Messages

136

The Green Room / Re: Introducing the Unicorn Rainbow Sparkly Theatre Company!

« on: Dec 01, 2012, 11:45 pm »

An usher will be positioned directly downstage of the conductor, equipped with a paintball gun, and entitled to shoot upon sight of any cellphone, camera, cameraphone, phonecamera, icameraphone or other similar device.

137

The Green Room / Re: Introducing the Unicorn Rainbow Sparkly Theatre Company!

« on: Nov 28, 2012, 02:36 am »

The entire building uses a single central maintenance system. Instead of taping a makeshift sign to broken equipment (or, even worse, making a note and then promptly forgetting about it), a report is made to a qualified person (available at all hours when the theatre is operational) who will then either repair it themselves or arrange for it to be repaired. This qualified person has technician-level knowledge of all theatrical and building equipment, and will--above all else--be a permanent and long-term member of venue staff, rather than an intern, summer student, contract employee, manager who is far too busy with other tasks, or a hideously unqualified receptionist to whom the task has been delegated.

When a broken piece of equipment is reported, the hand-scrawled sign ("DO NOT USE: BROKEN") is promptly replaced by a computer-printed sign which is designed to be read in poor lighting and features an appendix outlining the specific problem, an estimated time to repair, and a contact number in case of emergencies.

138

The Green Room / Re: Hell in a Handbag (A Game for Stage Managers)

« on: Nov 21, 2012, 03:29 am »

The only problem I foresee is that we'll need to dig through wardrobe for some padding to enhance the shape of Ms. Twain's front bumpers. While her cow-catchers are no doubt an impressive piece of work, Dolly has had a team of blacksmiths working on hers around the clock since 1972, and there's simply no comparison between them. The only way to avoid having to completely redo the costumes is if we find some way to add an awful lot of clang-clang-clang to Shania's trolleys, but I'm sure we can pull something together. Cross my heart.

NEW NOTE: Due to budget cuts, Romeo and the Nurse will have to be double-cast.

139

The Green Room / Re: SMs as depicted on stage & in the movies

« on: Nov 20, 2012, 12:14 pm »

To this day I haven't been able to watch Our Town without squirming. THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS.

140

Tools of the Trade / Re: HELP: Static Electricity?

« on: Nov 17, 2012, 10:47 am »

Computer technicians have antistatic wristbands which they wear for precisely this purpose. I have no idea how you go about finding such an article, but if you know an IT person...

141

The Green Room / Re: When the phone DOES ring...

« on: Nov 14, 2012, 03:19 pm »

To help me escape from the e-mail pressure, I actually bought my own domain a few years ago.

I check my personal and business e-mail as often as I like. For individual shows, I create a specific address (showtitle@) and distribute that on the contact lists. I only check the show address on work days, within work hours.

There's a great rationalization for it, too: by handling my e-mail in this manner, I don't have to worry about tagging or filing or archiving my inbox, because everything is already sorted by show. (If stuff gets sent to the wrong account, you just forward it along. If it needs to be placed in multiple accounts, ditto.) With that in mind, if you'd be so kind as to direct show-related correspondence to the show address...

Owning the domain also gives me a very very basic website which I use to host a CV and contact page. Costs me about $10 a year all told, and in my view it's totally worth it. (I'll also confess that, when I'm reading applications and hiring, I'd much rather see yourname@yourdomain.com, rather than yourname_4412b$%^#x@gmail.com or--even worse--sexylips4412@theatreschool.edu.)

142

The Green Room / Re: Smallest Audience Size

« on: Nov 09, 2012, 02:22 pm »

Nope. The stage manager put it to him as delicately as she could (one of the many conversations I'm grateful I didn't have to initiate--or even share a room with, for that matter), he cried, but he packed up his things and left and the staff went home early that night.

I still have the GM's number. Might be worth calling to see if we gave him a partial refund or something, because now I feel kind of bad.

143

The Green Room / Re: Smallest Audience Size

« on: Nov 08, 2012, 11:22 pm »

I once worked a rental which basically amounted to a vanity production: this actor (who had moved cross-country) was desperate to break into the big leagues, so he rented the theatre on his own dime and mounted a one-man show.

His cheque cleared, so why not, right?

The week before his performance, he called the box office to see how it was selling.

Nothing. Not a single ticket.

And he was furious. He was under the impression that we would do all of his promotional work for him. (Never mind that he was renting our cheapest black-box space for a single performance--and at the sliding-scale "community and independent arts" rate, at that.) But never mind: he'll rise above our obvious incompetence and arrange for posters himself. Huff huff goodbye huff.

So he shows up for his 7:00 performance at 6:30 and hands his stage manager a stack of posters, instructing her to put them up around the city, then has a hissy fit when she explains that that's neither her job, nor is this the time. But we get over it, he gets changed, and walks into the house to begin.

There are five people in attendance:
- His boyfriend. (Comp.)
- His neighbours.
- His sister and her date. (One comp, one paid.)

But he performs anyway.

I'll withhold commentary on the quality of the performance, but here's the important thing.

They all left at intermission.

Every single one.

Awwwwwwwwwwwkward.

144

The Green Room / Re: Catchphrases

« on: Nov 05, 2012, 10:05 am »

"I understand."

It's a beautiful phrase.

