Messages

46

Self-Promotion / Re: Flowers Stink!

« on: Oct 01, 2015, 08:30 pm »

And while you're visiting the US Botanic Garden...

I am also working on a show there! Also, a TYA show from the Kennedy Center, also free! It's an audience-integrative piece with 2 actors for 12 audience members, that takes you through the whole garden on a secret mission for a magical flower.

The Cerulean Time Capsule
directed by Drew Petersen
Running every Saturday & Sunday + Columbus Day until October 25
9 shows per day- 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00.

47

Stage Management: Other / Re: Blocking notation for a mobile rehearsal

« on: Sep 18, 2015, 06:07 pm »

Now that the show is open, after a whirlwind 2 weeks of rehearsal including "tech," I guess I'll let you all know how my blocking went-
I went with EFMcMullen's suggestion of putting the script and slip sheet onto one page, landscape oriented, and putting that on a contractor's clipboard. It worked pretty brilliantly! I had enough space to take the loose blocking this show requires (it's so difficult to explain... basically a walking tour/scavenger hunt of a botanic garden with 2 actors & 12 audience members? and it's about time travel? and for children?) and it wasn't too bulky to carry around with me.

The humidity wasn't as much of an issue as I had thought it would be. I did not use sheet protectors, and my pages are... more wrinkled than I would prefer, but ultimately fine and totally legible.

Rehearsing on your feet is exhausting, and it is HOT inside a greenhouse (thanks Captain Obvious). It is as hot, if not hotter, than it is outside, plus literally 100% humidity at all times, which is not exactly pleasant when it's 90 degrees outside. We would all troop en masse back to the one air-conditioned room in the building during breaks, which meant we essentially couldn't take a 5- the break would be over by the time we got there. I just wish it had been easier to lug my water bottle around with me; investing in one of those dorky straps might have been the way to go.

And now we're in performances with 9 shows a day (weekends only, praise be to Dionysus)! It's a theater marathon!

48

Stage Management: Other / Re: Blocking notation for a mobile rehearsal

« on: Aug 25, 2015, 04:21 pm »

Maybe one of those contractors' clipboards with the added compartment for papers might be of use here. Tape one of those silica gel packets that come with new shoes to the inside to help absorb the humidity.

I already have a contractors'-style clipboard, adding a silica gel packet makes sense!

49

Stage Management: Other / Re: Blocking notation for a mobile rehearsal

« on: Aug 24, 2015, 05:25 pm »

I've never done site specific, but with a 13 page script could you turn the script so the page is running horizontally, put the script on one half of the page, diagram on the other half of the page?  Then use sheet protectors for humidity, write with Sharpie,  (It can be erased by a dry erase marker) and clipped to a clipboard?

Turning the script sideways might work! That way I would have script and slip sheet on one page instead of 2, and could just use a clipboard. I'm worried about pages falling out of a binder as I'm walking, having to balance it one-handed to write, etc.

50

Stage Management: Other / Blocking notation for a mobile rehearsal

« on: Aug 23, 2015, 07:23 pm »

I am starting rehearsals this week for a site-specific audience-integrative piece and I'm wondering if anyone has some advice. I've done audience-integrative theater before but not like this. The show is basically a walking tour with 2 actors and 10 audience members. We'll be rehearsing in the venue, thank goodness, but I'm a bit at a loss for how to physically take blocking notes. I have a map of the venue that I've turned into a slip sheet, that's not the issue.

My problem is that I'm literally going to be following these actors/director around a public space during rehearsal, dodging random people, going up stairs, through doors, etc. as we set blocking. I'm imagining juggling a binder and a notepad and it's just not going to work. Laptop is out of the question, obviously. Has anyone else ever run a mobile rehearsal? How did you take notes? How did you stay on book while you were en route?

The script is only 13 pages long, so I may just bite the bullet, say forget about my slip sheets, and put the whole thing on a clipboard, but I'd really like to be able to mark on the map of the venue where we are when we pause for each section of dialogue, which direction they're facing, etc. The venue is also INCREDIBLY humid (we're performing in a botanical garden) so I'm also a little worried about my script just basically turning into mush, but I'm not sure there's anything I'll be able to do about that.

51

The Green Room / Re: Got my first post-college job!

« on: Jul 26, 2015, 01:52 pm »

Hi from another DC SM! There's several of us here on the board. The Punks are pretty cool- I've never worked with them myself but they're a fun bunch of people.

