Messages

16

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: CALLING: Calling Score examples and advice

« on: Dec 02, 2013, 06:36 pm »

I merge (well, merged - not really calling shows any more ) score and script, originally with photocopier, scissors and glue but then by getting a Word version of the script, scanning the score and pasting it in as pictures (using complete score pages where possible to save scanning time).  This was only for the calling script - I didn't ever use a score for blocking as it just meant too many page turns.  I usually created it a couple of weeks into rehearsal, when I had a fairly good idea of which bits of music I'd need and which I didn't need to worry about including.  I'd send you an example, but all my scripts are in storage in a building damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes and therefore inaccessible

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Stage Management: Other / Re: COMMUNICATION: When things happen on the day off

« on: Jun 16, 2013, 12:14 am »

The piece is Handel's Almira - not often performed in full (4 hours long) and done with Baroque instruments, not easy to find a sub!

Ouch. Glad I didn't have to try and find a cover for that one...we did Handel's Partenope a couple of years back and didn't have covers for the theorbo player - probably could have covered the continuo cellist but she wasn't playing a Baroque cello.  Luckily no one got sick! My worry is always onstage players because we don't have costumes for the covers...we have a production of Boheme which has eight girls as the marching band (end of Act 2) and we usually have five or six piccolos over the four parts, three trumpets and three drummers over two parts, but I have had to call in someone completely different and say 'find the spare costume which fits you best'...

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Stage Management: Other / Re: COMMUNICATION: When things happen on the day off

« on: Jun 13, 2013, 08:36 am »

As an opera and ballet orchestral manager, depending on the orchestra size and the player who is out, sometimes I don't tell the conductor (they get a printed orchestra list anyway), let alone the SM.  If it's someone like a principal player or a wind/brass/percussion player who should have been doing the whole run, I'll inform the conductor that they have a cover player in, but not if it's a rank and file string player, unless we haven't been able to find a replacement and have to play one down.  The only time I think I would inform the SM is if it was someone who had to play backstage (or heaven forbid, on stage!) because then it comes into the SM's realm. 

Was the injured player replaced, or did the orchestra play one short?

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Escripts=Do you HAVE to have them?

« on: Jun 07, 2013, 12:28 am »

For me it always depended (I've now moved from stage management to orchestral management) on the show.  If it wasn't complex and the hard copy was reasonably clean, then I didn't worry about an e-script.  New plays, always an e-script because that's how it tended to come from the playwright anyway - and it was much easier to make changes for a final calling script.  I did find it slightly tricky to manage in rehearsals, because I'd print new pages out (I can't cope with taking blocking notes electronically) and the page breaks didn't always line up, but I just used to black out the doubled-up stuff.  Always would print a clean copy for a calling script.  Musicals, I used to call from a combination of script and score - and an electronic copy was the best way of making that work - I used to scan the music and insert it as pictures.  Fairly early on I persuaded the theatre to buy OCR software, which expedited the process a lot, but before that I think there were two scripts which I typed - one was The Country Wife, which I only typed because the director had made huge cuts and I can't deal with a messy calling script, and one was The Producers so I could insert the music.  I did come across one script, Anything Goes, which I had to type because the original was so messy (copy of a copy of a copy, I think) that the OCR software freaked out and couldn't cope with it.

20

The Green Room / Re: Thoughts on Director Acting in Show?

« on: Mar 12, 2013, 08:43 pm »

I did a production of Cabaret with the director playing Fräulein Kost.  One of the Kit Kat girls understudied her and in fact did most of the rehearsals.  Because Kost isn't a huge part, even when the director was playing the role she could still be out the front for a lot of the show.  Once we got into the run, she'd step out once a week or so and the understudy went on, so she could watch the whole show.  It worked for us, but with a bigger role I think it would have been pretty tricky.

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The Green Room / Re: Sleeping in your theatre

« on: Mar 12, 2013, 08:36 pm »

Atop a pile of drapes in the store room has always been my preferred location - I like to make a nice little nest and curl up.

Yep, me too - worked in one theatre where the drape store was right next to the boiler room so it was warm in winter - perfect place to sleep (and had big shelves which served as bunk beds....).  We have a couch out the back of the office now which even has curtains around it but you do tend to have to book your slot on it.  In my last job the seats were the preferred option - no arms on them and they were pretty comfy.

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

« on: Dec 05, 2012, 09:17 pm »

2- Please ensure that there is a dedicated kitchen space, including a refrigerator with ice maker, stove, microwave, DISHWASHER, and basic kitchen implements available for prop food prep. This should be a space separate from the green room kitchen, where no one will forget their leftovers for 3 weeks, where no one would ever dare to eat any food stored there, where the sink is never used for cleaning paintbrushes or dumping mop buckets, and where no one from concessions or catering or hospitality would dream of storing food for their events. This kitchen is stocked with frequently-used and useful items like tea and food coloring, funnels, a bottle-capper, and lots of tupperware, and is cleaned as part of the strike of every show.

My last theatre had this (except the stove).  It was brilliant...

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The Green Room / Re: Show me your mugs! (Or water bottles)

« on: Aug 23, 2012, 06:53 am »

When I left my last job, one of the other SMs gave it to me as a leaving present...and the other SM gave me a mug with the same thing on it - completely independently of each other!

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Blocking notation for choreography: how should I do it?

