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1126

Articles from the Old Site / Drunk Actor

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

I've just had to cancel a performance of a touring children's theatre production due to an actor turning up for a 10:00 a.m. performance so drunk that I still don't know how he managed to walk to the theatre without falling into a gutter!

The actor in question is a ridiculously talented, though agentless 21-year old whose career is just starting, and unfortunately may be just ending as well.  

He turned up in the morning for a 10:00 a.m. matinee still stinking drunk from the night before, with eyes like pissholes in the snow, staggering around the stage roaring, "Pint of Bud! Pint of Bud!" whilst the others were doing their "Cup of tea" vocal warm-up.  He actually even fell off the stage twice.  The first time, the venue technician caught him, but the second time he was on his own because the venue technician was back with me, saying that he had a problem with someone that drunk being backstage.  It's a pretty physical show, and one of the other actors came up and said to me that she had a serious problem going onstage with someone that drunk, and that she was worried that he might injure her in one of the lifts and that he might indeed injure himself.

I had pretty much decided that I would have to cancel the show at this point, but thank God I didn't have to make the decision on my own, as the company administrator and the general manager were on their way to the venue already, unbeknownst to any of the cast.  After confronting him myself to no avail, I assembled the full company in the dressing room, and said that it was my opinion that we should not go ahead with this performance, but would like to hear everyone else's opinion if they had one.  At this point, two of the other actors said that they did not feel comfortable going onstage with someone so drunk, and the others nodded.  Well, the drunken one absolutely exploded with rage.  He was that kind of drunk where one feels totally and irrationally confident that one is capable of doing anything, such as drive a car...  He made the extremely foolish mistake of telling the general manager, "I'm fine, I'm fine.  I jusht had a few beers lasht night is all.  I've done the show much drunker than this before!" before turning on us all, getting extremely defensive, and telling us all to go f**k ourselves and that the "whole thing is being blown compleel... compleel... torally awa perpor... perpor... proporshn," before storming out and falling down the stairs.

We have another two and a half months of this tour to go...  HELP.

1127

Articles from the Old Site / Altoid tins

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Altoid tins are very handy for Tech!  Check this out:

Altoid tins are the best thing ever for tech week - especially for busy ASMs running around backstage.  They can contain half sized post-its, safety pins, paper clips, etc.  You stick them in your pocket, and they are nice and compact, and keep everything sorted for you.

But, my favorite use for them is to precut glow-tape of various sizes, and put them in the tin.  Then, toss in a little bottle of gel type super glue and put it in there too.  Voila!  Next time you need glow tape, you whip out your nifty tin, pull out a precut piece of tape, peel of the annoying backing (which is always what takes the most time), and put a bitty drop of gel over the top!  The hot stage lights will dry that super glue lickety split. (The gel kind doesn't run as badly if you are putting it on a vertical surface).

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Articles from the Old Site / See in the Dark

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Ever wish you could see in a blackout?  Here's a cheap way to do it!

I remember thinking how incredibly cool it was to have an infared video monitor in the booth when I worked on this one commercial show.  And I always though that, since that was an Off-Broadway show, that it would be very rare for me to come across a theatre with enough money to have a system like that again.  But it's not true anymore...

The company I work recently found a very inexpensive baby monitor system - with a little video monitor and capability to automatically switch from regular to infared for only $99.  You can also get a dual monitor set-up for $149.  We found it on Amazon.com, and we're excited to say - it works, and it didn't break the bank.

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Articles from the Old Site / Stage Managers Are Survivors!

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

I am recovering from quadruple heart surgery, and I owe much of my 'will to survive' to being strong on the job in the wide world of technical theater.

Hello fellow SM's and belated holiday wishes. There I was, prone on the bed in the operating room, trying to call cues during my heart procedure. (Give me more oxygen, bring up the IV special, heavy breathing sound effect now, etc..) All kidding aside, I am paying for 20 years of late night diner food, abnormal sleep cycle and plenty of job-related stress. But the good thing is that there are no surprises in our business,just challenges. I cast the doctors and nurses in my mind over the week that I was in bed, from "Nurse Grumpy" to "Doctor Jogging Pants". Plus, it was easier to learn the nightly visits for medicine and blood pressure checks because it was just like a script- "Cue 21-the nurse comes at 2:00 AM with your Tylenol pills." Stage managers are a tough breed, and I will recover over the next few months. In the meantime, the motto is "no pain, no gain" for the most important production I've ever worked on-my REAL LIFE!

