Messages

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: Help, I'm being sabotaged!

« on: Apr 27, 2010, 02:14 am »

With regards to Tynumber5, I'm not sure I agree with your methods.  Your actions, as you described them, resulted in your designer quitting the show, presumably within three days of tech.  I'd cringe to think of what must have happened to that poor choreographer's piece after their LD left the show.  Our job, as I've always had it explained to me, is to say "Sure, I'll take care of that," and to just figure it out and take care of it later no matter how ridiculous it is.  There are plenty of Designerzillas in the world, and I figure that if I'm going to continue to be employed by the same venue, I'm going to have to figure out how to work with them and not around them.  I've ticked off the wrong people too many times before not to.

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: When to take the blame

« on: Apr 27, 2010, 01:54 am »

All the textbooks and all the mentoring I've ever had have explained to me that fault and blame always always always lie with the stage manager.  I feel like this is one of the major reasons that people leave the profession.  It is very difficult to continually accept blame for unavoidable mistakes and keep your job at the same time.  Later, when you're out of earshot of the director, you can speak with your ASM and find out exactly where the miscommunication happened.  I'll tell you what though, if it were me, that ASM would be done giving me clears for the rest of the run!

3

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: TD Unconcerned with Safety

« on: Apr 27, 2010, 01:48 am »

We occasionally have problems with this as well.  Sometimes, I feel like this whole job is about walking the line between right and wrong.  I have found success with fixing glaring safety issues by speaking directly to the laborers, i.e. "Hey man, have you seen that huge divot in the stage?  Lemme grab you a drill and a hammer real quick and maybe we can knock it out quick."  It isn't really the bureaucratic thing to do, and if the TD finds out that you put the carpenter up to it, well...But we all sometimes need to do risky things for the good of the show, or for the good of others.  It runs with the territory, I feel.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Stage Manager as Disciplinarian

« on: Apr 26, 2010, 02:41 pm »

I'd like to start a discussion on what kinds of things we as stage managers can do as disciplinarians.  Many of us cannot hire and cannot fire.  In the academic world, none of that hangs over the heads of your laborers.