a forklift video at an LA art fair turned into 327,000 followers in under a year
The Tools
The episode opens with Alex unpacking her kit, and if you work in live events or construction, you'll want to watch the video version.
The Klein 11-in-1 Impact Ratcheting Screwdriver. Eleven different bit types in one handle, all impact-rated. Alex keeps one in her tool belt, one in her car, and one in every junk drawer in her house. On a festival site, she used it to remove signs off a shipping container when she didn't know what bit the screws needed — and she already had it on her.
"The less weight I can have on my tool belt when I'm walking around thousands of steps a day, the better."
A bit holder. Simple, cheap, found at Home Depot. Clip your most-used bits to your person so you can swap them onto your impact driver mid-job without running back to the compound.
The tape measure trick. Most people bend the tape to get an inside dimension — which gets you close, but not exact. What Alex does instead: read the length printed on the tape measure case itself (usually two to four inches), press the case against one wall, and add that number to what you read. No bending, no guessing.
Alex's full tool list is at her Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-81ff6575
For job sites: Fjällräven Keb pants (lifetime warranty, knee space, vented zippers, different materials in different zones). For welding: men's Carhartt original dungarees.
"The Trades Saved My Life"
Alex grew up watching her mom fix things. Her dad was a software salesman, always on the road, and her mom had four kids and no patience for calling a repairman. One time, she identified which of Alex's brothers had put his head through the wall by measuring their heads one by one against the hole.
Alex went to college as an acting major and a dance minor — she was a theater kid through and through. And then, somewhere between freshman and senior year, she couldn't stop drinking and drugging. At 22, she walked into rehab on her own.
"I've already done the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I've already almost died. What else could happen?"
When she got out, she started using her hands. Not acting — her brain wasn't ready for that. Building things. Finishing things. Seeing the wall at the end of the day. Her hands shook less when she was holding tools. She fell in love with it.
From Williamstown to Hamilton
She cut her teeth at Williamstown Theater Festival in the Berkshires — 60 and 80-hour weeks, Broadway-caliber productions, Meryl Streep summers up there, Matthew Broderick doing shows. Then she moved to New York City with $200, her guitar, and her tool bag, slept on a friend's couch, and started calling shops.
At 25, three years sober, she got a call about a new show at the Public Theater on Lafayette Street. Everyone was excited about it. There was a man making a long speech. She was thinking about the buffet behind him. That man was Lin-Manuel Miranda.
She was part of the team that installed the turntable for the original Hamilton. She helped build the candles that moved in and out during the dream sequence. She learned how to use an oscillating multi-tool because of all the notches in the beams and posts.
"If I knew the impact Hamilton would make, I think I would have looked around a little more. But I have one photo from that whole thing — and it's a photo of the cable that was in my way that the electricians put there."
From Jail to Yale
From Hamilton, she got a call from a contact at Yale School of Drama. Came up as an overhire carpenter. Worked under Neil Mulligan, the military-man technical director who scared everyone. He brought her into his office and asked if she wanted to work there.
She said maybe. Then she said yes. Then she said she didn't need to go to school there — she was already a golden ticket. Then, two weeks later, she walked back in and said she wasn't a golden ticket.
She was accepted into the Master's program in Technical Design and Production. She got her ETCP rigging certification. She became an AWS-certified MIG welder. She learned how to build things slowly, intentionally, and correctly from foreman Eric Sparks, who she credits with teaching her most of what she actually knows.
"This is a girl who literally went from jail to Yale."
600 Workers and Construction Arabic
After Yale came Juilliard — Associate Technical Director at Lincoln Center, five floors underground with no sunlight, which started affecting her mentally. Her best friend Rachel Fitzgerald worked for Tait and suggested music festivals. Alex left the full-time job, the benefits, and the one-bedroom Upper West Side apartment with washer/dryer in unit, and took a two-month contract she wasn't sure would lead anywhere.
It led to Soundstorm in Saudi Arabia. A $300 million music festival build. She was managing a VIP construction system with 600 workers, most of whom didn't share her language.
She learned construction Arabic. The word for hammer is something close to "sharqs." She learned how to say "tomorrow" and "it will be done" specifically so she'd know when someone was telling her what she wanted to hear. She learned that "inshallah" — God willing — means yes to a Muslim, not maybe to a Westerner.
"The reason I'm good at this job is because I'm relentless. I don't trust anyone or anything. They say it's done — I already checked it and I know it's not."
She's been going back for a couple months every year. The festival typically runs in December.
The Honest Part About Being a Woman on a Job Site
This is the section of the episode that lands differently. Alex doesn't sugarcoat what it was like to be one woman in a shop of 100 men — and she doesn't pretend there's a clean institutional answer.
She bought men's clothing. She changed her cigarette brand to Marlboro Reds. She started spitting on the ground. All to fit in. And none of it worked, because they knew she was a woman the whole time — and when she wasn't being herself, her work suffered.
The turn came when she stopped performing and started embracing who she was. Got her nails done. Wore clothes that fit. Asked for help. Her work improved immediately.
Her practical advice for women starting out:
"Find the biggest, baddest guy on the job site — make sure he's not a creep — and make him your friend and mentor. He will become your protector. Get him coffee. Tell him how strong he is. And listen, because in the hours of him telling you about the better days, there's a lesson or two."
When something more serious happens — and she's clear that it does sometimes happen, just not most of the time — she doesn't go to HR, because there is no HR. She tells her protector. She's also direct and calm in the moment, which she admits she had to learn the hard way.
Her master's thesis at Yale was on the inequities of women's workwear. She stands by every word of it.
A Forklift, a Camera, and a Trades Movement
Built Pretty started in January of last year. Alex was working an art fair in LA, on a forklift, and decided to set up her camera and talk about the different types of wrenches on her person. Just in case anybody wanted to know.
She posted it to TikTok. Got some positive reinforcement. Made another video about hammers. Then about the difference between an impact driver and a drill. Then about the history of the Phillips bit versus the Robertson bit — how it involved Henry Ford, a Canadian inventor, and World War Two, and how the drama of it is genuinely wild.
That one exploded on Instagram.
Her audience is mostly homeowners, 60% male, 40% female, roughly 35 to 45. They love tool history. They love learning something new about the thing that's been in their junk drawer for ten years. They love the secrets of the tape measure.
What she's building isn't just a following. It's an argument — that you don't have to look like a man to belong in the trades, you don't have to act tough, and you don't have to know everything before you start. She spent years thinking she had to perform masculinity to earn her place. Built Pretty is the correction to that.
"The trades saved my life. And I just want to make it as accessible to anyone as possible. Because it could save their life, too."
What She's Building Next
Children's books showing kids in the trades. A course. A school. A workwear partnership. And a broader push to revive technical education in American high schools — which she argues has been gutted in favor of four-year degrees that are increasingly being replaced by the very AI tools that can't yet weld a steel frame or rig a roof.
Sonic Temple is her favorite festival to work — metal crowd, Danny Wimmer Presents, community-first, and the fans are, as anyone who's worked a metal festival knows, genuinely some of the nicest people on a job site.
She'll be back on the show for a part two, this time on an actual site. Can't wait.
Built Pretty on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/built.pretty/
Full tool list: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-81ff6575
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