Messages

1

Employment / Re: Do circuses have Stage Managers?

« on: Sep 19, 2006, 10:33 am »

Interesting topic. Ironically, I have worked for both Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and currently with Cirque du Soleil. (I am currently a SM with Cirque.) Both companies do have stage managers but with RBBBC you will see it listed as Production Manager and Associate Production Manager. These positions do the 'stage managing' per say but during the show they will call curtain cues mainly and wonder a lot about what might be going wrong on the floor. The board ops (lx and sound) do their own cues. With Ringling the PM and APM deal with contracts, disputes, local publicity, show notes, artist interviews and, the biggie, the animal walk that happens in each city.

With Cirque it is handling a lot of the backstage areas, calling the show, show reports, dealing with the tour publicist, assisting in getting the weekly rehearsal schedule ready, etc. There will possibly be 3 positions on tour being the General Stage Manager, Backstage Manager and Junior Backstage Manager.

Both companies are a lot of fun to work for but like every other company, they have their ups and downs.

If you have further questions, please ask.

2

Employment / Re: So...I want to go on tour

« on: Jul 22, 2006, 06:17 pm »

Hey there. New to the site. What do they say, "First time caller, long time listener." Anyway...

There are other options out there than your bus and truck tours. Take my company for example Cirque du Soleil. We will set up shop in a city for months at a time. The shortest that i have been in a city with Cirque was 6 weeks. You actually get to see the city, surroundings, sites instead of just the theatre and your bunk (socks not included).We employ General Stage Managers, Backstage Managers and Junior Backstage Managers on our tours (well the Junior not so much on all). The benefit is, that i can see from your posts, is that you like to work with children. Currently on my tour out of 60 performers we have quite a few children. All of them artists. They are a blast to work with and keep you guessing. A lot of our tours have children on them and they work, go to school and act like normal kids but honestly sometimes they are more professional than some of those that have been in the industry for decades.

Just some food for thought. Keep an eye out on www.cirquedusoleil.com and at the bottom of the page you will see something that says "Working for Cirque". Click there.

Good luck in all that you do.

Alfie