I am involved in my college's lyric opera theatre. We are pushed away from the theatre staff and underfunded and overworked. I am a student and have stage managed all their shows.
My ASM has been a big help, until tech week. He runs around backstage like a maniac and instead of getting my keys we scaled the cage to get to the fly rail. While scaling the cage, he accidently kicked an actor iin the head. He sprints backstage and won't accept help from the wardrobe crew.
The headsets are always on, they aren't the best kind. Whenever he puts it on, it sounds like he is banging it against a brick wall. The show is filled with light cues, I can barely breathe during it. It's 2-hours long and I have 200 cues. The first run-thru, he gets on headset and totally throws me off the show because the noise is deafening. When the spot ops and light board operators told him to be careful, he started cursing at the spot op. I told him to get off the headset and not get on again.
He doesn't let me know what is going on backstage. During intermission, he takes me aside and complains how he doesn't get enough respect from me. In my eyes, he doesn't deserve the respect. I am embarassed to be associated with him, the entire tech staff is sick of him. Then he proceeds to tell me that he has more experience than me and the lighting director never speaks to an ASM during the show.
It is to late to hire someone new, even though that is what I want to do. I have been thinking about this all day and I don't know what to do. I am meeting with the entire crew and trying to give him, some help backstage. I think the actors should do more work, but since he is an actor, he refuses to ask them to help. I am fed up with all the drama he is causing.
Does this happen in the proffessional world? What should I have done and what should I do now?