« on: May 27, 2012, 10:43 pm »

There's a whole language for choreo called Labanotation, but I've always found when I'm on a musical that the dance captain or choreographer or assistant choreographer will take down choreo notes.  I tend to just note the "big" moments - particular formations rather than every last little step.  Unless you can read and write Labanotation, it's tricky to get it all down.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: MUSIC: How much should I be able to read?

« on: May 23, 2012, 04:16 am »

I have a lot of music training - I was originally a music education major (voice, piano, and french horn) in college. The most beneficial thing I've found about my musical knowledge is being able to communicate with the music director, musicians, singers, etc in their musical language.
It's along the same line as taking an acting class - so you can understand the basics of the process actors go through.

I'd thoroughly agree with this - having been a musician all my life (my mum is a music teacher!) it's incredibly useful to be able to talk to the MD in their language.  I'd also add, if you are calling from score, the most important thing is that you can read well enough to find your place if you do get lost.  Whether that is marking things like "big trumpet entry here" in your score as marker points, or reading fluently enough to be able to jump pages and find your place - it doesn't matter, whatever works for you.

1. Mozart: Don Giovanni Overture
2. Handel: Judas Maccabaeus Overture
3. Rossini: Barber of Saville Overture
4. Wagner: Die Walkure, Act III, Scene 1
5. Gounod: Romeo and Juliet, Juliet`s Waltz Song
6. Wagner: Tristan and Isolda, Act I Prelude
7. Strauss: Salome, Dance of the 7 Veils

I'd say that's a pretty good list.  The Strauss is difficult (it's difficult for everyone involved!) and that's one you probably would have to be more fluent in music reading to follow - but it's way more difficult than anything you're likely to encounter in musical theatre.  Sondheim is complex, but more for singers than SMs, I'd say, so if you can cope with Salome not much will throw you.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Orchestras moving out of the pit

« on: Mar 26, 2012, 02:59 am »

Look up Opera on Sydney Harbour (my current gig).  The orchestra is in a studio underneath the stage (but not underwater!) with a big-screen behind the audience so the cast can see the conductor.  I've done it in musical theatre before, but never have we done it in opera - however it's working surprisingly well.  The players have had to get used to playing with headphones, but they have their own mixing desks for foldback (the Aviom system) so they can adjust what they're hearing - and of course they can hear their own acoustic sound, just not the singers.  The conductor has FOH cam but no-one else can see the stage - however that's pretty normal for them.  Of course, being an outdoor gig, the singers are all amplified anyway, so the mic'ing of the orchestra can be balanced precisely with the singers, and fortunately we have a brilliant and wonderful sound engineer at the desk - which reassured the orchestra quite considerably.  There have been comments from a few punters asking why we can't see the orchestra, but we bring them on stage for a curtain call which makes a difference.

We're also doing something similar for an upcoming production of Die Tote Stadt where the orchestra won't physically fit in the pit (they would if it wasn't for the celeste, harmonium, piano, second harp and bass bells) plus the set designer wanted to use the pit space.  So they're in one of the smaller theatres at the Opera House which is, as it happens, a really nice space for them to play in.  It will be a little trickier from a sound point of view because the singers WON'T be amplified (although they'll be wearing radio mics for foldback purposes) but now that the Harbour gig has opened successfully and the musicians know what they're up against, it will be fine.  Fortunately we have the same sound engineer which will also make things easier.

We had some fun bumping the Harbour gig in - how often do you see this:

27

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

« on: Mar 13, 2012, 12:37 am »

What does James take the photograph on - camera, phone, polaroid camera?  If it's a camera, does it need to be specifically film or digital? Does the camera actually need to work, or can it be a dummy?  Does it need to flash?  Does the audience see the photo on the camera/phone screen?  Do we need a camera sound effect?  Does the photo get seen later in the show at all, in a photo frame or on a computer screen?  Does he have the camera on his person and does he need a pocket to put it into?  Can he bring it on in his hand prior to using it, or does the blocking not permit that?  Do we need to preset it somewhere on the set for him to pick up?  If it's a working camera, have we thought about batteries or using rechargeables? 

New note: The bread which David has put in the oven in II, iv, needs to explode in II, v.

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

« on: Mar 02, 2012, 04:41 am »

I got a question about "Jekyll and Hyde" today....and in the answer was the comment "I heard David Hasselhoff was REALLY good as Jekyll and Hyde...".  Clearly whoever wrote this question and answer was deluded...I've seen the DVD and he is excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SAFETY: 7 ft. Fall onto Crash Pad in Show

« on: Feb 03, 2012, 07:08 pm »

When you say "stunt person", do you mean a trained stuntman or someone who will stand in for the actor to do the fall?  My gut feeling would be that I'd want to get someone who is trained in this kind of thing to go through it all and work out exactly what has to be done.  I just don't think it's something I'd want to be attempting without knowing exactly what I was doing. 

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Dear Abby: What classes would you look for in a BFA stage management program?

« on: Jan 21, 2012, 07:17 pm »

I third the music theory.  I learnt to read music at a very young age (my mother is a music teacher) and it has been invaluable to me.  I also think that if it can be fitted in, a basic psychology course is a very good idea.  I did a degree majoring in psych before moving into stage management, and understanding how and why people behave in the way they do can be very, very useful indeed.