Messages

106

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Furniture

« on: Nov 01, 2007, 01:52 am »

My experience has been that it depends on the theatre.  Usually it is a collaboration between the props master and the set designer.  The set designer is ultimately guides the whole look: scenery, furniture, paint treatments, etc,. The props master will frequently be the one to shop or procure the furniture, but it is after talking through with the designer about what they are looking for(who in turn is in communication with the director).

At the theatre I work at now, it's a little more complicated.  Our props master is billed as the Resident Props Designer, and as such, he does a lot more than just pull and shop things.  He usually designs the set dressing, and is known to be incredible, so he has a lot more autonomy than is frequently seen. 

In terms of imparting this to the undergrad level where both parties are trying to get out of it, I think you should make your set designer understand that ultimately furniture contributes to the full look they are trying to accomplish, and they should take an active interest in making sure everything is cohesive.

107

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Twas Brillig...

« on: Oct 08, 2007, 02:05 am »

I voted that on average it takes me 5-15 minutes, probably closer to the 15.  That being said, I think how long it takes me to put together and send my rehearsal report depends a lot on the type of show I'm doing and what point in the process we're at.  A new play, where I'm inputting text changes in my report is going to take a lot longer.  Usually, I find the first few days of blocking to lead to longer reports because more discoveries are being made.  And of course it depends on if I've been able to input the info into my laptop as we go in rehearsal.  Lots of factors.

108

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Tech Haiku

« on: Sep 28, 2007, 12:13 am »

"What the &$%! is it?",
The flustered actor yells out.
What happened to "Line."

109

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: The Most Qs Ever

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 09:14 pm »

I stage managed a new musical this summer called "Torah! Torah! Torah!" (about bar mitzvahs:) ), where I had around 100 cues in the opening number.  And that was just lights, spots, actors and rail.  I'm sure I called bigger shows than that in college, but it's the biggest I've called in a long time for sure.  I didn't stop talking for the entire song.

110

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: INSANE!!! I can't believe this

« on: Sep 22, 2007, 11:03 pm »

Glad to hear that things are going better now.

111

Employment / indicating new plays on a resume

« on: Sep 17, 2007, 12:37 am »

I'm in the process of reworking my resume, and in the last few years I have worked on a large number of new plays.  I'd like my resume to recognize these.  Looking through the Resume Browser, most people list them as World Premiere Production or something similar.  I'm hesitant to use that term, because while some of the shows I've done clearly fit that category, others are less clear cut (having had smaller workshop productions, or the like, in the past).  All of the plays I'd like to classify as new plays were very much in development for the process I worked on them.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might phrase this my resume?  Or is this not even an issue for my resume and better belongs in a cover letter, on an as needed basis?  I'd love to hear people's opinions on this.

112

Tools of the Trade / Re: Cleaning Plexiglass Mirrors

« on: Sep 15, 2007, 01:39 am »

So an update:  We tried many different substances, with a nice soft rag.  The first plexi cleaner we got (something really generic sounding...plexi clean?) was awful.  It seemed to do no better than the windex, which we realize was completely wrong for the job, yes.  Buffing it with hot water helped more.  Finally one of our actresses saw us struggling, and suggested this plexi cleaner called Brillianize that she uses for these chalk art pieces she does (because it cuts the static, and the chalk stays off the plastic of the framing).  It works fantastically.  Since we started using it, on press night on Monday, we've had no trouble with streaks.  Thank you all for your input.

113

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: INSANE!!! I can't believe this

« on: Sep 15, 2007, 01:33 am »

Yes, conflicts are frustrating, but the way you've phrased it some important details on how these two were brought on board are unclear.  This sounds like a last minute thing.  Is it a case of "I can do this, but I'm already committed to this..." because it's later in the process (you're already in rehearsal for this show, yes?), and they were approached to see if they could lend a hand because they already have a relationship with the theatre?  Because that's a different thing than if they were brought onto the process in advance.  The question for you comes down to how badly do you need an ASM.  If you really need one, and these 2 are your only options, there are ways to work around their conflicts (and this is assuming that the conflicts are unchangeable). They could both perform the same track...if one of them has a conflict for tech, the other could take it through tech and then be shadowed...  There are a lot of options for dealing with a less than optimal situation like this.  I would love to know more about the details.

114

Tools of the Trade / Re: Cleaning Plexiglass Mirrors

« on: Sep 10, 2007, 01:40 am »

(And frankly, I'm not a big fan of those cloths; I don't know what it is but they do seem to leave more streaks, even on regular glass.)

Yeah, that's what we've found.  They were in the theatre's supplies, so we gave them a try.

I think we'll be picking up some plexi cleaner tomorrow, so they look really good for press.

115

Tools of the Trade / Cleaning Plexiglass Mirrors

« on: Sep 09, 2007, 05:09 pm »

Does anyone have any suggestions on a good method to clean plexiglass mirrors that doesn't leave them all streaky?  We've been using Windex (and the little Windex cleaning cloths, but that just seems to leave them streakier than when we started.  A little dish soap in water with a rag didn't cut it either.  Does anyone have any ideas?

