Author Topic: COMMUNICATION: Communicating Who is Called for a Rehearsal  (Read 9758 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

BlueRidgeSM

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 53
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Experience: Community Theatre
Hi everyone -

I am getting ready to start rehearsal as a stage manager for a community theatre production of Guys and Dolls.  Cast is around 40 people, with teenagers up through seniors.  I am working with a director I have worked with before, who is very great but also pretty controlling.  In some ways this is great, as he makes my life easy because he's already created the rehearsal schedule, the contact list, scene lists, transitions, etc etc etc and we haven't even started rehearsal yet.  He can produce more paperwork in a bat of an eye than I can rationally explain.  :)

Anyway, I've done shows with him before and we always run into this problem when we start rehearsal where no one knows whether or not they are called for rehearsal.  The schedules he makes are very compact with lots of abbreviations, which may or may not be consistent.  For example, the day we are doing the Crapshooters Ballet it says "Gamblers Exc S/J/N" which means Gamblers excluding Sky, Big Jule, and Nathan.  So of course the actor playing Big Jule emails me and says "am I called that day?" because it's not clear to him.  And on the night we are learning music for Oldest Established it says "Gamblers Exc Sk/Ju" which also means Gamblers excluding Sky and Big Jule, but it's not consistent with the other abbreviation. 

Issuing a new expanded rehearsal schedule is not really an option, nor is editing the existing one and re-sending it out again as he always does them in PDFs.  So, I guess what I am looking for is if anyone can suggest a way to minimize this thing I always go through where I am bombarded by emails/phone calls from actors wanting me to interpret the schedule for them.  Often I end up having to ask the director anyway what his abbreviations mean, which takes up time and also makes me look dumb and/or not informed/in the loop. 

Should I make like a key and send it out?  Or a list of songs/scenes and who is in what song/scene?  So they could just look at what song we are doing and then look at the list and realize they are not in that song?  Part of this is just training people to read the schedule; a lot of times they are lazy (sorry, but it's true) and just want me to email them a list of dates they are called, which obivously is prohibitive with a cast of 40 people.  But I've run into this problem before with this director (with Oliver it was a nightmare, there were so many kids and all of them were "orphans" and "pickpockets" except the ones that were "little orphans" and oh they all have different costumes for Who Will Buy and ARGH) and I'd just like to head it off as much as possible.

Thanks,

Beth

Edit to subject line-Rebbe
« Last Edit: Aug 23, 2011, 05:38 pm by Rebbe »

LizzG

  • SM Expert
  • ****
  • Posts: 100
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Current Gig: First National Tour
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #1 on: Aug 02, 2011, 04:46 pm »
Is there any way you can have a conversation with him, and ask that you be the one person who sends/creates all the schedules? If you want to avoid telling him that the cast is confused by his wording/abbreviations, then maybe you can just tell him you think it would be more streamlined if you had one person in charge of the normal SM duties, and that going over it together and having you send it out would aid you in knowing the schedule like the back of your hand (and knowing exactly what he wants without having to ask him once he sends it out every time).

Then you could sit down with him, or have him email you (but not everyone) what the schedule should be, and then you could send it out to everyone in a more clear format...

Sarah

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 203
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA, SMA
  • Current Gig: Noises Off
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #2 on: Aug 02, 2011, 04:47 pm »
You're on the right track; creating a key is a great idea but only if you know what all the abbreviations mean. Is it possible to sit down with the director, review the schedule and create the key together? I would come to this meeting armed with both a scene and song breakdown and ensure you also know who's in what scene and who's singing what song.

Establishing clear communication lines between the director and stage manager is the very first goal to achieve; even though you have worked with this director before, every show has a unique process. Possessing a solid understanding of the director's methods can telegraph your confidence to the cast and this will put them at ease knowing they can count on you to support them through the entire production.

ericjames

  • New to Town
  • **
  • Posts: 49
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: IATSE
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #3 on: Aug 02, 2011, 10:27 pm »
I just had a similar issue stage managing a production of Joseph (we just closed this past Saturday!).  We had 20 adults plus 2 casts of 9 kids each (18 total kids).  The director likes to do scheduling day by day.   I created a website using "Google Sites" and every night (over our dinner break) I posted the schedule for the next on that website. It was the responsibility of the actors (or the parents) to check that website everyday and make sure they were present at the correct times.  When I did the daily schedule, I spelled out basically everything and made it as simple as possible (aka... very few, if any abbreviations).  For many of the kids, this was their first experience doing theatre, so I wanted it to be as simple as possible.

