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Messages - loebtmc

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1036
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Plan B for everything?
« on: Feb 21, 2009, 02:38 pm »
exactly - plan for what you can

but always fun to think of what you would do if... as in Kay's SM exercises. I remember once having to use the works mid-play when an idiot on another show next door flipped the wrong fuses and blacked out our lights. (Amusingly, I have had to do that more than once.) If nothing else, the practice of flexing the mind is a good one, kinda like that acting exercise where you have to use an object as anything except what it actually is.

1037
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Plan B for everything?
« on: Feb 16, 2009, 01:44 pm »
always smart to have a plan B for anything that breaks. We always ask for back-up CDs for music, computer programs etc, right? Anything electric can come unplugged, blow a fuse etc, computers can fry, props break, there are lamp burn-outs and so forth. You may never need them, but having thought about it ahead of time gives you options if they DO happen and it's a great brain exercise (see PSMKay's series of SM challenges, for example).

1038
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: They're making this job so difficult!
« on: Feb 01, 2009, 09:27 pm »
FWIW, I do a huge star-studded benefit every year, and we never get a close-to-real script until abt a week out, and it is always different on the night. It's good practice for rolling with it and instance break-downs. You need to sit down w the director and producer and find out what can change and what won't. Set yourself up for the basics with plenty of room to make changes, and then hang tight for a rollercoaster ride. It is really kinda fun to call on the fly, and great training if you want to do concerts or one-person memory shows.

1039
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Daily rehearsal report notes
« on: Feb 01, 2009, 01:06 pm »
My first union show as the PSM, the (regional) theater required me to post the notes on the callboard. It meant I learned early how to write between the lines....

1040
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Poor stage weapon practices... Another close call
« on: Jan 22, 2009, 07:20 pm »
what's even more shocking is the perpetrator - Bill Bordy ran the theater-based Drama-Logue newspaper in LA for years and years, and he knows better!!! Yikes indeed!

1041
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Reading a play for the first time
« on: Jan 21, 2009, 12:12 pm »
I started out reading plays as a kid - they came to life as I read them. I still do a partial breakdown as I read now, when a play is really really good I can still get lost in it the first time out. But I have always been taught to read it several times before first rehearsal, so I sometimes do my read-for-pleasure after finishing the the page-by-page work.

1042
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Poor stage weapon practices... Another close call
« on: Jan 21, 2009, 12:09 pm »
and THIS is why strong, tactful but firm stage managers are essential to have around - a good SM would have stopped the director/actor/lead as soon as the gun was spotted, held onto the gun until a weapons check was run with both actors, including safely testing the load, making a weapons master taught the actors (and SM) the gun's care and feeding and use, including where the heck to point the thing on stage, etc etc etc

1043
The Hardline / Re: Theatres That Have Closed--Can You Say "Emergency?"
« on: Jan 12, 2009, 06:08 pm »
Along these lines, the LA alternative paper has decided, while keeping the writer, to eliminate the position of theater reviewer (note the language...) - boding a return to the days when LA theater was considered far, far beneath any other major city in terms of arts and culture. Sigh. Ah well...


Quote
LA Weekly Eliminates Theatre Editor
After almost 30 years, the Theater Editor position in a city with 2,000 professional plays opening every year was determined by Phoenix to be a fiscal extravagance.

1044
Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Prop Recipe Exchange
« on: Jan 03, 2009, 11:19 pm »
Cast food allergies and preferences is part of my first rehearsal info collection. I always check, esp w the actors who have to ingest the items on stage. We have had some creative slight of hand in that territory - I think I noted on this board the swap for OJ we used in "The Real Thing" where the actress was deathly allergic, and the glassware was all clear, so we made a bizarrely tasty orange liquid by juicing yellow and orange sweet peppers, which were then mixed with the "champagne" for mimosas in the scene. Worked beautifully.

1045
The Hardline / Re: MILWAUKEE SHAKESPEARE CLOSING ITS DOORS
« on: Dec 17, 2008, 12:00 pm »
same thing...quoted from a theater news site:

The future of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the professional theatre company in residence at the University of California,

Santa Cruz, is in jeopardy following several money-losing seasons and facing an economic downturn.

Leaders of the 27-year-old organization announced on Dec. 14 that they are desperately seeking support by Dec. 22 or its doors will close.

"In addition to its regular annual campaign, SSC must raise $300,000 by noon on Monday, Dec. 22," according to the announcement. "Should SSC not succeed, the organization will be required to go dark for 2009, and therefore permanently."

Shakespeare Santa Cruz (SSC) managing director Marcus Cato is projecting a $500,000 loss for 2008, primarily due to shortfalls in ticket sales and contributions.

www.shakespearesantacruz.org/support

1046
The Hardline / Re: IATSE house
« on: Dec 16, 2008, 08:33 pm »
FWIW, I have never had trouble with this rule in IA houses -

1047
The Green Room / Re: I can't believe I just had to do that...
« on: Dec 05, 2008, 12:58 pm »
amusingly, I too have had a live bird poop cue in a show - it eventually got cut, but we used a group of magician's doves and tried to train them to fly - on cue - onto the hat of an actor who (of course) was one of those folks who hated/was terrified of birds. Really. What a trip. Like the actor can't ACT being pooped on - with or without a bird! sometimes I wonder......

1048
Stage Management: Other / Re: Quesitons Needed for a stage management workshop
« on: Dec 03, 2008, 01:50 am »
you could also do blocking demos - hand out the scripts, take three aside and tell them where to go and see how many of the folks in the house get the blocking down - rotating thru the class with different people doing the actor role means everyone finds out the challenge of watching everything at once in a practical sense

1049
College and Graduate Studies / Re: Great Community College Theatre?
« on: Nov 29, 2008, 10:21 pm »
I would suggest you start by looking him up on the San Fernando Valley College website and see what you can find out on your own - and then you can direct specific and informed questions at him based on what you have researched. You need to know what they offer and what you want before asking anything

1050
College and Graduate Studies / Re: Great Community College Theatre?
« on: Nov 28, 2008, 08:29 pm »
art brickman teaches at SF Valley College - he is a terrific SM and, altho I don't know the SM program, might enjoy having someone to take under his wing, tech-wise

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