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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / POLICIES: Standard policies for a SM's authority?
« on: Feb 11, 2012, 10:13 am »
I'm a castoff from Controlbooth here. I work most community theater in addition to teaching and working as an auditorium manager at various schools. There are a few things that I/we always take as law written in stone, but I don't know if they are actually found in any professional documents. I've been reading through AEA's standards, but haven't really found what I'm looking for.
For example, it's certainly bad practice for a technician to argue with an SM during a show/cue, and at the local level might cost them their job, but is there anything in the union or otherwise that outlines a stage manager's power?
What about directors/producers who forget the stage manager has authority once a show begins? Particularly in community theater I can think of several directors who have a habit of finding a backstage headset (one would bring his own and plug in) and calling cues or overriding the SM during a show. It's obviously bad practice and wouldn't be tolerated professionally, but is there any larger governing document that says so? Directors and Producers are often higher up the food chain and outrank a Stage Manager, so what limits their power?
I'm not asking with anything particular in mind. I just realized recently I keep teaching these rules because that's what I was taught, and I'm not actually sure where they come from. I would love to find anything official to show my students.
For example, it's certainly bad practice for a technician to argue with an SM during a show/cue, and at the local level might cost them their job, but is there anything in the union or otherwise that outlines a stage manager's power?
What about directors/producers who forget the stage manager has authority once a show begins? Particularly in community theater I can think of several directors who have a habit of finding a backstage headset (one would bring his own and plug in) and calling cues or overriding the SM during a show. It's obviously bad practice and wouldn't be tolerated professionally, but is there any larger governing document that says so? Directors and Producers are often higher up the food chain and outrank a Stage Manager, so what limits their power?
I'm not asking with anything particular in mind. I just realized recently I keep teaching these rules because that's what I was taught, and I'm not actually sure where they come from. I would love to find anything official to show my students.