Author Topic: Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book  (Read 3520 times)

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Tempest

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Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book
« on: Feb 15, 2010, 01:08 pm »
My parents, after hemming and hawing whilst I was in high school about my choice of careers, have finally accepted that, yes, this is what I'm doing with my life.  A dozen years later, they're showing their support in what ways they can; for Christmas this year, they got me The Stage Management Handbook by Daniel A. Ionazzi.  I'm just now reading it.  There's some good examples of forms in there, though I'm finding the rest of it a little simplsitic for where I am in my career (I really don't need a reminder as to what goes in a prompt script, or what "plaster line" means).  I just ran across the two most helpful sentences for the rehearsal part of the job. 
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You will perform your job better if you understand that you are managing change.  You must learn to love chaos.
This is something that I know I have a problem with, and try to be conscious of it, and conquer it more, every show.  I've just never seen it in such simple, eloquent terms, before.
So, regardless of what you thought of the rest of the book, what's the best, quick standalone advice you've gotten from a SM book, or any book, for that matter.
Jessica: "Of course I have a metric size 4 dinglehopper in my kit!  Who do you think I am?"

NomieRae

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Re: Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book
« Reply #1 on: Feb 16, 2010, 12:18 pm »
"Nothing is more ridiculous than two grown men [sic] getting upset over a play"

Reminds me that what we are doing is supposed to be enjoyable and is usually something we choose to do rather than it being thrust upon us, and in the chaos sometimes that idea can fly out the window.
--Naomi
"First, I honor life, and with it my life in theatre." -- Jacques Burdick

loebtmc

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Re: Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book
« Reply #2 on: Feb 16, 2010, 01:05 pm »
Charles Nelson Reilly "It's only a little show.."

and others "it's not brain surgery"

missliz

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Re: Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book
« Reply #3 on: Feb 16, 2010, 03:46 pm »
tempest_gypsy, I have that book too!

I love David Mamet's books on theater and film...this quote from Three Uses of the Knife I like because it's about making mistakes:

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We live in an extraordinarily debauched, savage world, where things don't really come out even. The purpose of [theater] is to remind us of that.

There was also a sign in the shop at a theater I worked in:

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Remember: our best work and our worst both end up in the dumpster in the end.
I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least. -Ionesco

crazychicksj

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Re: Best bit of advice from a Stage Managment book
« Reply #4 on: Mar 03, 2010, 02:31 am »
I have both Ionazzi and Stern, but I'm pretty sure this wasn't printed in either book. I think I wrote it in the margins of one; “Perhaps, therefore, ideal stage managers not only need to be calm and meticulous professionals who know their craft, but masochists who feel pride in rising above impossible odds.” I think Peter Hall said it.