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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / CALLING: Stop The Show!

« on: May 22, 2006, 06:38 pm »

I had an experience in January where I had to stop the show not once, but twice.  Once when a lady in our 90-seat, incredibly intimate black box had a stroke in the first act and then again when the light board failed and we had only one lamp to provide light on a set that included a very steep staircase.

In both instances, I let the crew on headset know we needed to stop, then used the god-mic to ask the actors to get offstage and ask the audience to clear the house (so the EMTs could get through) or stay in their seats until we had lights.

Has anyone else had these kinds of situations?  What makes you decide whether you need to stop the show or find some way to keep the show going?  What's the first thing you do when you decide the show needs to stop?

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SMNetwork Archives / The Cardinal Sin

« on: Feb 18, 2005, 08:38 pm »

So I committed what I believe to be the cardinal sin of stage management 2 days ago.  I was late for rehearsal.  By an hour.  Fortunately, there were fittings going on and I'm just a lowly intern so all I had to do was make coffee, but I felt horrible for the rest of the day.  Ugh.  Somehow I just got it in my head that we were starting an hour later than we actually were.

But perhaps this isn't THE cardinal sin of stage management.  What do you think is the one thing a stage manager should avoid at all costs?

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SMNetwork Archives / on the other end of the headset spectrum

« on: Dec 04, 2004, 09:58 am »

I know we've had a discussion about low-end headset solutions.  I am looking for the opposite; what do you think is the best headset out there?