Messages

106

December Madness I: 2012 / Re: December Madness Finals: Paper vs Laptop

« on: Dec 30, 2012, 04:47 pm »

This poll should be interesting to tell us how evenly divided the SM community is on the current role of technology in stage management. 

I voted for paper - don't get me wrong, I love my technology. But at the present juncture, it would be impossible for me to run a show without paper. I could do it without a laptop (as long as I had access to some other sort of computer, or at the very least my smartphone).

I'm really not surprised to see it split exactly 50/50 right now!

107

Introductions / Re: Kind of New to the Field?

« on: Dec 30, 2012, 04:45 pm »

Welcome! What made you decide to go into stage management? Were you already working in technical theatre and just narrowed the field?

108

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: ASMing: How to ASM

« on: Dec 30, 2012, 02:03 am »

The first few rehearsals may be a little weird because you don't know what to do, but you and your SM will find a rhythm pretty quickly. The SM might want your help setting up the rehearsal room and breaking it down each night. Maybe the SM will take blocking, and will want you on book. There may be a fair amount of the SM furiously scribbling blocking, and then checking with you "hey I didn't catch it, which way does he turn at the bottom of the stairs?" If you hit a break and several different actors rush to the SM with a question, they might tell you "okay I'm going to deal with this first question, can you handle the second one?" and so on. Or sometimes they might just send you to the green room to grab them another cup of coffee, which honestly feels pretty crappy the first time they ask that - but you are there to do whatever you can to make their job easier, so when they are too busy to get themselves coffee you do it for them because it makes everything smoother. Little things count in an ASM. At first, yes definitely ask what they need you to do. But if the SM asks you to sweep the stage everyday, they'll love you even more when you take it upon yourself to sweep without being asked. Or maybe when you take a 10 and people leave the space, the SM might want you to give them a 2 minute warning or whatever else.

In my experience (I suspect mileage may vary) when I'm ASM this often means that once we hit tech, I'm deck boss. Prior to tech, I'm the SM's right-hand-man, but once tech begins, the SM is in charge of what happens onstage... and backstage is all mine. Run crew answers to me first - SM is the next tier up. The SM might say "okay I need a deckhand to do this shift" and it's up to me to determine who can be there, and to delegate that task. It's my job to assign dressers, to make sure every prop and costume pre-set is where it should be, to make sure that each shift is covered, and that any actor who needs a cue can get one (if we don't have cue lights). And then on deck I'm the one to give the places call (assuming it's a space without an intercom), and so on and so forth.

The ASM job really changes pretty drastically during tech. You go from being second-in-command to being in charge of your own realm.

109

Stage Management: Other / Re: Radio plays

« on: Dec 28, 2012, 02:45 am »

Yes, it's staged as a radio play. This company does one-hour adaptations of Shakespeare and airs them on our local NPR affiliate. Well actually we have 58:30, because of intro/outro text framing our one-hour slot. This is a six-person production of Taming of the Shrew (bilingual with Spanish, because we needed another challenge!).

We have the enormous luxury of being allowed to use the NPR studio for a couple of our rehearsals, so we will be doing recorded readings throughout the rehearsal process and sending the CDs home with the actors each time so they can work on their voices (since nobody plays fewer than 2 characters). So we have actual radio engineers working with us on mic technique ("if you're going to be yelling this line, you need to be at this angle so you don't pop your plosives, and this distance so you don't blow out the speakers" etc) which is super helpful.

We have a designer who will write the foley, but the actors will be performing it. In addition to that, I'll be running music and other sound cues. The extent of the blocking is "Actor X crosses to Foley Table" and "Actor X crosses back to mic."

110

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Stair unit transitions

« on: Dec 28, 2012, 02:27 am »

I had a production with five moving walls, and we used different colors and shapes of spike. One particular shift had a green X. So the reference point on the wall itself was the top half of the X (or rather, a V coming to a point at the floor), and where it met on the floor was the bottom half of the X. Another shift had a purple stripe with white on either side of it - match up the two purple lines so they create one continuous line from wall to floor.

This set was actually used for two productions (it's complicated...) so I got to see the previous show's reference system during our changeover - they had far fewer shifts than us, and what they did was use all white spike, but assign each act a different color highlighter. So the white spike with two orange highlighter dots is the second shift in the orange act, the spike with 4 blue highlighter dots is the fourth shift in the blue act, and so on.

EDIT: I forgot to say, these were walls on a horizontal track, so we had the entire back side of the wall at our disposal. So we posted photos of each change and the order they had to happen on the back side of the wall, as well as a bit of spike tape to show what mark we had to use for that shift.

111

Stage Management: Other / Radio plays

« on: Dec 27, 2012, 11:55 am »

Does anybody have any experience in managing a radio play (or podcast, or something along those lines)? I'm entering completely new territory and am wondering if anybody has any words of wisdom.

112

December Madness I: 2012 / Re: Regional Round 6: Headset vs Cell Phone

« on: Dec 18, 2012, 08:51 pm »

I'm a hearing person who works in a Deaf theatre. There is no (functional) comm system, and they're probably not planning on remedying that situation any time soon. Of course, it would be wonderful to have headsets... But we don't. So I keep my cell phone on me and text my SM if something goes wrong. In the past, on a different show at the same theatre, there were a few scenes where my track involved being on the phone (hands free) with the SM and she would call my cues that way.