116

Uploaded Forms / Scene Timing Grid

« on: Sep 02, 2007, 03:28 pm »

I've been meaning to upload my scene timing grid for some time.  My boyfriend wrote me an excel spreadsheet to do the time math for me  if I just let the stopwatch run, and wrote down successive times.  I've used it for about 2 years now and I love it.  It's not the most intuitive document at first, but once you learn it, it's pretty simple.  Below is the instruction sheet I created to go with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the scene and pages columns you can just input information as you normally would.    At the top of the timing columns there are spaces to input date, and such.  All of these spaces are formulated as text, so whatever your type will appear exactly as typed. 

In the timing columns , you will note that there are actually two columns.  The larger column contains the formula.  You should never type in that column(unless the formula's not working, then you should copy it in from another cell).  The smaller column is where you input each successive time.  It is formatted so that the text is white, so that what is entered into that column is not visible on the final output. 

Times must be entered without their colon.  For example:
12:13 becomes 1213
4:54 becomes 454
0:36 becomes 036

The formula in the large column will take the time you enter and subtract the time in the row above it, so that you end up with the time for just that scene.   

Say scene 1 ends at 2:36.  In the first box in the little column, you enter 236.  In the first box in the large column 2:36 appears.  Then say, scene 2 ends at 5:21.  You enter 521 in the 2nd box in the little column, and in the 2nd box in the larger column 2:45 appears.  Note that it takes into account that math with time is out of 60.

Finally, at the bottom, there is a row that says TOTAL.  In this row, you type in the last time that your stopwatch said.  Unfortunately this version of the scene timing grid does not do the addition for you. 

Another shortcoming of this version of the scene timing grid is that it cannot group sections like acts, because if you interrupt the column of times, the formula starts again.  So this is okay if you restart the stopwatch after every group of things you ultimately want a collective time for, but not if you keep the stopwatch running.

117

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PSMing vs. ASMing

« on: Aug 31, 2007, 12:31 am »

To be a good leader, I think you need to be a good follower first, so to me the PA-ASM-PSM ladder makes good sense. As a PSM, I like knowing that I’m not asking someone on my team to do anything I haven’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t do myself.  I feel that a PSM’s skill set should include the abilities of PA or ASM types, but not all PAs or ASMs have the ability to PSM.

I very much agree with this.  A lot of my experience so far in my career has been stage managing at small theatres, where while I've been nominally the stage manager or PSM, I've been doing the jobs of the whole team, or assisting at larger theatres .  As a result, in the shows I've PSM'ed where I've had a real crew, I've found it difficult to let go of the backstage details, and trust that I had a crew that could take care of things.  I'm accustomed to doing it all, so learning to delegate has been one of my biggest challenges as I've started to stage manage bigger shows.

I love both jobs.  I love being backstage and being intimately acquainted with all of the fine details of preset and tracking, but on the other hand, I also absolutely love to call a crazy show.  I've been lucky enough to do a bit of both as my career has developed (intern in a LORT theatre, stage manage for a grad school, PA for LORT theatre, stage manage for non-Eq summer theatre, etc.)  I find that people who have spent a long time just assisting after college have a hard time transitioning back to stage managing.

118

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Effective communication as it relates to today's technology

« on: Aug 21, 2007, 12:18 am »

We've recently had almost the opposite problem of the one being discussed.  Our production manager just cut our rehearsal report distribution list significantly, cutting out almost all the admin staff and interns, due to people talking about information that was contained therein that was more for documentation purposes (Actor X was late...).  She cut off all but the essentials, so now when we have a question that pertains to say operations or marketing, we have to send out a separate email.  As it turns out, our admin staff seemed to be the people who read the reports most, because we keep getting emails "Can you put us back on the distribution list?" to which the reply has to be "Talk to the production manager", while we have designers who don't look at the reports...  We'll get used to it, it just seems like a lot more work because it's a new system.

119

The Hardline / Re: Production Meetings

« on: Aug 17, 2007, 08:01 pm »

We tend to do once a week from pre-production through the beginning of tech.  Once we go into tech, we have mini production meetings nightly until press.  We don't usually do post mortems.

120

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Talking to a group of campers about stage management

« on: Aug 15, 2007, 07:31 pm »

Thanks for all the advice.  I had my first day of it today (4 groups in 1 hour).  There were two high school age groups and 2 middle school age groups. I talked through the process from pre-production through performance, then had them ask questions. This kept the 2 high school groups occupied for the whole time...they got it a little more.  With the 2 middle school groups, I played a script analysis game that I'd worked out.  I had 6 of them read 4 pages the "sad Crachit" scene from Christmas Carol (including stage directions) aloud, and I had another 5 hold up signs I had made, whenever they heard something that sounded like it fell into their category (props, sound, lights, scenery, costumes).  With one group, the game went really well, with the other, not as much(but it still took up the time...). 

I didn't have my kit with me today, because I forgot to bring it home from the theatre last night, but I'm planning to take it with me next week.