It has so many uses:
1) Calming people down. (It's like a tilt switch in a pinball machine: you say the words, and the anger/tears/rage shuts right down.)
2) Communicating agreement and sympathy, even when I think the suggestion (and/or the person presenting it) are abhorrent. (And you'll note that you haven't actually agreed or sympathized.)
3) Moving a discussion along, especially when someone is determined to derail it. ("I think we all understand your concerns. Do you have any solutions in mind?" is a pleasant alternative to "Oh my god, shut up before I stick my Maglite up your keester, you pathetic, blubbering drama queen.")
4) Sapping the tension out of a situation.
5) Boosting the confidence of wayward actors, even when you have no idea what they need to hear beyond vague platitudes
6) Accepting criticism gracefully and professionally.
7) Giving criticism gracefully and professionally. ("I think I understand what was going through your mind, and I know why you made the choices you did. The difficulty is that...")
8) Shutting people up. (The jerks who love to COMPLAIN IN A REALLY LOUD VOICE about EVERY PERCEIVED SLIGHT? They never expect the words "I understand" to come out of the mouth of the person they're screaming at. Quiets them right down.)
9) For all I know, it can also avert nuclear war, create peace in Israel, and make fries julienne.

The only problem is that my assistants and superiors have heard me using it so much that they've started jokingly calling me out for you. ("You understand? Does that mean you love it or you hate it?")

145

The Green Room / Re: SM: WORST THINGS

« on: Nov 04, 2012, 03:02 am »

I'm missing one two-way radio.

Just the one.

Every other radio (all 23 of them) is sitting in its charger, red LED blinking happily.

But not the one.

I pester the staff as they leave. Nobody's seen it.

I check with FoH. Nobody's seen it.

I check the dressing rooms. Nobody's seen it.

I check everywhere imaginable. (The flyfloor. The rigging room. The offices. The box office. Everwhere.) It doesn't turn up.

I write it up as a lost article (value: $300) and go home. The form is four pages long. Ugh.

Finally! I'm on my bus going home, and I find a seat, and I sit down--and there's a massive bump at the bottom of my spine, where the radio is still attached to my belt.

146

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COMMUNICATION: Preshow (turn off your cellphone) announcements

« on: Nov 04, 2012, 02:51 am »

One of my local companies has recorded the noise of a cacophony of cellphones beeping and buzzing and tweeting, and just plays that before every performance.

The audience usually giggles, but the phones do get taken out and they are switched off.

147

The Green Room / Re: News: Canadian Theatre Festivals At A Loss

« on: Nov 04, 2012, 02:46 am »

I'm not advocating that the festival should switch over to an all-Shakespeare model. That would be silly.

But their existing model (mixing the English-language classics with modern musicals, absent any sort of higher-order thinking or curatorial design) is not only obviously not working, it seems silly on the face.

It creates enormous internal inefficiencies (How many classically-trained Shakespearean actors would be baseline willing to appear in You're A Good Man Charlie Brown, let alone prove equally talented in both types of production? You end up with two different companies sharing a name and box office, but very little else.), I have no idea how you market such a disjointed season, and it's clearly not attracting the audiences they need to keep themselves afloat.

148

The Green Room / Re: SANDY!

« on: Oct 30, 2012, 01:49 am »

I'm currently on the payroll of a university arts centre.

In some respects this is fantastic. (Steady paycheque, hooray! Union employment, hooray! Teaching opportunities, hooray!)

But this also means that we're at the whims of the university's emergency management staff. In previous years, something like this has happened:

Day Before: "We'll let you know before 7:30 AM if we're closing the university."
7:30 AM: "Nope, we're still open. Everybody come in!"
10:30 AM: "Oops, sorry, we're closing after all."

(And the worst part about 10:30 is that by that time, all of the staff--including the people who had to take a taxi because the buses aren't running, or had to find an emergency babysitter for their kids, or spent three hours on the highway, etc. are at their desks. If you sent the update at 8 or 9, the people who were still in transit could at least turn back. But nooooo...)

I've already called in a mental health day. It's nasty out there and I'm quite enjoying sitting up until the wee hours with the internet and some cocoa.

149

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ARTICLE: Stage Managers using a paperless process

« on: Oct 24, 2012, 08:55 pm »

I would also note that theatres aren't known for their reliable connectedness.

Any system which depends upon the availability of wifi or cellphone signals will need to contend with "Yeah, that doesn't work in the booth" and "Oh, you can only get a signal if you hold the antennae out the window" and "Try holding it upside-down" and "#$%$#, I had it just a second ago" and "Can you please move your ipad away from the headset? You're making it beep in everyone's ear" and...

150

The Green Room / Re: Hell in a Handbag (A Game for Stage Managers)

« on: Oct 24, 2012, 08:26 pm »

How are we going to ensure that the milk bags explode when thrown? (Every bag I've seen has been made of plastic tough enough that you need to cut them with scissors. Throwing them at someone would probably have the same effect as throwing a beanbag.)

How many milk bags will we require? Would it be cheaper to rent a cow for the run? (Does the cow need an IATSE card?)

Can we have the costumes laundered and refreshed in time for two-show Saturdays? Do we need to double up?

Will we be taking any steps to protect the clothing of audience members? (Maybe we could give them free t-shirts afterwards? "I Got Creamed At The Swan Theatre"?)

NEW NOTE: When Angie opens her eyes at the end of the dream sequence (Scene 12), one member of the audience should be dressed as the Woodland Sprite from scene 2. This must come as a surprise to the entire audience--including the person involved.