-Rich Abrams (stageman7, written several years ago!)

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Articles from the Old Site / Into the Woods...No

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

When a great show goes wrong! Why me!?!                                                      Accident leads to blame...Finger points to SM.

It was the second week of our run and all seemed to be going well. Every que and scene change was perfect, actors were actually finding their light (a miracle really), and the orchestra was right on. Of course, good must come to an end. The fly was going for the beginning of Ever After, and our Jack left one of his props out. He went back to get it, but I saw it hit him just as he ran out. I have never cursed so badly before. We had to stop the show and compensate all the audience.

Our Jack, his name is actually Brian, was rushed to the hospital. Brian was in a coma for a week, Because we still had a few more weeks in our run, we quickly found a replacement. Brian is alright now, but he said he'll never do a show where I was stagemanaging. I was so angry when he told me this. I couldn't believe he blamed me. I know everything is blamed on the SM, but I mean really! He knew that fly was coming in as it had for all our previous performances. Use your common sense Brian!

I do blame myself partially, but not enough where I feel I am completely to blame. Yes, I should have expected something like this and caught it a second sooner, but I am not the idiot who walked back on stage and wasn't paying attention to what was going on around me. Well, anyways, I still have never worked with Brian, and I honestly don't care if I have to work with him again. I mean, how much choice is he going to have in who his SM is going to be in the real world? WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SAW DUST BRIAN!!!

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Articles from the Old Site / Ever tried Twelfth Night in the '50's?

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Here's a horror story for the archive: I was ASM for Twelfth Night, and the SM wasn't exactly the most organized person for the job. Never mind that everything that could go wrong did...

I have a sneaking suspicion that I should have been worried about this play more than I actually was. My highschool was doing Twelfth Night as our 'big show' for the year. I'd been doing theatre work for all of about a year, and through a series of odd circumastances found myself to be the resident ASM. Being the devout kid that I was I went religiously to every rehearsal, quit my part-time job focusing solely on theatre and schoolwork. This worked out really well overall, and I was particularly pleased to find out that my hard work was paying off: I could use the time with the play as community service hours for one of my courses. That's about where it stopped being quite so much fun and games I suppose. I would duck out of my classes early to do work for the play, particularly the one that was using these hours as a part of my education. So I was painting, organizing everything, and getting actors straightened out. Little did I know that our SM, wasn't quite doing so much work. It turns out that he was at fewer rehearsals than I, and I was orgainzing everything for him because he seemed to lack that area of expertise. Even so, I loved doing it all. That is until the show actually started.
To make it really clever and slightly out there, our show started on the twelfth night of christmas. Everyone chuckled at the director for making this happen, though it could have been an omen for stranger things to come. On either the first or second night, during the fight scene our charming leading lady fell hard onto an edge of a riser, causing a seriously bruised tailbone, funny walking, and reworking many of the scenes to accomodate this new facet. The following night, our head of stage crew fell backward down a small flight of stairs hitting his head against a prop, causing a concussion, and serious mayhem backstage. Here I was, when I hear a series of thuds, and a flock of people go down the stairs, and I'm roped off to a corner stuck to headset with random actors asking me for ice. Immense swearing over headset ensues, and the SM rushes off to make sure that the guy's okay, leaving me to call what I know of the show and orchestrate the actors into moving set pieces on and off during blackout. This resulted in my saying 'go' to an actor moving a table, and the lighting op pressing go. Lights erupted midway through the blackout, and everyone froze. Lights dimmed and moving continued. Naturally there were a number of early lighting cues, and one rather large one which caused a blackout halfway through a scene on another night.
Even though it was very well my worst stage experience thus far I can look back on it and laugh out loud, Twelfth Night is by far my favourite play, and I'm still nearly able to say every line in it.

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Articles from the Old Site / If the director says working on 2 shows at once will give more time... They're L

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Reading the story of "Who says there's no crying in stage managing" I am reminded of the time i took on too much.  I will always remember a Macbeth to Dark side of the moon in trash bags and duck tape and a musical disaster that was some of the best time in my life... (looking back now of course... not while i was experiencing it.)

