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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Am I Being Too demanding?
« on: Mar 22, 2015, 10:07 pm »
I've been stage managing locally for about five years now, and I have a day job (as a Technical Director at a college) that pays my real bills but other than about four months of the past five years I've been constantly working as an SM and have started to accrue Equity points. I give you this information to let you know where I am in my pursuit of stage management.
Last fall I had a show that began rehearsing in October and opened mid January of this year. The director is somewhat of a friend of mine and I felt really good going into it. We had a fairly large cast - 28 people and it was a musical so there were many elements that went into the production.
Rehearsals (although long and difficult) ultimately ran fine. We were more or less able to accomplish what was needed in the time given. From day one however I explained to the director that I needed more than 8 hours for tech since that was also supposed to include a 3 hour sitzprobe and the show itself was 2.5 hours. I knew this wouldn't be a reality, especially trying to run and balance 15 mics for the first time.
Sure enough, we didn't finish during the one day he had designated for tech, it took an additional two days of scheduled "runs" which left us with only two days before we opened and on opening night he had tv monitors installed and informed me we would also be running projections. It was a slightly more stressful than normal tech week. Then once the show opened he continued to give my board operators, and cast notes, call meetings, and essentially never gave me the show to run.
He's asked me to work with him again. In much the same scenario. It'll be a musical, but we'll only have a cast of 19. I've told him I'll have to think about it and send him a list of things that I need to know won't happen again if I agree to work this contract. My list is as follows, and what I need to know from you is if I'm being ridiculous/too demanding.
- Once we open you will not call cast meetings or be present at them.
- Once the show opens you don't give notes to actors. If something is wrong or off, I will give the note. If you're very concerned talk to me about it and I'll make sure they get the note.
- If you have a technical note, bring it to me or the designer, not my board op.
- Assuming we have a successful and smooth dry tech, give me at least another full day for wet tech. I'll likely need a 10 of 12 to accomplish what needs done.
- Once the show opens we don't add new elements.
- Once the show opens do not approach the tech booth during a show, I assure you if something is wrong I'm aware of it and trying to fix it. Your yelling isn't helping.
- You are absolutely welcome to attend every performance if you'd like. But you'll do it as a patron. Don't interrupt or try to control mic checks/dimmer checks/whatever it is I'm trying to do on stage.
Essentially I guess my issue is that I felt at no point did it become my show. Am I being ridiculous? Is this a reasonable list of requests? Have you ever worked with a director that didn't act as if he respected you and/or never backed off and just let you run your show? How did you handle it?
Last fall I had a show that began rehearsing in October and opened mid January of this year. The director is somewhat of a friend of mine and I felt really good going into it. We had a fairly large cast - 28 people and it was a musical so there were many elements that went into the production.
Rehearsals (although long and difficult) ultimately ran fine. We were more or less able to accomplish what was needed in the time given. From day one however I explained to the director that I needed more than 8 hours for tech since that was also supposed to include a 3 hour sitzprobe and the show itself was 2.5 hours. I knew this wouldn't be a reality, especially trying to run and balance 15 mics for the first time.
Sure enough, we didn't finish during the one day he had designated for tech, it took an additional two days of scheduled "runs" which left us with only two days before we opened and on opening night he had tv monitors installed and informed me we would also be running projections. It was a slightly more stressful than normal tech week. Then once the show opened he continued to give my board operators, and cast notes, call meetings, and essentially never gave me the show to run.
He's asked me to work with him again. In much the same scenario. It'll be a musical, but we'll only have a cast of 19. I've told him I'll have to think about it and send him a list of things that I need to know won't happen again if I agree to work this contract. My list is as follows, and what I need to know from you is if I'm being ridiculous/too demanding.
- Once we open you will not call cast meetings or be present at them.
- Once the show opens you don't give notes to actors. If something is wrong or off, I will give the note. If you're very concerned talk to me about it and I'll make sure they get the note.
- If you have a technical note, bring it to me or the designer, not my board op.
- Assuming we have a successful and smooth dry tech, give me at least another full day for wet tech. I'll likely need a 10 of 12 to accomplish what needs done.
- Once the show opens we don't add new elements.
- Once the show opens do not approach the tech booth during a show, I assure you if something is wrong I'm aware of it and trying to fix it. Your yelling isn't helping.
- You are absolutely welcome to attend every performance if you'd like. But you'll do it as a patron. Don't interrupt or try to control mic checks/dimmer checks/whatever it is I'm trying to do on stage.
Essentially I guess my issue is that I felt at no point did it become my show. Am I being ridiculous? Is this a reasonable list of requests? Have you ever worked with a director that didn't act as if he respected you and/or never backed off and just let you run your show? How did you handle it?