So, my suggestion to you... take the directors schedule, and each night type out the schedule for the next day (or couple days if you prefer).   Make sure you are very specific and then post it to a website (or mass email it).   It is then their responsibility to read the email or check the website.  Its a little extra work for you up front, but it could save a whole bunch of individual phone calls and/or emails.

ps... I plug Google Sites because I already use gmail and its really easy to use.  However, anything similar could also work, I have even heard of other stage managers using Facebook to distribute schedules....

Good luck!

ThatSMGirl

  • Tourist
  • *
  • Posts: 2
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Current Gig: Air Guitar High and Esperanza Rising
  • Experience: High School
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #4 on: Aug 02, 2011, 10:57 pm »
I usually doublecheck all the calls with my director and then send a weekly e-mail to my cast. I send individual emails or sometimes will call a cast member for last minute changes.

nick_tochelli

  • Loved and Missed.
  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 448
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
    • Nick Tochelli's Blog: The Backstage Ballet
  • Affiliations: AEA, SMA
  • Current Gig: PM- Godlight Theatre Company/Inside Sales:Barbizon Lighting
  • Experience: Former SM
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #5 on: Aug 02, 2011, 11:25 pm »
I send nightly emails to my cast letting them know what the schedule is for the next day with specific call and release times. You may not be able to modify the schedule you currently passed out, but you can always supplement them with more details.

Talk with your director after each rehearsal to clarify the calls, and see if anything needs to change. Things always come up and things change. Once you have that conversation, email the next day's detailed schedule out to the cast.

BlueRidgeSM

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 53
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Experience: Community Theatre
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #6 on: Aug 03, 2011, 12:00 pm »
Thanks everyone for the replies.  Unfortunately, taking control of scheduling is not an option at this point.  Like I said, this director is highly organized and really prefers that he controls all of that.  He does send info to me and then I forward to the cast, so at least to the cast's perception it's coming from me.  But he creates it all.  I learned the hard way with Oliver last year when I started putting prop notes into rehearsal reports (ex: we will need a ladder for Who Will Buy) and he let me know that he had already created the props list for the entire show and sent it to the props crew already (and this was during the first week of rehearsal). 

I think what we will do is I will send out each week's schedule in advance to the cast via email and expand on his abbreviations to make it clearer for everyone who is called when/where.  Meeting up with him to go over the schedule is not really an option this point as I am still in rehearsal for another show and we start rehearsal for Guys and Dolls this Sunday.  I will probably send the expanded weekly schedule to him first for proofreading to make sure I've interpreted abbreviations correctly and then forward to the cast.

I am going to request a detailed scene/song breakdown - he's sent me a few documents that sort of answer this description but none of them are detailed enough for my purposes.  I haven't done G&D before and he is also known for adding little "bits" here and there (he did send out a huge long lyric reassignment that I need to incorporate into my script because our Nathan is singing and he likes to feature actors with solo lines that were originally chorus, etc) so going through the script to get lists of people in scenes won't really help me either. 

Thanks everyone!  :)

Maribeth

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1056
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Experience: Former SM
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #7 on: Aug 03, 2011, 12:17 pm »
I would suggest approaching him with this information "The cast is having difficulty understanding some of the abbreviations used on the schedule" and see what you two can brainstorm together to fix the problem. He may not be aware that it's an issue.

Like the previous posters, I would agree that the ideal scenario involves you sending out the schedule and making it legible to the cast. But, barring that, let him know that this issue exists and see if there is a compromise to be made- at the very least, sending you the schedule in an editable format so that you can clean it up. If he doesn't know that the cast is perpetually confused about the call, he wouldn't see the need to make a change.

Regarding what you mentioned about the props list- you need that information. If there's a prop list, you should have it. If he doesn't volunteer that information, ask for it. You need it to do your job.

BlueRidgeSM

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 53
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Experience: Community Theatre
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #8 on: Aug 05, 2011, 09:09 am »
I'm pretty sure he's aware that it's an issue, but he is thinking it is more an issue of actors being lazy and not reading the schedule at all and therefore just asking us when they are called.  We may have some actors like that, but the majority are having problems actually understanding the schedule.