52

The Green Room / Re: Patrons behaving badly

« on: Jul 13, 2015, 08:35 pm »

I had a patron yell at me once because I wouldn't let his six-year-old daughter go down the fireman's pole on the set. It was post-show and I saw him from the wings pick his child up and put her on the set, and point towards the pole. I came out from backstage with a polite "Sir, we can't let anyone on the stage" etc which he ignored, and the child was halfway up the stairs by this point. I went over to her, said "Hey kiddo, let's go back to your dad!" she said ok, and we walked back over to the edge of the stage together, at which point I got a "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING GET AWAY FROM MY CHILD WHO ARE YOU" like I was one who was putting her in danger...

53

The Hardline / Re: Opportunity to Join IATSE - To Join or Not to Join?

« on: Jun 23, 2015, 03:23 pm »

I ASMed a show with a SM who was an IATSE member. It proved pretty helpful as we toured to several IATSE houses on a very tight schedule, he had an immediate camaraderie with the house crew that helped our load-ins/outs run really smoothly. Not that they wouldn't have been smooth otherwise, but having an "in" with a notoriously picky house crew can never hurt.

54

The Green Room / Re: 10 out of 12 - new play off-bway

« on: Jun 17, 2015, 02:33 pm »

I am so intrigued by the whole concept of giving the audience members headsets. I want to see this show!

55

The Green Room / Re: live weapons on stage!

« on: Jun 05, 2015, 06:35 pm »

Really?  (Tangent, sorry.)  It seems like if the knife is being used as a functioning tool instead of a weapon it would be safer to have it sharper.  Slicing a carrot with a dull knife can be pretty deadly.  How did you find that balance?

Dulling the tip and first inch of so of the blade to prevent accidental stabbing, actually. Leaving the sharper part of the blade closer to the handle for actual cutting.

56

The Green Room / Re: live weapons on stage!

« on: Jun 05, 2015, 03:09 pm »

How many times does this have to happen? It's totally preventable and just makes my heart hurt.
Where was the fight choreographer? Where was the SM? Where was the props master? Why didn't the actor(s) object?

ETA: We're dealing with this in my show right now- no combat, but a lot of "cooking" onstage, in full view of the audience, with dialog about the specific food items being chopped. The knives have to be sharp enough to cut a carrot and some scallions, but dull enough that we're not as concerned with actor injury. Our props master tested various levels of sharpness before we found the right balance.

57

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Wardrobe Runsheet

« on: Jun 05, 2015, 03:05 pm »

Ditto to what Maribeth and Megf said.

If I have a wardrobe crew, I provide timings, locations, and a basic out of/into, and leave it up to the dressers to determine everything specific. I will coordinate with the deck chief for placement of quick change booths and costume storage in the wings, if necessary. I always include that basic information on the run sheets that the rest of the crew are using, particularly since there may be prop hand-offs and such involved.

I'm currently working a show with no dressers, where the other ASM and I do all of the changes, so obviously I am making all the decisions with the actors involved.
I also did an opera that had one performance in DC with the KenCen house IATSE wardrobe crew and then toured to Jazz at Lincoln Center for one performance in NYC and used their house IATSE crew, with no dress rehearsal in NYC and a whole lot quick changes. The KenCen crew got a dress rehearsal and I took copious notes and made sure to have meticulous pieces lists for each of the looks, and then spent about an hour with the head of the wardrobe crew in NY, talking her through the paperwork I had created and showing her the pieces and pictures of each of the artists they would be changing. The NY crew was delighted with my paperwork, which made my meticulous stage manager self preen like a cockatiel.

SO basically what I'm saying is it can go from one extreme to the other, but usually the wardrobe crew makes most of the specific decisions for themselves, but appreciates general info.

58

Tools of the Trade / Re: Google Docs.

« on: Apr 06, 2015, 10:49 pm »

Yeah, but also think about the disadvantages of having the ability of multiple people editing the same document . . .

When multiple people are working at once, you can see who's logged on and where everyone is typing in real time. There's also an edit history that saves all previous iterations, so you can always go back if somebody totally messes it up.

59

Employment / Re: Everyone's favorite topic: Networking

« on: Mar 31, 2015, 03:18 pm »

[side topic: HI FRIEND!!!!]

60

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Rehearsal Report Question

« on: Mar 21, 2015, 12:30 pm »

To offer a slightly different point of view...
I worked on a new work recently where the director was really open to the cast experimenting with props/business in the scenes during rehearsal, trying different things (what if I mix a martini during this monologue? what if I'm eating popcorn? what if I'm knitting?) each time we ran it. We might have done a scene with 2 or 3 different actions during the rehearsal day, and by the end of it the director usually had a clear idea of what he wanted them to actually be doing- which he might not have shared aloud (it sounds weird but it worked?). SO long story short, he didn't want us to request new props in the report without running them by him first. The last time we ran the scene Actor mixed a martini, but the director knows he doesn't really want that.
Not to say that you should run every note by the director, but it can be a good idea to clarify "yes we really want that/wait to request that til we run it again/etc"