Topics

1

Tools of the Trade / Spike marks on peat/bark floor?

« on: May 20, 2011, 07:54 am »

Any suggestions for how to mark positions of furniture on a floor which is 15cm deep in loose peat moss and bark?  The only thing I can think of is to go up to the grid and take a photograph from above and just eyeball it.

2

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / COMMUNICATION: Tannoy etiquette?

« on: Feb 16, 2010, 11:35 am »

OK, so I was always taught when paging actors over the tannoy, you call ladies first and in alphabetical order.  

If you then throw children into the mix, where do they go?

Edited to include label in subject line-Rebbe

3

Tools of the Trade / Herbal cigars?

« on: Jan 07, 2009, 10:08 am »

In Ireland, we have a ban on the smoking of tobacco in the workplace.  As the theatre is a workplace (apparently!), we cannot use tobacco products onstage anymore.  Cigarettes are no problem, because we can get herbal ones in the health food shops, but I'm now working on a play which requires the actors to smoke cigars. 

I went to www.herbalcigar.com, but my designer didn't like them because they weren't big enough.

Does anyone have any brilliant ideas?!?

4

The Hardline / Using glass onstage

« on: Jun 09, 2008, 12:03 pm »

I am working on a prop-tastic show at the moment, which uses tons of assorted drinking glasses: wine glasses, brandy snifters, champagne flutes, etc. I HATE having glass on stage, and always try to use acrylic substitutes, but have always relied on common sense if I can't find acceptable acrylics, going on the thinking that actors use glass in their own homes and in restaurants...

Now I'm being told that health and safety legislation requires all glassware used on stage to be covered with clear Contact paper/sticky-backed plastic. This has to be reapplied for every performance.

Has anyone else come across this?

5

Employment / Thinking of leaving the industry...

« on: Jun 04, 2008, 10:07 am »

I am seriously thinking about leaving the industry. The problem is I have no other job experience, other than working in a bookshop when I was a teenager and I'm now 33...

We all know that our practical experience and skills  must be transferrable to a non-entertainment career, but how does one convince a prospective employer of the fact that, really, all people-management jobs are essentially the same?

6

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PROPS: Raw chicken on stage?!?!?

« on: Jun 02, 2007, 10:31 am »

I am working with a director who, on opening night, has decided that he wants the 22 year-old soprano, who has previously been chopping the ends off cabbages, to dismember six raw chickens on stage!!!

Surely this is a health and safety risk?  There is nowhere in the venue for her to wash her hands, and the surface upon which she is to do the dismembering later in the same scene has a prop doe (covered in fun fur) laid on it, i.e. in the puddle of raw chicken juice.  It will be impossible for us to clean the doe.

Can anyone point me at some sort of legislation which would allow us to revert to the much more hygenic cabbage option?