I did send out the first week's schedule to everyone but sent it to him for proofreading first - which was a good idea, as he already had several (minor) changes to the schedule.  And he also sent me a "who's in what scene" breakdown, which is invaluable (again, not something I could have created myself from the script as he always adds little things here and there).  I also forwarded that to the cast and directed them to refer to the breakdown if they're unsure if they are in a certain scene or not.  And then after they've looked at the schedule and the breakdown they can call me if they still have questions.

The overall thing I've noticed when working with this particular director is that he spends so much time doing prep work for a show (literally months of work) that by the time we start rehearsal he knows the entire thing cold and sometimes has a disconnect that the rest of us haven't spent the last several months living with the script and so are not automatically on the same wavelength that he is.  I already feel a lot more organized and on top of things at this point than I did this time last year with Oliver though, so I think we are making progress.

Planning on double-checking rehearsal calls with him weekly and sending out weekly schedule emails to the cast.... yep, feeling much better about this show.   :)

Thanks everyone!

On_Headset

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 402
    • View Profile
  • Experience: College/Graduate
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #9 on: Aug 12, 2011, 01:10 am »
Quote
[...] he is thinking it is more an issue of actors being lazy and not reading the schedule at all and therefore just asking us when they are called.
With a cast of 40, you almost certainly have several company members who fit into that category, so this isn't really a problem you can readily solve without getting touchy-feely with actors, appealing to their innate professionalism, or cracking the whip. (Three approaches which are, sadly, likely to lead to mixed success in a community theatre setting.) I'm afraid that being a traffic cop just sort of comes with the territory when you work on shows at that scale. :-/

BlueRidgeSM

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 53
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Experience: Community Theatre
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #10 on: Aug 12, 2011, 09:44 am »
So I had my first major snafu because of this miscommunication re: the schedule.  The actor playing Big Jule had contacted me wanting to know when his first rehearsal was.  I told him he was called on Tuesday at 7:00 pm because we were learning the music for Sit Down, and it was an "all call" on the schedule put together by the director (and the director has told me repeatedly that "everyone" is in Sit Down except for Nathan and Adelaide).  So the actor playing Big Jule shows up, and we are doing the music for Sit Down in the lobby while the director blocks Nathan/Adelaide scenes onstage.  I am in the house taking blocking notes when the actor playing Big Jule comes in from the lobby and sits down in the house.  I go over to him and he says "I don't sing so I don't need to be here because they're just learning the music."  In an effort to not waste any more of his time, I go interrupt the director from his blocking rehearsal to clarify whether or not Big Jule is in Sit Down.  The director tells me that the actor is in the number, but confirms that "he does not sing" and therefore should not have been called.

I go back over to the actor and explain this to him.  He then requests that I go over the schedule with him and confirm his next rehearsal date.  We go back out into the lobby because my master schedule is out there, and I try to go over the schedule with him.  He takes an attitude with me, and then we are ejected from the lobby because we are talking and the music director says we are distracting her from music rehearsal.  To cut a long story short, the actor talks down to me condescendingly and basically says I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm talking about, and I need to check with the director again before I give him another rehearsal call and then he walks out of the building.

Ugh.   This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.  I explained it to the director after rehearsal, and he took full responsibility for not communicating to me that while Big Jule is in the number, he in fact does not sing and should never be called for a music rehearsal (even when the schedule says "all call").  The director emailed the actor the following day, apologized to him, explained that it was his fault for not telling me, and then extolled my virtues for a bit.  Which I do appreciate.  It was just frustrating to try once again to avoid something like this and have it bite me in the rear.  I have a hard enough time asserting my position (especially as I read as much younger than I am - I am in my 30's but often people think I am in college so 18-21 range, do not come off as "mean", and am not very physically imposing); I just really hate it when actors talk down to me and are condescending because I am "young" and "clueless".

