Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - lauria

Pages: [1] 2 3 4
1
How many cats are required? What kind of cats - Domesticated house cats, lions, tigers, panthers? If house cats, what color? Orange? Tuxedo? Tabby? Calico?

Does the American Humane Association need to approve this project? Do we need to have warnings in the lobby that "no animals were harmed..." What are we going to do for the actress that is allergic to cats? Do we need to have warnings in the lobby for any patrons that might be allergic to cats?

How are we going to contain the cats from leaping from the stage?

Do we have a cat wrangler? Do we have the budget for trained cats? Where will the cats be kept when offstage? Will we need cages? a cat room? Who will be feeding the cats on the days off? How will we keep the cats quiet backstage? Will they need someone to come in and play with them? How will we cue their entrance?

Will we be recording their lines for voiceover or do we need to find speaking cats? (Can we get that cat that says "nononononono"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKI-tD0L18A ) How will the cats open the refrigerator to get to the ham, as noted in the stage directions? Do we need a foot petal operation as (as far as I know) cats have yet to master opposable thumbs?

Are we sure that we can't go another route? Mechanical cats? (who would program them and do we need to add additional crew to operate / maintain them) Stuffed cats and having actors perform over the video screen? Actors in cat costumes? (Memooooooooooooooooooory!) Actors carrying cats (real, stuffed, puppets, or mechanical)?

Will the cats get program credit? Do they need bios? Are any of them union? Ditto for the cat wrangler / additional crew / cat feeder / cat player.

Are we going to get bad press from PETA for this?

You do know that there is no such thing as Scene XIIV, right?

NEW NOTE: Stanley will need a green umbrella for pg 39 (the scene with the hippos).

2
Hi Folks - been a while since I've been on the forum, but I do have a question that I thought you might be able to help me tackle.

I have multiple chemical sensitivity. For me, I have a respiratory reaction when I come in contact with many products including anything containing fragrance, anything propelled by aerosol, and harsh cleaning agents. This makes working in a theatre (and something just living in general) difficult!

I've found ways to deal with it on most occasions: avoid dressing rooms, wearing a respirator when working backstage on shows that use smoke / fog / haze (Communication can be difficult. There are many Darth Vader jokes.), using dry ice as an effect instead.

There is little that medication can do to help me control symptoms (continuous coughing, raw throat, tightness in chest, eyes itching, headache, general moodiness) and even the respirator doesn't block out all of the smoke / fog / haze.

I am looking at working another season as Production Stage Manager at the theatre I've worked at for the past three years and it is becoming important for the director to be able to use smoke / fog / haze for a show for artistic reasons. It's important for me that I'm not trying to call a show with a respirator on, and even if we sealed off the booth, I'd be trapped there for the duration of the show and unable to assist in an emergency.


So, what this brings me to is testing a variety of smoke / fog / haze products to find the most hypo-allergenic one on the market so that I hopefully won't react to it (besides plain old dry ice). Does anyone have any experience with any other sensitive person and had any positive results?
I would love to find a product that I don't react to! It would greatly open up my employment possibilities, as this sensitivity constantly causes me to ask if I should be continuing to pursue my career as a stage manager.

3
The Hardline / Re: Boston Area AEA Annual Meeting
« on: Oct 26, 2010, 11:56 am »
Yay! I'm always up for talking about the NEAT Contract. It seems confusing at best! It certainly sparks discussion between myself and the other SMs.

Hmmm... I just realized that this is the day I'm coming home from NYC. Hopefully my travel plans will permit me to go!

4
I recently ASMed a show in which the SM's wife was having a baby. It was a planned C-Section for a Monday. However, we know how fickle babies are and pushed to a high schooler to understudy my track so that I could call the show if needed. The show was fairly easy in terms of backstage pattern and the PA could do most of my track in addition to hers, so I also made sure that she knew as much of my track as possible so she could help out. During tech, I watched the show as much as I could, and I had the SM call the show over headset (the SM runs the light board in our theatre, so he usually doesn't call the show to himself...) so I could get used to the rhythm. Overall, it seemed like it was a pretty good solution.

Now, on a normal show if there were an emergency and he was unable to call the show, I'm not sure what we'd do. It would depend on the needs of the show. If my track were simple and we could pull in someone on short notice, I could take over calling the show. If my track were complex, we'd probably try to find a local sub. But at my theatre there is no protocol in place in the event that a member of stage management cannot do their job.

5
The Green Room / Re: SM Hobbies
« on: Oct 13, 2010, 11:13 pm »
I'm pretty sure that there is a whole thread for those of us who knit or crochet. I'm one of them. It dovetails well with excess time backstage (40 minutes between cues, anyone?) and during preshow.

I also like to read Disney comics - mostly from the 40s and 50s. It's amazing how a simple Donald Duck comic can take my mind off of the show I'm working on and allow me to get to sleep. Life seems much simpler in Duckburg ('though very wacky sometimes!). I get too caught up in books to let myself put an unfinished story down.

6
The Hardline / Re: Equity and Checks
« on: Oct 11, 2010, 12:12 pm »
I find the PDF versions of the contracts that you can get from the AEA website are very helpful for stuff like this.  Being able to search through the document for specific items is a lot easier on a computer than by flipping through the actual book.

