Employee-Handbook Required Preshow Calls (and more)

[MatthewShiner]

I understand all THE reasons for the calls, but dictate them seems weird and a little hand holding.

I would rather be told the show needs to start on time, and make me make that happen.

[RuthNY]

I am very curious as to what you mean by this, Kay. Can you quote a rule book that requires such calls, with a monetary penalty paid by the theatre, if the calls are not made? Or, how do you see OT coming into play, if the SM does not call 10 and 3?

Not trying to be ornery.  Really asking!

Regarding the call times, there's a few reasons I can think of why a 10 and 3 would be required.
<snip>
- Theatre has had to pay overtime before due to a prior SM who didn't make thorough calls.

.[/b] It couldn't hurt to reach out to a prior SM for this venue to see how they dealt with that particular rule.

[PSMKay]

The scenario I had in mind was a long show where other unions with minimum call times come into play.

Suppose you've got a house with no crossover, or the crossover requires lengthy travel, outdoor travel, etc. Not uncommon. Anyone starting SL has to be at places by 5 minutes, while anyone starting SR can head out at 3m, since they can only cross when the main rag is in.

Now, suppose this messed up house decides to do a show that's say, 3h and 30 minutes if everything goes according to schedule. You've got stagehands and/or orchestra on a 3.5 hour minimum call, and after that the entire crew & orch get paid by the hour. A lag on start time could get very pricy for the theatre at that point.

See this IATSE agreement (warning: large PDF), top of page 6 for an example of such an agreement.

While I don't deny that there are problems higher up on the food chain if they're running that close to the minimum call limit, it isn't totally farfetched for me to see a company blaming the stage manager for the extra cost instead of fixing the real problem of excessive risk-taking.