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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / MORALE: SM Olympics?

« on: Aug 28, 2007, 04:54 pm »

My theatre company has been having a hard time lately finding qualified stage managers who are also available. I'm stage managing some shows, but my schedule is so tight that I can't do all of them. At a meeting last night, we were talking about an upcoming playwright competition and somehow got on the subject of hosting a competetive (non equity) stage manager event - something fun, but with the objective of showing appreciation for the difficulty of the field, as well as building our own database of area SMs.. I'd be curious to get feedback on the idea.

I'm thinking it would be valuable to get multiple theatre companies involved in planning the event, as it would potentially be a good opportunity for SMs to get their resumes out there. We could serve snacks, have some booths set up, Olympic events, and wrap up with some kind of award ceremony?

SM Olympic Events:

• Scheduling Competition: contestants get 10 actor conflict sheets and have ten minutes to produce a workable rehearsal schedule
• Diplomacy Competition: two actors have a personality conflict and SMs have five minutes to de-escalate the issue
• Malfunctioning Set-piece Competition: a set piece breaks down and contestants have five minutes to come up with a quick repair solution
• Other ideas?

What do you think? Would it be worthwhile to pursue this idea? If it were in your area, would you participate?

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Is this normal?

« on: May 25, 2007, 02:42 am »

I learned stage management from a book (well, actually three books that are on their second round of last renewals from the library). I've never really seen a real stage manager in operation and I have no clue if what I'm experiencing is just a typical SM day or if it's just me. I studied anthropology in school and somehow, through a series of fortunate and unusual events, ended up becoming a company member of a small and rather poor theatre where almost everyone is volunteering their time and efforts and even space.

I'm motivated to get the show done and to get it done right, but often find myself completely turned around and missing details left and right. It's driving me nuts. Actors consistently come up with schedule changes - "I can't be here next Thursday because..." and then two days later, they'll say they can make it after all. The director (whom I like very much) adds prop pieces and later changes her mind about them during rehearsals or sometimes she does this on her own and forgets to tell me. The props people bring the right props in, but half of them break or malfunction so that I need to fix them in order to have them ready for the following day (instead of waiting another week). The costumer is telling me he can't find stuff on the budget we've given him with the demands that the director has. Our technical director is vague about a lot of the things I need to know about - like, when the stage will be completed (it's being built from scratch) and when the lighting bars will be hung and whether or not we'll be able to borrow certain equipment by a certain date. We're broke and can't afford to reimburse people until after the show closes and I've been given the "we can't spend money on anything else, but be discreet about it" command. The production staff is showing up an hour early to meetings because for some reason they're not comfortable bringing stuff up in the actual meeting & they want private time with me because (I'm guessing) they want me to ok decisions that they think the director will not approve of. And.. people are not even close to hitting anticipated deadlines.. I give them one date. They'll agree. Then (whether I send reminders or not) they'll show up three days after the deadline with a draft of what they think the finished product will look like..

I don't necessarily mind all of this. I mean, I enjoy the challenge and being at the center of all this creative energy. I'm working with a lot of great people and it's a terrific play. But, there's a nagging voice in my head that's telling me I could be doing something better. I'm literally spending almost every waking moment on the play & have reduced my 'regular job' work hours & am putting some of my own money into it, just so that we can keep moving forward. I'm repairing things and sewing and hanging lightbars and doing minor build stuff and running lines and coordinating and taking blocking notations and scheduling and gearing up towards tech week (next week) and still...I often feel like I have no idea what is going on around me. My mind is like a sieve. Wrapping my brain around a nine actor scene shift seems slightly beyond my grasp most of the time. I'm on book most of the time & am finding it super difficult to track what's going on onstage while I'm feeding lines to people.

So...the question is: Is it just me or is this what it's like for all SMs? And..does the process eventually start to make sense with experience, or is it wildly dependent on circumstances?

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PEOPLE: The blind leading the blind (delegating)

« on: Mar 10, 2007, 06:17 pm »

I'm stage managing a show this spring for a small theatre company and will be working for the first time with an ASM. She's a high school student (the founder and president of her drama club) and this is a chance for her to learn the ropes in a working theatre and for me to get a little help.  

I'm relatively new to stage managing myself and have a tendency to be a little bit of a control freak anyways... I want to make sure that I'm delegating enough responsibility to make having an asm worthwhile, but not so much that she won't be able to deal with it or something falls through the cracks.

How I define asm responsibilities is pretty much up to me ... any suggestions on this would be MUCH appreciated!