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Students and Novice Stage Managers / How to help actors be word-specific in line notes?
« on: Oct 20, 2019, 03:17 pm »
I am currently working as an ASM for my college's fall production. We are taking line notes, as we have been off-book for about a month. For the most part, we are not having too much trouble. However, some actors struggle with word order and specificity on very specific lines.
For example, one actor's lines utilize simile, but she has consistently spoken the words out of order, so the lines don't make sense. This note has been included in her line notes for weeks. The other ASMs and I have gone so far as to indicate that this is a repeated error, but she has not taken time to fix the line.
I'd like to ask her in-person about the line, as it may be effective, but I don't know what to do. As an ASM, we have some authority over actors in the rehearsal room. However, I don't want to do anything that may be interpreted as passive-aggressive or bitchy - I have a lot of classes with this girl and don't want to strain our relationship. Should I ask the SM to tell her? How might I make this mistake more apparent to her in line notes?
Update: The SM and Director have been aware of the problems as well, as getting the cast to apply their line notes is a bigger problem than we thought!
For example, one actor's lines utilize simile, but she has consistently spoken the words out of order, so the lines don't make sense. This note has been included in her line notes for weeks. The other ASMs and I have gone so far as to indicate that this is a repeated error, but she has not taken time to fix the line.
I'd like to ask her in-person about the line, as it may be effective, but I don't know what to do. As an ASM, we have some authority over actors in the rehearsal room. However, I don't want to do anything that may be interpreted as passive-aggressive or bitchy - I have a lot of classes with this girl and don't want to strain our relationship. Should I ask the SM to tell her? How might I make this mistake more apparent to her in line notes?
Update: The SM and Director have been aware of the problems as well, as getting the cast to apply their line notes is a bigger problem than we thought!