Messages

1

College and Graduate Studies / Re: SM schools in Canada???

« on: Sep 30, 2008, 02:07 pm »

From what I understand of UofV you sort of do your first two years in general theatre, and only in your third year do you begin to specialize.  So you'd take two years of acting, theatre history and general tech theatre before doing actual stage managing.

Really?  I havn't looked at the UofA requirements, Selena, our recruitment officer would probably have a lot more information.  A lot of people seem to be transferring in after having taken their first year pre-reqs somewhere else.  In fact, my ASM at the moment transferred from Ottawa.

2

College and Graduate Studies / Re: SM schools in Canada???

« on: Sep 24, 2008, 02:26 am »

UofA is listed as a stream under technical theatre.  So the breakdown goes Arts-Drama-Fine Arts-Technical Theatre-Stage Management

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College and Graduate Studies / Re: SM schools in Canada???

« on: Sep 11, 2008, 12:54 am »

Goldbird has some good questions in that post.

If you want to talk schools in Western Canada, I'd be happy to talk about it, having just finished my undergrad at the University of Alberta in Stage Management myself.

4

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Stage Guns in Canada - where to find information?

« on: Mar 31, 2008, 03:24 pm »

All I know is that a firearms license is required by at least one of the crew or the stage manager themselves.  They come in both restricted and non-restricted firearms.  Any local firing range will probably be able to get you the licensing you need to own, control and safely see to firearms.  As far as firearm effects in canada, to build blanks you'll need to talk to a pyrotechnician company.  I only know of one off the top of my head in Alberta.

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Rules on Cans

« on: Mar 29, 2008, 04:24 pm »

Just to throw my two cents in,

The standby is a major rule, and make sure you establish it early.  There's nothing worse than trying to call complicated sequences when people are yattering.

I always refer to sections of script where idle chatter is allowed as downtime, so I'll actually announce "thanks everyone, good sequence, we're in downtime again", and then they know it's alright to talk.

Call ons and offheadsets, not the immediate second you put it on though, try and listen in case we're in a standby or a calling sequence.

Establish a standby order, and make people hold to it.  Mine is generally LX, Sound, Video, Mics, Flies, Trucks, Traps, Actor cues.  So make sure people hold to it, it makes it much easier to isolate out if a particular element is missing.

Don't chew gum, eat or drink into a headset.

Train your crew to acknowledge a headset check, followed by a volume check, and once that's checked and everyone is properly audible they will ideally not have to fiddle with their headsets.

Don't let anyone say anything that they'd be ashamed to say out loud, it's a pretty good general rule, because ultimately you're one of the ones responsible for what is allowed to be said on headset, if your tech team starts badmouthing actors, directors or anyone else and someone hears, someone's going to point the finger at the SM for why didn't they stop it.

Don't ever drop a headset or let it clatter, mic on or off.  We have wireless packs that are becoming damaged because people don't secure them to their belts properly, their range has dropped by almost a third from when we first got them.

Hope that helps.

6

College and Graduate Studies / Re: Universities in Canada

« on: Jan 31, 2008, 12:30 pm »

UofA is one of the best, there's also McGill in Montreal that is amazing, and both University of Victoria and University of British Columbia in Vancouver which have good theatre programs.

UofA is the only one in the country that offers a specialized stage management degree however.

7

College and Graduate Studies / Re: U of Alberta

« on: Jan 10, 2008, 04:03 am »

I'm a current 4th year at the UofA and in fact am working on my thesis tonight as we speak!

The environment is conservatory based, you are expected to stage manage a number of shows at every level of your development, culminating in both sming and asming in our Timms Center, which is a category C spirit of equity stage with the senior acting company.  We do recieve one credit from the CAEA, and there is also a placement for all 4th years with Edmonton Opera which will grant you a second credit if you choose to apprentice with them.

I can talk all day but it might get boring, send me a message if you have any specific questions.  But to sum up, I wouldn't trade the last 4 years of my experiences with this degree for anything!

8

College and Graduate Studies / Re: BA/BFA

« on: Dec 09, 2007, 11:53 am »

It will always depend on the college or university.

Up here at UofA, a BA is a general drama degree, and there are general arts requirements as a portion of your degree, drama credits can only be used towards a total of 40 credits for your degree/

BFA (stage management which I'm about to graduate from) is a specialization course, run like a classical institution, they pretty much tell me where and when I need to be, and if the situation warrants it, how high I need to jump too.

9

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Stage Management: A Nutshell in 3 minutes.

« on: Sep 10, 2007, 09:41 pm »

Sorry about the lateness of the reply.

The speech went well!  Short, concise and had pretty much my entire department rolling on the floor laughing.  A number of people also came up to me after and introduced themselves, which led to quite a few discussions!  All in all a success.  Thanks for the input everyone!

Oh and the kicker at the end of the speech?

"If this university was hogwarts, we would be the magic."

10

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Stage Management: A Nutshell in 3 minutes.

« on: Sep 06, 2007, 10:23 am »

Yeah I'm a 4th year here and a "senior stage manager" now.  Which actually just means I'm going to be out and looking for a job come this time next year.  Some of my peers want me to go up there with a mug of coffee though, dump it and just say "Stage managers don't make coffee, remember it."  (It's a sore point in our program).

The problem with most of my fun stories is that they're at someone's expense, generally someone who I've worked with who may or may not be in the audience at that moment.  Ahhh the life to see it all...

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Stage Management: A Nutshell in 3 minutes.

« on: Sep 06, 2007, 01:47 am »

Alright, it's orientation day for us University of Alberta drama kids on friday, and I've been asked to do a short presentation on stage management and what it is and how we do it.  The problem is, I really don't know where to begin.  It's a hard question I think, to summarize what we do.  The audience is comprised of all theatre and film folk, so they are familiar with the fact that we are necessary, and often vital to a production, but I think the majority of them don't really know what we contribute beyond the cursory "paperwork, calling a show, wearing black and knowing first aid", but there's so much more to it, am I right?

I was wondering what people thought on this, and as a topper, I also need to be funny.  Anyone know good stage management jokes?

Thanks everyone!

12

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Drinks, Teas...

« on: Nov 01, 2006, 11:15 am »

just wanted to a raise a quick point.  We made tea to simulate brandy on stage for our show this summer.  While at the beginning we had been sweetening it with brandy, a major problem that came up was our actors were swigging the stuff like no tomorrow because I'd made it taste so good.  Well in high british society one doesn't usually go through four or five tumblers of brandy in a half hour, unfortunately.  So the director requested I make it taste awful so they wouldn't go through it so fast.  I mean yeah, we make things easier on the actors but what they have to sip is such a tiny detail, remind them their acting?

13

The Green Room / Re: Snacks

« on: Oct 11, 2006, 08:05 pm »

a nice bowl of chocolate or yogurt covered pretzels are the current choice of my cast, although they're sort of hard to get at.  We've taken to a tub of jubejube like candies because our LXD likes them so much, other than that, we maintain no messy or wet foods whenever possible.  Once in a while though something slips under the radar (one reason I don't really recommend popcorn, one falls on the floor and someone steps on it...=*sigh*)

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SMNetwork Archives / Re: Drinking Games

« on: Oct 08, 2006, 02:30 pm »

We have a headset beer game.  Basically anytime anyone makes a mistake, because we usually swear immediately someone calls BEER on headset, and the person who swore owes that person a beer.  Generally the game evens itself out over a week long run and people are only up two or three beers at most, but once, with a particularly potty mouthed lx op, he ran up a tab with at least a sixpack with every other person on headset.

Come closing night party, hilarity ensued.