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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Peter Pan

« on: Apr 19, 2008, 03:08 am »

My experience with Peter Pan was quite something, I can assure you that ! A catastrophic adventure ! and as SM I could only do the best as I could and as long as possible. Here is the recipe : inexperienced  people, starting from the  technical director, all the  stage people was having their first experience, including the other two SM of the show. No local production manager, the responsible for it was the PM that was passing the show  to us. The cast as you know, requires mostly young  people.  One place with very poor facilities for rehearsals being taken care by one SM. The other SM would take care of the few flying rehearsals happened on a different venue, performed by actors, not all of the ones supposed  to fly in the show, like the mermaids, and operators with no experience at all. I was assigned  to this production in the middle of the process, taken from another production to give it a hand. I was supposed to do the calling, which I never did. We got to the venue  one week before the opening and of course the director gave preference for flying rehearsals and the choreographer for finishing the choreography. One week before the opening and the show was very far from being ready. We SM and technicians  were given only 4 to 6 hours for just one single dry tech. So, three days after the director called everybody on stage and honestly, as he said himself, questioned everybody what was going on ! People started giving their opinion and 15 minutes after the discussion was very hot , they argued about the problems  with  the  flying  system or about the move of the panels  but they never reached a conclusion, eventually I told them the most important issue for me was lack of dry techs , we should postpone the opening one  week ahead. Nobody listened to me,  postponing was out of question. By that time I had spent  some time to inspect everything I could about the venue, about the scenery, about the flying system while we had to set up the back stage. The flying system I was  assured it was the best we could have. The scenery was old and some  parts of  the  panels broke during rehearsals. The floor was fixed with pins all over and as it was very old.  I noticed that, after the first rehearsal, the pins would come off  with the actors stepping on it. I felt very insecure about that and I went hammering the pins back after each break. But during the show this was not possible but during the interval. I was really afraid, because of  the children and because of the choreography. Everybody could be hurt.  Well I found myself concerned about so many issues that I told my producer I was not going to do the calling so worried I was was with safety. It proved  so right that very soon people started to call me  firefighter and I really fought a fire on a backstage dressing room  and during the show. Once more lack of attention and experience made that happen.    But the worst accident happened during the open rehearsal, one day before the opening, with the flying system ! In the first act, right after the second fly, two loads fell from  20/25 meters high, 30 kilos each, on stage  left. It was such a noise that everybody on back stage went  running off it ! The show was  stopped and we  found the two loads on the  floor inside a hole they made in the fall. Fortunately  there was  nobody hurt,  but the actors used to stay at the  place waiting to enter on stage.
During the first week of the show the bloody pins made their first victim. The youngest of the children had one of her feet pinned. She
screamed a lot, she was taken off stage and once more, thanks God there was nothing serious. So many problems, so many inexperienced people not accepting any authority  I had already decided I was not going to quit  only because of the children. Nobody seemed to be worried about ! Next show, first act Peter Pan doesn`t enter on stage after Wendy and the kids arrive  at the island. Panic !
I found the actor in his dressing room , taking care of his make up !  Believe it or not, it was a professional work by the most important company  we have. So, during the interval the producer called the 3 SM, he was hysterical and cried a lot. He wanted to know what stage manager was  responsible for Peter losing his cue. I knew he was doing this because the  director was pressing hard on him. He was looking for a scapegoat, somebody whom, and was not me, he was delaying to dismiss but that would be enough. But...It was enough for me too. He  cried with me a lot, ordered me not to dare looking at him him the way I was ( ? ! ) and eventually you may well imagine what happened...
You see, we start our job having to decide about things we are supposed to do, not knowing how we may end up !
That was Peter Pan for me. And I`d appreciate your comments about it.
It was more than two cents I  believe.