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Messages - SFBaySM

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Stage Management: Other / Re: My first opera! The Magic Flute
« on: Jun 09, 2007, 06:27 am »
But if it's not what she wants to do...

it's not  ::)

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Stage Management: Other / Re: My first opera! The Magic Flute
« on: Jun 07, 2007, 04:24 am »
That does make much more sense, thank you.  And here I was just thinking they were too lazy to leave dressing rooms until last minute...


erm, did I mention my ASM doesn't read music?  And even though I offered to teach mulitple times, she wasn't interested at all?  Except for that fact, she was the best ASM I've had thus far.

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Stage Management: Other / Re: My first opera! The Magic Flute
« on: Jun 05, 2007, 05:04 am »
Sorry I never got back to posting this thread.  We actually closed yesterday, every performance was sold out house.  Apparently this is a first for the department!

The show went amazingly well, and I learned a lot more than I expected to on day one.  But a lot of the suggestions you gave just didn't apply to our production.  I really felt like this was run more like a musical than an opera.

There were 3 kinds of rehearsals - music, dialog (pronunciation/etc), and staging.  I only had to attend staging rehearsals, and was really lost at what to do with all my free time!

I didn't have to cue entrances at all, and I don't understand how/why that would happen?  That was never even an option brought up for this production.  Can someone clue me in?  I called from the FOH booth, and I had my trusted ASM backstage running shifts/etc.  We also had the "recital hall stage manger" on com backstage.  No one bothered to tell me he existed until he showed up first dress.  Basically I used him as a go-between on com, because my ASM had so much running around to do.

The conductor and director are husband and wife.  They were an amazing team and both helped me out every step of the way, especially with the music until I was comfortable with it.  The director complemented my calling every night, exclaiming how difficult it is to call opera and how well I adapted.  Honestly, it wasn't even the hardest show I've ever called.  The only difficult part was following the dialog.  Usually I memorize the dialog in my shows, but that wasn't happening with German, for obvious reasons.  So any time I looked up from my book I'd get lost for a few seconds.

One night our supertitles went crazy and started fast forwarding through lines, thank you Powerpoint!  The audience wasn't so keen on that...but we fixed it within a few lines. 

One of the most useful things I did was highlighting character names in the score.  It was easier to follow the music if I ever got lost, especially.  As Papageno started singing, I could glance down at my book and see "Papageno" glowing back up at me in neon yellow.  Problem solved.   

Of course we had all sorts of interesting problems to deal with, as any show does, (i.e. no crew = chorus does shifts, horrendous cabling = we ran our own dmx, fog machine made SO MUCH NOISE so we switched to haze, etc etc...) 

Oh, and the director never actually handed over the show to me, up until closing things were tweaked and changed slightly...ah university theatre!

Overall, it was a good experience. 

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For my current production (opera - the magic flute) I have the option of calling the show from backstage w/a monitor or back of the house in the tech booth.  I have a while to decide yet, and it will probably depend on scenic elements (lots of moving pieces).  I've never called from backstage, except a handful of cues as ASM for things the SM couldn't see, but have called plenty from tech booths.

When you are given a choice, which do you prefer, and why?

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Tools of the Trade / Re: Do you prefer Word or Excel?
« on: Apr 19, 2007, 03:34 am »
I used to use Word exclusively, until I ASMed for a hardcore excel user.  Since then I've used excel 75% of the time, Word 25%.  Basically, anything table-related gets excel, typed documents get word.

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Tools of the Trade / Re: Clock/Timer recommendation
« on: Apr 19, 2007, 03:32 am »
I use a simple digital clock from the 99cent store as my official 'show time' clock and a regular stopwatch for everything else.  works fine for me!

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Stage Management: Other / Re: My first opera! The Magic Flute
« on: Mar 26, 2007, 12:45 am »
Thank you both - I now have a LOT of questions to go ask my director....!

 ???

Oh, and my ASM just emailed me to say she may be dropping the show...great.... :'(

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Stage Management: Other / My first opera! The Magic Flute
« on: Mar 24, 2007, 09:10 am »
Hi there! 

I am a college student  studying stage management.  I've been SM/ASM/PA for several shows, and production manager/asst. for 3 festivals.  The closest I've ever come to an opera is musical theatre...which I suppose has some parallels, but it's definitely a different world. 

Starting next week I am stage managing the music department's annual opera - The Magic Flute.  I am mediocre at reading music, but obviously working on that.  I'm on spring break right now and intend to listen to the music and follow the score as much as humanly possible. 

I'm sure I'll come up with specific questions as the rehearsal process progresses, but for now I'm looking for any advice you might have for a newbie.  What are some key differences between SMing a straight play and an opera?  I will be calling off of the score, so I know to get extremely comfortable with that.  The singers have been rehearsing music since September, and I *think* some staging has taken place, but I'm not certain.  The director is a little slow responding my emails...

So, any advice you have is great, especially if you've worked on this particular opera  Thanks :)

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Injured during tech?
« on: Mar 24, 2007, 08:59 am »
I am a college student too.  Fall quarter I was PSM for a series of 5 plays.  It was my responsibility to be the production manager (basically), teach each play's SM what the heck to do (newbies!  yeay!) and call 4 of the 5 plays.  The 5th was to be called by the girl I was training to take over my position next fall. 

Of course, I had to tech the 4 plays in one weekend, approx 4 hours per play. 

7 hours before this was to begin, I was being my usual klutzy self, and broke my foot by falling off my kitchen counter.  I climbed up to reach something on the top shelf, ironically food for tech, and...uh...missed the floor on my way down. 

Of course, I was also rather stubborn and didn't go to the doctor for 3 days - Monday morning when tech was over and the student health center was open.  I was in excruciating pain, could not walk, and could only stand on one foot.  Somehow I managed to get to the theatre.  One of the shows had a razor scooter as a prop, which I used to get around.  There was also a rolling office chair that I used as a wheelchair.  I had actors do my bidding.  It was certainly not ideal, but we made the best of the situation.

I ended up on crutches for 14 weeks, followed by 4 weeks of rehab to relearn walking.  I'm still limping somewhat.  It was a really bad location for a break, and my body apparently doesn't like to heal. 

I don't recommend this.  If you break a leg, go to the freakin' doctor!!

On the plus side, I was off crutches just in time to tech my next play!

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