Messages

1066

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / SCENERY: Tips and Tricks: Raked stages

« on: Apr 12, 2008, 05:03 am »

It's been a long time since we've had any new collections of tips.  Lately we've been mostly focusing on giving specific answers to questions, which is all well and good.  However, it's sometimes nice to just share what we've learned without the pressure of having to apply it to one specific member's question.

I'm hoping that this will be the first of a series of new open ended "Tips and Tricks" posts that will be starting throughout the boards in the coming months.

To start off, let's compare notes on dealing with raked (sloped) stages.  What tricks have you learned to make your life easier when your set designer or venue presents you with an uneven or slanted performance surface?

1067

SMNetwork Archives / Changes in the mod team for April 2008.

« on: Apr 10, 2008, 04:08 am »

We've got a somewhat unconventional addition to the SMNetwork staff, effective immediately: kmc307 will be joining the Mod Team as co-moderator of Tools of the Trade.

Mac Calder, our current TotT moderator, has been given an offer he can't refuse - he will be joining Royal Caribbean on shipboard within a month.  (Yay, go Mac!)  We're all absolutely thrilled for him, but it means that he will most likely be unable to maintain his current level of commitment to the forums.

Mac has requested that he remain as moderator for as long as possible, but with a co-moderator to help when he's off in the middle of the ocean.  A co-moderator situation needs to be very close-knit, and as such Mac has chosen to select the person himself without an open call.

Please welcome kmc307 to the SMNetwork staff as a Moderator in Training.  As both are employed by RCCL now, (one on land and one at sea!) kmc and Mac will be able to work together seamlessly to keep Tools of the Trade running smoothly.  kmc will be in training for the next few weeks and will be able to start affecting TotT once he's done.

EDIT: kmc is a quick study!  He's out of training and into his co-modship today!

1068

The Green Room / Facebook Group for SMNet members

« on: Apr 08, 2008, 01:18 am »

I've started a Facebook group for those of us who are both here and there to find each other more easily over there.  The group is called SMNetwork.org Members.  (Clever, no?)

It's really only for us to find each other more easily, I've not put much up there that allows much conversation so that the main action still all occurs over here.

EDIT: Someone asked for a link to the group, so Here you go!

EDIT: The group will be closing by Dec 10 2015.

1069

Uploaded Forms / Re: Mic Tracking Chart

« on: Apr 01, 2008, 03:35 am »

Resolved and locked, and moved to the "Uploaded forms" section where it will be more useful for future visitors.

1070

Employment / Dear Abby Post: Can I hold on accepting an offer?

« on: Feb 29, 2008, 02:08 pm »

The following has been posted on behalf of a member who would like to remain anonymous.

I need some advice. If you have applied for numerous positions for summerstock or a seasonal position, and you feel that you might get a position early before many other places make a final decision, is it okay to inform the theatre/production company that you are still looking into other offers? I say this because the other positions you may have applied for might be in better location and/or payed better. What is the best way to go about this? Should I wait for a better offer? Or, should I take the first thing that has come to me?

1071

Tools of the Trade / Re: The comfort of a featherweight headset

« on: Feb 18, 2008, 10:32 pm »

I had the same model from backstagejobs, it worked well enough although I doubt I could wear it all the time.  I wear glasses at all times and the featherweight didn't work well with the earpiece of my eyeglass frames. 

1072

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Northern Illinois University Tragedy

« on: Feb 18, 2008, 10:23 pm »

Glad you're OK!  Keep us posted and let me know if I can help with anything.

1073

College and Graduate Studies / Re: Visiting Depaul

« on: Feb 12, 2008, 12:45 pm »

The Art Institute is free this month.  The Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium have discount days on Mondays and Tuesdays, and discounted admission from Feb 18 to 22.  Bear in mind that this overlaps with school vacation for the Chicago Public Schools so the museums will be mobbed with little kids. 

Millennium Park is free, but outdoors and it has been VERY cold here lately.  We're talking 14 below zero with wind chill.

The Chicago Auto Show is going on at McCormick Place through the 17th.

Mag Mile (Michigan Avenue south of Oak St.) is a showcase boulevard for high end shops - the cost for real estate there is extremely high so the companies with stores there tend to go all-out with their decor.  Quite pleasant for window-shopping.

If you're looking for stuff around DePaul, both Victory Gardens and Steppenwolf are within walking distance of the campus.  DePaul is in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, one area south of Lakeview.  Lakeview's got tons of little storefront theatres scattered about and some larger ones as well.

1074

The Hardline / Re: SMA

« on: Feb 06, 2008, 04:11 pm »

As I've discussed with PSMKay, it's always interesting trying to organize Chicago SMs.  Perhaps part of it is that in Chicago except for a few Equity members, many are non-Equity and thus lower paid and having to work more than one job...leaving less time towards networking. 

