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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Drawing the line?
« on: Feb 03, 2008, 03:12 am »
Ok, so I haven't been terribly active lately as this show has been consuming my life (see the 'dropping cards' thread for a peek into that), and that's partly why I'm posting a new thread:
As a college SM, where can I draw the line with a director who is also my professor, especially if the show I'm SMing is the class he teaches?
It's been one nightmare after another this entire process. He is a very talented man who has done a lot of non-traditional theatre, and this was my first time SMing out of HS, and his first time EVER having a stage manager. This meant a few things: a) I didn't start out terribly organized. b) I wasn't sure what fell into my realm of duties, and what fell outside it and c) I was a first time SM working with what ended up being essentially a 1st time director, as he'd never really done this type of show before - at least not to my understanding.
Throughout the entire process, he communicated VERY little to me, other than to reprimand me for things that he mentioned once in passing but never made a firm decision on, but didn't get done because I didn't put them at the top of my priority list. Part of this show was that all the actors were building props for the majority of the rehearsal period, and we really didn't get to start *running* scenes (we'd crammed 2-3 hour blocking sessions in for a largely movement based show throughout the month-long class) until 4-5 rehearsals before 1st tech. This meant LITERALLY 15 hour days at the theatre for about 2 weeks straight, and a director who was changing lines and blocking without me or my lone ASM there because we were too busy getting props ready for the show and running errands that he sent us on. On one of our first chunk runthroughs for our LD (also the interim director of the theatre program whilst the normal one is on sabbatical) turns to me and says "David, I don't have that chunk in my script. What's going on?" and I respond "I have no idea. I don't know a thing about it either." This was a COMMON occurrence.
We're now in the midst of the run (we've had 1 matinee and 3 'standard' performances thusfar, 2 more matinees, 3 evening shows, and 2 days of filming left) but he is still pulling crap like telling my ASM (without first consulting me or the costume crew head) to give some random people a tour of our green room/backstage area shortly after the show ends and there's a flurry of activity - including 'naked' (i.e. costume undergarmets, half-street dress, etc.) actors and crazy props getting put away. He flew in a producer friend of his from the BBC in London to film the show sometime this week, but has told me NOTHING about how he intends to do it yet, despite me repeatedly prodding him.
All this is to say, I'm worried that since I haven't handled this as gracefully as some of the more experienced SMs at my school might have been able to, that it will reflect poorly on me, but I don't know where I can draw the line with this prof and say "NO." Every time I've discussed the fact that he's pulling actors out of their other classes for the matinees, EVERYONE is sick from exhaustion (in addition to performances/rehearsals for large portions of the day, we've resumed normal classes and homework loads), and people are getting burnt out to the point of hating the show and wanting it to be over, I always get "Well, I reserve the right to..." or "They knew what they were getting into..." (they didn't) or once, though half-joking (I hope) "I'm leaving next year anyways, so they can't fire me." (he's an interim prof here).
He expected me to do EVERYTHING, but told me NOTHING, and got frustrated when I didn't get things done because I hadn't had time since I was *ALWAYS* at the theatre working on some aspect of the show.
I guess more than anything, this has all been to vent to other SM's who can hopefully say "You're not alone" or "There's not much you can do about it, just ride it out" or "I know the feeling - here's what I'd do."
I've requested a meeting with our director of theatre to talk about it, so we'll see how that goes - but I was planning on asking him for a letter of recommendation for some local theatre scholarships, and I'm hoping I've done a good enough job to warrant it all things considered.
Thanks for hearing (reading?) me out...
As a college SM, where can I draw the line with a director who is also my professor, especially if the show I'm SMing is the class he teaches?
It's been one nightmare after another this entire process. He is a very talented man who has done a lot of non-traditional theatre, and this was my first time SMing out of HS, and his first time EVER having a stage manager. This meant a few things: a) I didn't start out terribly organized. b) I wasn't sure what fell into my realm of duties, and what fell outside it and c) I was a first time SM working with what ended up being essentially a 1st time director, as he'd never really done this type of show before - at least not to my understanding.
Throughout the entire process, he communicated VERY little to me, other than to reprimand me for things that he mentioned once in passing but never made a firm decision on, but didn't get done because I didn't put them at the top of my priority list. Part of this show was that all the actors were building props for the majority of the rehearsal period, and we really didn't get to start *running* scenes (we'd crammed 2-3 hour blocking sessions in for a largely movement based show throughout the month-long class) until 4-5 rehearsals before 1st tech. This meant LITERALLY 15 hour days at the theatre for about 2 weeks straight, and a director who was changing lines and blocking without me or my lone ASM there because we were too busy getting props ready for the show and running errands that he sent us on. On one of our first chunk runthroughs for our LD (also the interim director of the theatre program whilst the normal one is on sabbatical) turns to me and says "David, I don't have that chunk in my script. What's going on?" and I respond "I have no idea. I don't know a thing about it either." This was a COMMON occurrence.
We're now in the midst of the run (we've had 1 matinee and 3 'standard' performances thusfar, 2 more matinees, 3 evening shows, and 2 days of filming left) but he is still pulling crap like telling my ASM (without first consulting me or the costume crew head) to give some random people a tour of our green room/backstage area shortly after the show ends and there's a flurry of activity - including 'naked' (i.e. costume undergarmets, half-street dress, etc.) actors and crazy props getting put away. He flew in a producer friend of his from the BBC in London to film the show sometime this week, but has told me NOTHING about how he intends to do it yet, despite me repeatedly prodding him.
All this is to say, I'm worried that since I haven't handled this as gracefully as some of the more experienced SMs at my school might have been able to, that it will reflect poorly on me, but I don't know where I can draw the line with this prof and say "NO." Every time I've discussed the fact that he's pulling actors out of their other classes for the matinees, EVERYONE is sick from exhaustion (in addition to performances/rehearsals for large portions of the day, we've resumed normal classes and homework loads), and people are getting burnt out to the point of hating the show and wanting it to be over, I always get "Well, I reserve the right to..." or "They knew what they were getting into..." (they didn't) or once, though half-joking (I hope) "I'm leaving next year anyways, so they can't fire me." (he's an interim prof here).
He expected me to do EVERYTHING, but told me NOTHING, and got frustrated when I didn't get things done because I hadn't had time since I was *ALWAYS* at the theatre working on some aspect of the show.
I guess more than anything, this has all been to vent to other SM's who can hopefully say "You're not alone" or "There's not much you can do about it, just ride it out" or "I know the feeling - here's what I'd do."
I've requested a meeting with our director of theatre to talk about it, so we'll see how that goes - but I was planning on asking him for a letter of recommendation for some local theatre scholarships, and I'm hoping I've done a good enough job to warrant it all things considered.
Thanks for hearing (reading?) me out...