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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Assistant Directors vs. Stage Managers
« on: Jan 25, 2006, 04:03 am »
I worked on 2 shows with AD's. The first one, the AD did block & direct a few scenes from the show, which the director then had the final say as to whether something was staying that way or not. But mostly she was the Rehearsal Stage Manager. (I had not been hired until tech week. Yeah... talk about working my tail off to play catch up.)
The second show had a large cast and it was a musical. The director was actually going to be starring in the same show two states away about the same time that our show was going up, so he was occasionally not able to be at a rehearsal. The AD took over for the Director during those rehearsals. When the Director was there, the AD would pull cast members and run scenes with them in another room or he would give input to the Director when a particular scene wasn't working artistically.
I see the difference of the SM and AD positions being semantics, more or less (as far as the rehearsal process goes). If an actor has a question on blocking because they can't remember it or has trouble with remembering the wording of a line, they come to me. My job is to maintain what the Director's vision is up to that point. If they need more artistic direction (motivation, or a piece of blocking doesn't feel right to them and they want to see about changing it, for example), the actor needs to see either the AD or the Director.
Another way to explain it is that I, as an SM, give line / blocking notes. It's more tech oriented or maintaining the director's blocking or keeping to the playwrite's script. (ie. "You need to make sure to hit this mark in your blocking so that the special light cue that we have can be effective.") An AD might give actual acting notes. (ie. "You want to hit this mark during your speech because you want to get as far away / as close to the other person as you can because you hate / love him.")
But this is just how I have seen it. And I haven't SM'd a tour where I have to rehearse an understudy or a new cast member before, so it could be a different ball of wax all together then...
The second show had a large cast and it was a musical. The director was actually going to be starring in the same show two states away about the same time that our show was going up, so he was occasionally not able to be at a rehearsal. The AD took over for the Director during those rehearsals. When the Director was there, the AD would pull cast members and run scenes with them in another room or he would give input to the Director when a particular scene wasn't working artistically.
I see the difference of the SM and AD positions being semantics, more or less (as far as the rehearsal process goes). If an actor has a question on blocking because they can't remember it or has trouble with remembering the wording of a line, they come to me. My job is to maintain what the Director's vision is up to that point. If they need more artistic direction (motivation, or a piece of blocking doesn't feel right to them and they want to see about changing it, for example), the actor needs to see either the AD or the Director.
Another way to explain it is that I, as an SM, give line / blocking notes. It's more tech oriented or maintaining the director's blocking or keeping to the playwrite's script. (ie. "You need to make sure to hit this mark in your blocking so that the special light cue that we have can be effective.") An AD might give actual acting notes. (ie. "You want to hit this mark during your speech because you want to get as far away / as close to the other person as you can because you hate / love him.")
But this is just how I have seen it. And I haven't SM'd a tour where I have to rehearse an understudy or a new cast member before, so it could be a different ball of wax all together then...
