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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PEOPLE: When a company comes together
« on: Jun 19, 2006, 02:50 pm »
This past weekend, the company I'm working with just closed their first musical. I feel the tiredness setting in...
Here's the kicker: throughout the rehearsal process, everything was fine (other than quickly losing my ASM and find a replacement). Throughout the run (and on their own time away from the theatre), I had an actor diagnosed with a bone spur on his heel and torn tendons, he was reblocked and eventually repalced; then an actor dropped a glass on her foot and had stitches, she was reblocked and stayed with the show; then an actor sprained her wrist and another hurt his knee, then one of the principals came to me and mentioned that she'd been having seizures and had no history of them, she did the show that evening without incident and left with a very high temerature, refusing to go to the doctor, (she has no understudy and it's the final week of performance) on Saturday morning I get a call from the artistic director who had received a call from the director that the actor was in the hospital with a kidney infection. We have two shows, at 4 and 8. The AD had called one of the actors and asked her to go on for the principal. I covered her roll with another actor, called two other company members to come in early for some scenework, my ASM called everyone else in for a rehearsal at 2p. I got to the theatre at 10 and went through blocking with the actor, she had about 10-15 min with the music director, 10min for fitting and then we did a show.
I worked with the most inspiring company to pull this off. Not only did everyone come together, the "understudy" was the most professional actor, her head was raarely in her script, she sang on key songs she had never sung before and pulled off the role. She received a standing ovation and cheers from the crown for three performances. Well deserved. Luckily, there were no major dance #'s to rework, only one # and we didn't have to change the choreography.
May you all work with such a company and be witness to true artistry and live theatre as I have experienced (hopefully under better circumstances).
Here's the kicker: throughout the rehearsal process, everything was fine (other than quickly losing my ASM and find a replacement). Throughout the run (and on their own time away from the theatre), I had an actor diagnosed with a bone spur on his heel and torn tendons, he was reblocked and eventually repalced; then an actor dropped a glass on her foot and had stitches, she was reblocked and stayed with the show; then an actor sprained her wrist and another hurt his knee, then one of the principals came to me and mentioned that she'd been having seizures and had no history of them, she did the show that evening without incident and left with a very high temerature, refusing to go to the doctor, (she has no understudy and it's the final week of performance) on Saturday morning I get a call from the artistic director who had received a call from the director that the actor was in the hospital with a kidney infection. We have two shows, at 4 and 8. The AD had called one of the actors and asked her to go on for the principal. I covered her roll with another actor, called two other company members to come in early for some scenework, my ASM called everyone else in for a rehearsal at 2p. I got to the theatre at 10 and went through blocking with the actor, she had about 10-15 min with the music director, 10min for fitting and then we did a show.
I worked with the most inspiring company to pull this off. Not only did everyone come together, the "understudy" was the most professional actor, her head was raarely in her script, she sang on key songs she had never sung before and pulled off the role. She received a standing ovation and cheers from the crown for three performances. Well deserved. Luckily, there were no major dance #'s to rework, only one # and we didn't have to change the choreography.
May you all work with such a company and be witness to true artistry and live theatre as I have experienced (hopefully under better circumstances).