Post Merge: Aug 12, 2011, 10:00 am
I would also like to point out re: the whole "reading young" thing that I often come to rehearsal dressed in my business casual clothing from my day job as I don't always have the time to change.  So I am wearing nice business dresses, or black slacks with blouses, business-y jewelry, heeled sandals, etc.  I have struggled with this issue a lot as a SM (and at my day job too!) of just being disregarded due to being "younger" and consciously try to dress myself in an "older" manner.  Sometimes I think my hair is too long and should be cut and maybe that would help me project "older" but I also think that long hair looks better on my frame.  I know this is a tanget, it's just something I've struggled with both as an SM and in my regular life and it's frustrating to once again have it all thrown in my face and an actor talk down to me because of perceived inexperience (which I often equate with reading young). 
« Last Edit: Aug 12, 2011, 10:00 am by BlueRidgeSM »

loebtmc

  • Forum Moderators
  • *****
  • Posts: 1574
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA, SAG, AFTRA, SMA
  • Current Gig: Caroling, caroling now we go — and looking for my next gig!
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #11 on: Aug 12, 2011, 11:41 am »
Part of the problem is that the director is, in fact, doing your job. Not sure what the solution is since he seems to be unable to relinquish doing it, but at the very least that sit-down over the calendar with him is vital - both for the initial calendar and for the nightly review of who is called the next day and for what, and while he may not get out of your way here, at the very least your reviewing specifically who is called for what at what time at the end of each rehearsal followed by a company email might alleviate some of this.

hbelden

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 412
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #12 on: Aug 13, 2011, 11:10 am »
I agree with loebtmc that you need to get the director to talk through the schedule with you in as much detail, in every call, as he used in creating it.  It also would be great to have him work through the scene/character breakdown with you so that you understand who's singing, dancing, talking, or just onstage at any given point.  This may not all be able to be accomplished in one sitting; maybe chunk it up to a week at a time? 

And it's important to go over the next day's call, because that's when the director's mind is most focused on what the work is going to be on that day; however, in community theatre, my experience has been that actors expect and require that the entire rehearsal calendar is laid out for them so they know when they have nights off and how late they'll be called when they are used.  Unlike professional actors, this cast doesn't want to give up dinner nights or company parties; they have more childcare issues, etc., and basically aren't expecting to clear their schedules for whenever there are rehearsal hours.  So the night before meeting would be just to catch the kind of misunderstandings that you mention here, with Big Jule; who would have been much less frustrated had he gotten a call the night before saying "actually, we don't need you for that music rehearsal.  I'll see you next time".

I think you've already done this, but remind the director that you are the person the actors ask questions of, so you need to understand his schedule as well as he does.  Don't give up until you do!  Patience and persistence are the way to go.
--
Heath Belden

"I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right." - Sondheim
--

loebtmc

  • Forum Moderators
  • *****
  • Posts: 1574
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA, SAG, AFTRA, SMA
  • Current Gig: Caroling, caroling now we go — and looking for my next gig!
  • Experience: Professional
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #13 on: Aug 13, 2011, 03:41 pm »
yes - cuz even in community theatre, where things are mapped out far in advance, there are little nightly shifts (you know, the "we don't actually need Big Jule tomorrow, can you let him know you have the night off"/"please check if Sarah can start an hour early tomorrow" kinda stuff).

and - break legs!

BlueRidgeSM

  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 53
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Experience: Community Theatre
Re: communicating who is called for a rehearsal
« Reply #14 on: Aug 15, 2011, 09:22 am »
Thanks everyone for their support.  I think right now the solution is for me to email out a weekly schedule that expands on the master schedule with all the abbreviations.  However, this also backfired on us yesterday because we were doing a dance rehearsal for the Havana number.  On the master schedule it says "TBA dancers".  I got the list of who is actually in the number from the choreographer earlier in the week, but sent it to the director for final approval before sending it out to everyone.  It didn't get out until Friday afternoon (combo of director taking a few days to get it back to me, plus I was busy at my day job and couldn't send it out until later in the day) and we had an actor who thought he had the weekend off (he is a "gambler") and who didn't check his email from Friday morning on and therefore did not know he was called for rehearsal. 

We do go over at the end of the night every night who is called for rehearsal the next day - however, this is more taking the form of we end rehearsal, and the director asks me to read the schedule for the next day out loud to everyone.  So it's not really him and me going over it (and perhaps saying "oh, you don't need to call so-and-so, please tell him he's not called") but me just reading the same schedule that has already been sent out several days ago.  I will see if I can find a way to get with him perhaps during a break and go over the next day's schedule so when I do read it out loud at the end of the night we are both positive that it is accurate.

 

riotous