Not quite.  There are a lot of AEA SMs, but as Chicago seems to spawn about 20 new tiny theatre companies each day the large number of AEA members is swarmed under by the non-equity members, many of whom will SM for one show and then vanish.  I spent my entire SM career as non equity and working two jobs, it's what I had to do for years.  I joined the SMA for the last year that I was in the business but did not have time to take advantage of anything that it offered, and certainly didn't have time to be a pioneer member in a largely ignored location.

I did attend two Stage Manager gatherings over the course of the seven years that I was working in theatre here.  In both cases it seemed like all of the attending AEA SMs already knew each other quite well and had worked on many shows together already. 

Of course, I was extremely shy when I got here and this was all several years ago and things may well have changed since then.

1075

SMNetwork Archives / Congrats to sievep and zayit shachor!

« on: Feb 04, 2008, 01:04 am »

Please welcome sievep as our new chat moderator in training, and zayit shachor as the new moderator in training of the Students & Novices/Colleges boards!

These two will be learning the ropes for the next couple of weeks, and then they'll be taking over their new roles once they're ready.

Many thanks to all of you who nominated yourselves (or others) for the two staff positions.  If you were nominated but not chosen for a position, please do not take it personally - the current staff debated for quite some time and in both cases it was a very tough decision with many factors involved.  Nominees will be kept in mind for future positions on the site as they open up.

1076

Employment / Re: Seeking Stage Management Fellowship

« on: Jan 26, 2008, 07:55 pm »

This has been in the SMNetwork Links directory under Publications for several months now.

They're available only in print, from http://www.theatredirectories.com/

1077

SMNetwork Archives / Cruise Line chat, Monday 1/28/08

« on: Jan 22, 2008, 02:30 am »

Next Monday night our weekly chat will feature kmc307 and (hopefully) GalFriday discussing work on cruise ships.  We will be starting a little later than normal at 9:30pm EST.

Please join us!

1078

Articles from the Old Site / Re: The Lonely Stage Manager

« on: Jan 19, 2008, 06:51 pm »

IIRC, This was a very popular post for comments and debate back when it was up on the old site.  Unfortunately the comments have been lost but it's a good one for discussion.

This particular article was written by me, but bear in mind that it was written in 2003.  As you can probably tell, there's a lot of venting buried in that post.  Since then I've gone through a complete mental breakdown and a career change.

I do think that the issues noted in the OP were major contributing factors in my decision to "retire" from the business.  I can handle other stage managers for brief periods of time, but when thrown together working on an entire show I have always had trouble - I never had a satisfactory PSM/ASM relationship over the 7 years that I was in the business, regardless of whether I was the PSM or the assistant. 

I will freely admit that for me it's a personal quirk.  I have a very hard time dealing with supervisors, which makes me a terrible assistant to begin with.  I also have issues with people doing a job like stage management if they don't really want to be there, and winding up with a string of 16 year old acting majors trying to learn by the seat of their pants on professional shows was not my idea of a fun time.

It got bad enough for me that I wound up doing the last four or five shows alone, which pretty much ended my career.

If anything the article can serve as a caveat - if you're reading the article and saying 'Yes, yes, that's me, I agree' you'll want to be very cautious on how you proceed.  In retrospect, combining this with the discussion of personality analysis over in the green room, I do think that you need to be someone who can start and end things like friendships very quickly. 

I've probably more to say about this later but as I'm at work right now I'll leave it.

1079

SMNetwork Archives / Anonymous posting procedures ("Dear Abby" posts)

« on: Jan 15, 2008, 09:07 pm »

Kudos to member Debo123 for introducing us to this idea during one of the weekly chats.

Sometimes stage managers have issues requiring assistance from the community, but due to the personal or confidential nature of the matters at hand they cannot post them publicly on an open forum in a manner attached to their own screen name.

There are also stories from our respective careers that would likely be quite informative and useful for those of us coming up, but embarrassing or potentially damaging to us to share.

If you have a story or question of this nature that you'd like to share with us without revealing your screen name, we are introducing a "Dear Abby" style of posting.  You may submit your post via PM to the moderator of the appropriate forum or to me and we will anonymize it and post it for you on your behalf. 

PM policies for the board still apply - you cannot send PMs unless you have made at least one public post. 

Please do not overwhelm the moderators with requests for Dear Abby posts. Anonymous posting should only be used to start a thread, not to mask a potentially offensive reply.  Also, please be aware that for the sake of liability, moderators will NOT make anonymous postings that include the names of industry members or producing groups.  Attempts to "blow the whistle" on industry offenders by name via Dear Abby posts will be refused.

1080

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: A helpful resource for those getting started

« on: Jan 15, 2008, 02:16 am »

Thanks for the link!  Many of us are great fans of Carissa's site - you can see all the fan club debate over in this thread in the green room.