Author Topic: 1880s Prompt Books Online  (Read 7788 times)

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Lizzie

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1880s Prompt Books Online
« on: Mar 27, 2009, 07:11 pm »
The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has made a selection of original prompt and blocking books from the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company productions of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operas available online at
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/objects_theatre_performance/doyly_carte/index.html

Apart from a distinct lack of LX and sound cues, they don't seem that dissimilar to modern versions !

Lizzie

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #1 on: Mar 27, 2009, 10:25 pm »
That is so very cool; there are no words in the English language for how cool!

Thanks for sharing it.  I only got to glance through briefly, but even so, I learned some things, beisdes getting the OMG living history! high.
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PSMKay

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #2 on: Mar 27, 2009, 11:32 pm »
I love these! Thanks for posting them, great find!

KMC

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #3 on: Mar 28, 2009, 12:01 am »
Those are awesome!  It's so difficult to find any documented history of stage management, this is really cool to see.
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Sarah

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #4 on: Mar 28, 2009, 12:13 am »
Wow. What a great piece of history! Thanks for sharing!

crazylady

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #5 on: Mar 28, 2009, 01:14 am »
I cannot get over these! It is absolutely amazing! We are so lucky someone kept these, it is definatly a rare piece of history.
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JECSM

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #6 on: Mar 28, 2009, 04:13 pm »
That is amazing! It always makes me happy when I see that another SM does something the same way I do, but it's even cooler coming from the 1800s!

Thanks so much for sharing these!

Thespi620

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #7 on: Mar 28, 2009, 04:17 pm »
wow.  what an awesome find.  This job really stands the test of time quite well, huh?

I wonder if anything will change in the next 150 years, or if those prompt books will be just as similar to ours as mine is to that of 1880...these are so cool, thanks for sharing!
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ScooterSM

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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #8 on: Mar 28, 2009, 11:54 pm »
These are really amazing!  It made me feel very connected to the idea that SM'ing is a craft handed down from master to apprentice throughout history, and although there have been many changes, there are many things that have stayed the same...
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Re: 1880s Prompt Books Online
« Reply #9 on: Apr 18, 2009, 05:14 pm »
Those are amazing, thanks for posting the link. It's the first time I've ever come across real information about the history of stage management so it was great to see!