I agree entirely. And working under the NEAT Contract, I can attest that (SMs are prohibited from passing out checks and) that the contract is very confusing with many things separated that should be together. We're always looking things up with the PDF and typing in as many search terms as we can think to make sure we've actually found all the information.

7
The Green Room / Re: Exercise!
« on: Oct 11, 2010, 12:04 pm »
As an ASM in a theatre where the dressing rooms are down a flight of stairs from the deck, and the booth up above the balcony, I find that during show runs I feel like I'm getting enough exercise - especially on those two show days!

But I'm currently SMing a simple, 2-person show and we're in rehearsals. I've been walking to and from work (about a half mile), which definitely helps, but yesterday I was running late and drove, and found myself needing to run around on one of the 10 minute breaks to wake my body up.

I'd love to be doing some kind of movement. I really enjoy dancing, but my back is very temperamental and I generally find it's too much. I should do some yoga and stretching, though. I used to stretch before bed in high school and I found it very calming.

8
The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion
« on: Oct 11, 2010, 11:58 am »
One thing that would be great would be a complete list with check box features for the first time you're setting up your list. I found myself going through the entire drop down menu and selecting shows individually, as it was easier to pick out shows I'd done from a list rather than trying to remember them all. Going through the drop down list wasn't TOO bad, but as the list of shows gets longer, it's going to get more difficult.

Also, all the shows beginning with "The" are in alphabetical order. I think it will be easier to find them if they're either interspersed (if you can code it to do that) or as such: "Comedy of Error, The." That will prevent some duplicates and make it easier for people to find them.

I made a list of some duplicates I saw for when the list checkers come through (Speaking of which, I wouldn't mind being one. You know I like silly projects like this. I did it when you integrated all the links...)

Duplicates
Love's Labour's Lost       (Three different Spellings)
(The) Comedy of Errors   (With or without the "The")

I also went too fast and added some plays with author's first names in addition to last names, so I'll make it easy to fix MY mistakes:
The Sparrow
Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad
The Turn of the Screw
Angel Street
Always... Patsy Cline

Finally, "Angel Street" is the play's title, but the movie title is "Gaslight," which is what our production went by, even though it was the same play. I entered the title as "Angel Street (Gaslight)." Does that make the most sense or should it be done differently?

Thanks, Kay! This is a fun feature!

9
Why the gigglefest?
Who slipped the cast laughing gas?
We weep in the dark.

10
One Last Weekend Left
Troubles Away Sunday Night
Good Luck New S.M.!

11
The Green Room / Re: BEST ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE
« on: Sep 28, 2010, 11:47 pm »
"The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that is has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw

As stage managers, so much of our jobs is communicating information to others. I've found that so many people do not take time to read the carefully crafted reports the SM team spends time on creating. And that a face-to-face conversation is often the only way of knowing that someone has received information. And that even that fails. Sometimes, you just have to roll with it and keep plugging along.

12
It's a tricky call in a dance situation where lighting is often another character in the story telling (IMHO). If the dancers and orchestra continued, then I think I would have pressed forward to the end of the dance while trying to solve the board problem. If it wasn't solved by the end of the number, I would hold the next number to see if the problem were solvable.

If the dancers had stopped, then it would have been clear that a hold needed to be called. I probably would have started the number from the top, assuming it wasn't 12 minutes into a 15 minute+ dance number which could dramatically alter run time and theater patterns.

Of course as mentioned above, different contexts require different reactions, and so would be made with lightning speed, not giving one the time to contemplate. All you can do is go with your gut and hope that was the best decision and then use that knowledge the next time something similar happens.

13
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SCENERY: Video
« on: Sep 22, 2010, 11:59 pm »
I've been involved with one production that I felt really made projections work. We used a cyc painted to look like the sky as the backdrop to project on. The projections were really useful in furthering the story and dropped hints about the terrible accident that shook the town ten years prior to when the show took place. They seemed to stem from what was going on in the main character's mind.

A professional was used to create the video and they were really well done. We basically did a remount with new cast from the original production and kept the design team, so we were able to use the same video as in the original production, with some changes where a character was seen or heard.

When I first read the script I thought, "There's absolutely no way we can possibly do this onstage." There were lots of clever ways to tell the story and the projections became one of them. We played them off of a DVD, and most nights everything synced up. I know that there was one sequence in particular that was very tricky to time out and it didn't usually go perfectly.

14
Tools of the Trade / Re: Prop Drinks : Port
« on: Sep 21, 2010, 01:27 am »
This is super old, but Port is a common theatrical drink and I have a good recipe, soo...

XXX Vitamin Water is a great base. Put 1 drop of blue food coloring in about a 1/5 of a plastic cup full of water. Add XXX and 12 drops of red food coloring until full. Mix together and very convincing-looking port!

This is not the most translatable of methods in terms of measurements, but it would give someone a rough starting place.

15
The Green Room / Re: Trivia Tournament II: Electric Boogaloo
« on: Jul 16, 2009, 11:36 pm »
Arg!...again I had all 10 right and one of my answers magically changed when I submitted.

Are you using the down key to scroll down? Because if so, that's why your answers are being changed. I've never had a problem with it "magically" changing my answers, but I did once realize I pressed the down key instead of scrolling with my mouse and saw that pressing the down key scrolls through the options.

Pages: [1] 2 3 4
riotous