First time taping solo

[SureIllSM]

I graduated in May with my BA in theatre. I want to direct. Someday.

Now, I have found myself hired by two different companies. An ASM that has been going quite well. And now an SM gig.

I think everything will work out fine.. I SMd in college.

We had our first read-through tonight. The director and owner of the company asked me things like "How do I SM? What do I see my role to be?" etc. I basically made it up. And they bought it.

So, overall, I think things will go all right. Except one thing: taping.

The only experience I have with this is when I helped the SM tape for the show I'm ASMing. I'm dreading it. And I'm afraid I am going to some how mess it up. Any advice?

And really any other advice in general would be VERY helpful. Like I said, I SMd in college. But, sort of unexpectedly, I have wound up SMing in a professional theatre. So. It's all a little intimidating.

Thanks!

[Maribeth]

There are a couple of ways to tape out, but one of the more common ones is "plotting points". It's described pretty thoroughly in this thread: http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,3558.msg21645.html#msg21645 .

I like to (if possible) measure out the points ahead of time- it makes taping go a lot quicker. Things that help- an extra-long tape measure to run along the centerline upstage/downstage, and another tape to run SR and SL from center. A scale rule to measure out the groundplan. Kneepads, scissors, a triangle, chalk and a piece of string (for taping circles) can all be useful.

Find out the dimensions of your rehearsal space. If you don't think the set will fit in the rehearsal room, you can make a template of your rehearsal space with a piece of paper or cardboard. Measure out the room, draw it on your template in scale, cut out the shape of the room, and then you have a template that you can overlay onto the groundplan and manipulate the template so that you can see what the best layout is for your space.  (I've also seen this done with a piece of plexiglass, with the shape of the room drawn on in sharpie- genius! You can do both a half-inch and quarter-inch template on the same sheet.)

Good luck! If you have any specific questions about taping, post them. The best advice I can think of is to look at the groundplan ahead of time, and make sure that you fully understand it, so that you don't get to the rehearsal room to tape, and realize that you still have questions for the TD about the set.

[babens]

Good luck! If you have any specific questions about taping, post them. The best advice I can think of is to look at the groundplan ahead of time, and make sure that you fully understand it, so that you don't get to the rehearsal room to tape, and realize that you still have questions for the TD about the set.

Side note, gotta love when you are renting a set and nobody knows for sure what something means on a ground plan, or how it will look in real life. Many years ago I did a production of Magic Flute, using the old Sendak set, originally built by Houston Grand but owned by Florida Grand at the time (and sadly I've heard through the rumor mill that it has since been trashed completely, hope that isn't true). Anyway, we were the first company to have rented it in quite some time and nobody on their staff had been around the last time it was used, so there were a lot of questions that didn't get answered until it arrived and was loaded in.

[SMrose]

On one of my early profession SM gigs, I asked the TD if he'd mind assisting me in taping out the set.  I was honest with him and let him know that I didn't have a whole lot of experience in that area.   

[nick_tochelli]

On one of my early profession SM gigs, I asked the TD if he'd mind assisting me in taping out the set.  I was honest with him and let him know that I didn't have a whole lot of experience in that area.

I once asked in college and the TD, Designer, my staff supervisor all decided to not help me. It was an amazingly fun time. And the floor was never taped right....ever. This forced me to take an intro to tech prod class when I was a super-senior. I gots to hang out with the freshmen, but I finally learned how to read and scale a ground plan.

But to the topic at hand: I'd assume you've already been told you are allowed to tape wherever you are rehearsing. There are many rehearsal studios you'll encounter that forbid you to tape out anything because of the amount of traffic in and out of studio spaces. It may be a moot point if you can't tape at all.

While precision and accuracy are always nice, don't be too concerned if your set doesn't fit perfectly in the space. I've found in general, you can scale your set down about 3-4 feet without anyone being able to tell the difference when they are in the space with the actual set. Don't hide the fact that you've done it, but if you're a few feet off and you shrink things, no one will be able to tell the difference...having wings tends to make people think they have more space.

Beyond that: Maribeth nailed it.