So I can definitely do a show without headsets. As long as I still have a phone.

Plus, if someone is running late, they can't call my headset to let me know.

113

December Madness I: 2012 / Re: Community, Round 3: Post-Its vs. Spike Tape

« on: Dec 11, 2012, 03:31 pm »

Spike tape is a cloth tape, in the same vein as gaff, but narrow and it comes in lots of colors.

114

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: bass-ackwards

« on: Dec 05, 2012, 01:14 pm »

Oh, is sneaking a rubber chicken onstage something people do? I thought you were talking about it being an actual prop. I'm ashamed to admit I've done a show with an actual rubber chicken... and a different show with a human dressed as a chicken... I do some very silly plays.

For cuing actors' entrances... they'll often be left to figure it out on their own, assuming that they can hear and/or see the action onstage that they take as their cue. If there are points in time where the actors backstage cannot be aware of what's happening onstage, then you'll want to have a cue light system, or else have an ASM who can cue them based on your call over headset. I work with a lot of Deaf actors so I actually do a LOT of cuing actors for entrances... probably more than is common in most theatres. But outside of that, if there are moments where you want the entrance to be based on a visual cue but the entering actor can't see it, then they will need a cue. For instance in my current show, J has to pop her head out of a door right as P approaches the door, but she's behind it and can't actually tell when he's approaching a) because she can't see it and b) she's Deaf so even if it were on a line she still wouldn't know, so we take that one off a cue light.

For paperwork, if WWW is what works for you, then run with that format. I think that makes a lot more sense than trying to teach yourself a whole new system of paperwork. You may find that you don't need quite as much information as is usually in a WWW... but you'll figure that out as it comes up.

For timing, I've only ever worked by timing complete scenes, but I'm seeing people here say they either time each individual page or they mark out in the script each time a minute passes... These are both excellent ideas and I may have to try them! Since my next show is a radio drama and is VERY time-sensitive

Things ARE often squished together in a script. I take my notes in the initial copy, but when I'm turning it into my calling script, if there's one moment that needs a lot of cues, I'll put lots of space in the text of the calling script, so that it doesn't look like I'm running my cues over into the next segment.

115

December Madness I: 2012 / Re: Commercial, Round 2: Laptop vs. Straight Edge

« on: Dec 04, 2012, 08:56 pm »

PSATW!

What?

116

The Green Room / Re: Trivia Tournament IV: Trivia's Revenge!!

« on: Dec 02, 2012, 06:36 pm »

221 seconds. There comes a time when you should probably just give up, eh?

117

Self-Promotion / A Commedia Christmas Carol

« on: Nov 21, 2012, 10:37 am »

A Commedia Christmas Carol at Faction of Fools in Washington DC
Based on the book by Charles Dickens, but written and directed by Matthew R. Wilson

Located in the Elstad Auditorium at Gallaudet University (800 Florida Ave NE)

Nov 29 - Dec 23
Thurs - Sat at 8pm, Sun at 2pm

Thursday the 29th is a PWYC preview, Opening Night reception is on Friday the 30th.
Industry Night on Monday Dec 17 at 7pm
NO SHOW on Sun Dec 9

$25 general admission
$15 for students, military, seniors, and groups
$10 for children 12 and under (Not recommended for children under age 9)

ASL Interpreted Performances: Thurs Nov 29, Fri Dec 14, Sun Dec 16
On all other dates, Open Captions available upon request

See this link for more information and to purchase tickets.

118

Self-Promotion / Re: Add your Industry Night info here!

« on: Nov 16, 2012, 03:47 pm »

Industry night for A Commedia Christmas Carol at Faction of Fools in Washington DC (located in the Elstad Auditorium at Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Ave NE), is Monday Dec 17 at 7pm. Industry tickets are $20 (as opposed to $25 regular). For more information see http://factionoffools.org/ccc or send me a PM if you have questions!

119

The Green Room / Re: Smallest Audience Size

« on: Nov 08, 2012, 10:57 pm »

My producer just called me today to say that for the rest of the run (8 more shows) we have "at least 2" tickets sold for each show.

And now that a review has been published in the Washington Post saying the show "fails as theater" (yes, really) I don't expect many walkups. So I'm anticipating several 2 or 3 person audiences.

It's a 6 person cast... but we don't have any AEA contracts....

120

The Green Room / Re: Inside the SM Office

« on: Nov 06, 2012, 12:58 pm »

1. What is your favorite word?
Nice.

2. What is your least favorite word?
Lose.

3. What turns you on?
A genuine smile or laughter. That is, someone who is really truly happy, excited to be doing what they're doing.

4. What turns you off?
When people dismiss my efforts, like "try harder next time" or "did you even do anything"

5. What sound do you love?
Thunderstorms.

6. What sound do you hate?
noisy gross eating

7. What is your favorite curse word?
Definitely f*ck and variants thereof (what-the-f*ck-ever, f*ckton, f*ckwit, f*cking nuts, and so on)

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Baker.

9. What profession would you not like to do?
I could never be a vet. Having to put people's pets to sleep? No way.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
"you done your damnedest"
(incidentally, I run a blog about cemeteries (not that I spend any time on it cause I'm so busy forever) and it's called "he done his damnedest" which is based on a quotation said by President Truman)