It was my junior year of high school and i was begining my search for college. I had already stage managed around ten shows and my school was adding a Musical theater class to do the first musical theater preformance in years.  i talked to the director over summer and said i would love the experience to work back stage but as i was already stage managing the prodution of Macbeth that would reharse after school and go up a week after the musical, i did not want to take on to much at once.  she looked pleased and i told her my only condition was that i would not be put as any role in the musical (im practicly tone deft and not big on acting.) she said fine dont worry.. i should have already been worrying.  

the first week of school she not only had me stage managing both plays, but in them as well.. She said that way i would have more time to work on them. (she could be very convincing) plus did i mention that Macbeth was put to Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon and the muscial was Zombie Prom (if your havent heard of it think grease meets cry baby meets bye bye birdie) and the AD was the same person  for both as well, but  had worked on  all of one other prodution as Tech.  In addition there were no prop people on Macbet and was told i was in charge of it and every ASM i hired got taken to run the lights, Sound, or Costume Changes.  I was running out of people, time, and sanity and very quicky.  And no one "had time" to take on responsiblity.

I got it down to an art. i was sewing between note taking in Chemistry, painting goblets to look like stone while in history, and going over notes and scripts in english.  at home i would type everything up do homework and research colleges after pulling a doubble reharsal 4 days a week.

by the time the Musical went up i had a bad cold and was running from the stage to the green room at intermission in heels for calls and changing my make up in the dark while colling cues. during the run of Macbeth i had the flu and bron. together and was getting cough drops and kleenex as opening night gifts.  as the director yelled while i ran again in heels and this time a long skirt made out of thick noisy garbage bags and ducktape (we had a low budget for period costumes) i triped skidded across the tile of the green room and landed at the feet of a male actor desperitly trying to do his own eye liner and failing horrible..... i lost it. i cried. i screamed. and i cussed a stormed. i was even threatened with suspension for such vulgar language. the actors were horrified. and the costumer tried desperitly to stand me up and fix my ripped trash bag skirt that she had worked so hard on to look elegant .  it was the most stressfull time of my life and i never forgave the director for it.  

yet as i laugh now looking back remember the look of an actor as i shoved the headset to them and ran through the doors to cough up phlem and king duncan stopping dead in his tracks in a week voice asking if i would be able to go on stage , i would do anything to go back.  and i still love the rush of stage managing... never take on to much, but when you do learn to love the story and laugh about it... it just might take 4 years.

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Articles from the Old Site / So...do ya think you're theatre is haunted?

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

  The theatre that I currently work in is widely accepted as being haunted, and while I'm not sure if I believe in all of that, I have had some very strange and unexplainable things happen while I was working alone in the space, as so often happens to the stage manager who is the first to get there and the last to leave.  I thought that I would then pose the question to other stage managers:  Is your theatre haunted?

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Articles from the Old Site / Sharpie and outdoor shows

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

A great SM taught me this when I was an intern:

If you're doing  outdoor theatre (or indoor for that matter) and like checklists, but don't like wasting lots of paper, put your list in sheet protectors.  Then, instead of using dry erase markers that can come off on your hands and clothes and make you look like you had a run-in with an exploding kindergartner with hands covered in finger paint, just use a sharpie. It dries quickly, and doesn't rub off on clothing or hands.  Then, at the end of the night, wipe it off with some rubbing alcohol on tissue or cotton balls.  

It works great if your prop tables happen to be covered in plastic or plexi too.  Then water filled props don't smudge your nifty prop table labels.

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Articles from the Old Site / Understudy Put in From Hell

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Understudy replacement hell.

So, we had to put on an understudy - last minute, of course.  This is for one of the main leads... Henry in Lion in Winter.  Our understudy is fairly ready (as well as I could get him, when he could only be at one of 2 rehearsals).  So, I call an emergency put in at 11 am. The show is at 3:00pm that day.  Unfortunately, our Eleanor lives in BFE, and it takes her over an hour and a half to get into the city.  Also, the space we are renting won't let us in until 1:00pm.  Well, we sweet talk our way in at 12:30, and actors slowly arrive.  We barrel through scene sections as actors arrive from thier various locations.  During this rehearsal, 2 curtain tie backs pull out from the walls, the sound system freaks out, the understudy catches the front edge of the stair facing and rips a 2 1/2 foot chunk off the stage, and the smallest thing, we lose 6 spike marks, which are all glow taped for the actors to find thier spikes for the 7 scene shifts in the play.  (Did I mention that I have no assistant or light board op.... ??)

Even with all this, we open the house a meager 15 minutes late, and  start 15 min. late.  The CD player dies after SQ 4, the board op and I come up with Plans A - D.  One of these plans (plan C) requires the prop master to run a discman to the theatre at intermission, and to take apart 2 cables to make one (probably very unsafe) replacement.

So, intermission arrives, I do the scene shift, check in with my U/S, who is freaking out a bit, and come to the booth... we've killed the intermission music to solve the CD problem.  End up with plan D, which is using a tape deck adapter for your car to play the CD.  So, we get this fantastic hiss over the speakers any time we standby for a cue. This makes our intermission (count with me kids ) 24 minutes long.

So, we start act II late, holding our breath, and watching the audience wince everytime the hiss starts.  Meanwhile, we finish splicing cable during act II, and come up with a solution for the following week.  (While my understudy pours fake brandy all over another actor).  2 pages before the last cue sequence of the show.... the discman dies.  We (thank god) had 2 sets of AA batteries, because OF COURSE the first set didn't work, and we held the discman sideways (it was the only way it would work).  The sound op and I had a moment of actually disucssing leaning our heads out of the booth window and humming the final cue, just to get through it all.

I need a drink.

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Articles from the Old Site / Exhibits Management-A Different Kind of SM

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

There are literally thousands of commercial and non-profit exhibitions in major cicic centers, hotels and conference centers. The exhibits manager, much like a stage manager, directs the selection of the booths and oversees both the load-in and load-out at the facility.

In addition to theatrical and concert stage managing, this author has been exhibits floor manager and special event consultant to many organizations. My clients have included 9-1-1 dispatchers, homeland security providers, Red Cross and other disaster responders, sound and light contractors to music concerts, and even a gold and silver jewelry crafts fair. Exhibitions have taken place in large hotel ballrooms, privately owned conference centers and outdoors at festivals.

The biggest difference is that the exhibit manager deals more with logistics than actors or musicians. How many 8 foot by 10 foot booths can be sold? Where will the 110 volt power come from? Will compressed air or water be required for specialized equipment? How many entrances and exits are in the auditorium? Is there a loading dock and freight elevator, or will additional manpower be needed to move the displays in? Are there adequate aisles and open spaces to satisfy the Fire Marshal?

During the actual event, the job is parallel to running a musical or play. The exhibitors must be ready for the public one half hour before the doors open. The refreshments and goody bags (T-shirts, pens, pads, toy police cars- if it sells the product, it will be given away to attendees!) need to be available. The aisles and tables should be clean. Finally, the exhibits manager has the responsibility to open and close the hall during the show.

I suppose the biggest change is that most exhibits occur during business hours and on weekdays, unlike Broadway shows. It is a pleasure to be eating a leisurely dinner (often provided by the exhibits facility or a major sponsor of the event) and having the night off while theater SM's are just calling half-hour on their job. The exhibits manager can utilize skills gained as a stage manager to provide a well-supervised and successful trade show. It may not provide Equity salary, but the positions are similar.

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Articles from the Old Site / Program Bio for a Followspot

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

So, I'm currently spot-opping for a production of Samuel Beckett's "Play," which features three actors trapped in urns who can only speak when they are lit by the follow spot.  As the spot kind of takes on a personality of its own, I determined to write a program bio for it...I don't know if I'll use it or not, but I thought it might amuse some of you.  (Click "read more" to see the bio)The Spotlight (Play): Spot is no stranger to the Chicago theatre scene, having been featured in such noted productions as "Miss Saigon" at the Marriott Lincolnshire; The Goodman Theatre's well loved "A Christmas Carol," where she has been seen lighting Bob Cratchit annually for the past six years; and "Peter Pan" at the DePaul Theatre School, where she was praised for her versatile performance as Tinkerbell.  She is pleased to be working with such a fine group of performers.  Ms. Light would like to thank her four sources, Joe Levy, Ed Kook, Aggie Fresnel, and Tom Edison.  Love to Inky and Birdie, my little shining stars!

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Articles from the Old Site / Minidisc Mania

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

A new horror story for you guys from the show I closed on Sunday.  Moral: a quick phone call to your stage manager during the day could save you tons of hassle.

Through sheer chance of luck, I got to the theatre about half an hour before my 6:15pm call time for an 8pm curtain.  I walked into the office, and was greeted by my PM and the Associate Artistic Director sitting and chatting.  I overhear them saying something about "minidisc" and "Loan" as I walk in.

The PM turns to me, and says, "Oh, Kay!  You guys use only one minidisc player for the show, right?"

I say, "no, we use two."

Their faces fall.

"I thought you used a minidisc player and a CD player.  That's what we told the sound designer to use for media."

"Nope," I reply. "Nobody mentioned to me that we needed to use a CD, so we've got two minidisc players so that we can use the autopause function."

"Dammit!" says the AAD.  "I told Chris (the sound designer) to use only one minidisc!  I told him that the other player wasn't going to be available for the whole run."

At this point, I get a reeeeally bad feeling.  "Is it already gone?" I ask.

"Do you really need two minidisc players?" asks the PM.

"Yup.  We've got simultaneous cues from both sources through at least half of the show."

"Alex, start calling." says the PM.  The AAD goes into his office and starts calling around looking for a replacement minidisc player.

"It's gone, isn't it." I say.  "Did they think to leave the minidisc that was inside the player?"

The PM looks a little shaky.  "Don't you have a spare?"

"Um, no.  Chris didn't think to leave one for me."

"Well, you'd better go check and see if they left it."

I dash up two stories to the booth, and check on the minidisc.  It's sitting on top of the sound rack, happy as a clam, but the player is glaringly gone.  I wonder why I didn't hear from them about this earlier in the day when the owner of the machine came to take it back home.  I'm wondering why I didn't know that the player had to go back before the end of the run in the first place.  I'm wondering why the sound designer ignored the PM's request and had us running off of two minidiscs.  I'm wondering how I'm gonna cue the damned show tonight.

We finally scored a replacement player for the night, a portable running off of batteries.  Of course, all of our remaining AA batteries were going into the lavs that night, and so we didn't have a fresh backup, and had to run off of whatever juice was in the battery that came with the loaner player.  Tiny buttons, an unlit LCD screen, and no autopause function.  Nearly impossible to work with in the pitch dark booth.  The sound board op had no clue how long any of the tracks were, so he had to go through and write them all down preshow.  All levels had to be bumped up to adjust for lower output from the portable.  And for about the last half our, the board op had to be on deck for a massive shift, so I was running the thing for six cues while running light board and calling deck.  While praying that the battery wouldn't die on us in the middle of a cue, or start sounding a warning beep as the battery gave up its last gasp.  Actors were thrown, cues came in late due to the player taking longer to find tracks, and it was just a general anxiety disaster.

We got a loaner component the next day for the rest of the run that looked remarkably like our old one.  Things pretty much got back to normal.  Of course, I never got an apology from the staff or even an admission of error--they foisted most of that off onto the sound designer for ignoring their instructions.  However, a phone call at 10am on that day would have made it possible to completely avoid the entire four hour long mess.

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Articles from the Old Site / Spray mixture for dusty environments

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

The recent opera discussion made me remember the following trick for working in dusty environments.

When working with a floor treatment that is high in dust (covered in dirt, mulch, sand, etc.), we used a Hudson sprayer filled with a mixture of water, witch hazel, and eucalyptus oil.  The water served as a suspension, the witch hazel killed off anything that might be growing in the floor treatment, and the eucalyptus oil (just a few drops is fine) served to keep the dust down and added a lovely sinus-clearing aroma to the air.

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Articles from the Old Site / First Aid Tutorial (a UK slant)

« on: Sep 25, 2007, 08:59 am »

Leo has submitted the following story as an addendum to the Tutorial on First Aid, from a UK reader's perspective.

I was browsing today and noticed that the First Aid Tutorial had been submitted by a UK resident, although added to/amended by Kay.

I would like to add a note of my own as there are one or two points which do not apply to the UK at the moment.

A 'certified' First Aid kit will not include any creams or liquids, such as antiseptic cream or muscle rub. Likewise you will not see plasters.

Seems odd I know but that is the 'latest' but you will, of course, still see plasters and cream in kits which are sold every day. They are however, banned for children in schools, play schools etc.

I note also that the tutorial said CPR certification is renewable every year and the First Aid certificate every three years. In the UK CPR/First Aid is every three years, there is no requirement to undertake CRP training every year.

Regards

Paul (Leo Stage Management) UK