Messages

166

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

« on: Sep 26, 2007, 02:36 am »

My drama school was housed in an old mental institution and was definitely haunted.  While I never saw a ghost there, several of my classmates did.  A venue I worked at in England supposedly had a ghost in its studio theatre - a crew member had died in there when something went wrong - but I never saw any evidence of it, and I was up there alone late at night pretty regularly!  My current place of work is in an old building - and there are "ghost tours" run through our building and the surrounding ones! - and supposedly we're haunted as well.

167

Tools of the Trade / Re: iPro fom Rosco, is it good?

« on: Aug 28, 2007, 08:57 pm »

It's an image projector rather than a slide projector - it slots into a profile lantern and doesn't have its own light source.  I used a couple of them two years ago, and the way I see it they have one major drawback in that you have to use the Rosco slide kits to fit the image into them, and each slide kit can't be re-used, and from memory, they're not cheap.  You also have to run power to the iPro separately from the lantern and there's some fan noise (probably not an issue in a medium-sized venue, but still needs to be taken into consideration).  Yes, they work, but IMHO there are better ways - a Selecon Pacific will take an acetate gobo without an iPro, which to my mind is a much better idea and a much better investment! 

168

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Dressing For The Part?

« on: Aug 17, 2007, 08:54 am »

Some people in grad school tried to convince me that wearing a skirt and fancy shoes and dressing all girlie would help with the "authority" issues inherent in being a small woman, and while that might work for some people i feel hobbled in dressy clothes.  I've tried wearing a skirt and i don't know where to put my keys and phone.  It's ridiculous.

I never wear a skirt in rehearsal - if I do, it's always the day I have to go climb through a shipping container in search of props, or climb up a ladder into our furniture store.  I do sometimes wear a skirt to call a show, although given that in my current show I have to take a 6-year old on stage silently and invisibly in a blackout, a skirt is out - my boots make way too much noise, and if I wore sneakers with a skirt my white legs would reflect what little light there is!

169

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Do you call from house or backstage?

« on: Jul 17, 2007, 04:30 am »

Backstage, always!  In my current situation it's impossible to call from the booth as show crew consists of SM and operator, and I often have ropes to pull (we don't have a flyfloor, but our set boys will rig doors and windows to be opened remotely!) or furniture to move in a blackout.  Shortly I go into rehearsals for The Producers, and I believe it's the first time it's been done in a non-flying house; I do have an ASM for the show, but still won't be calling from the booth as I much prefer to be backstage where I can keep my finger on the pulse of everything.  I have a FOH monitor, conductor cam for musicals and a team of operators who I trust implicitly, particularly the one who will be operating The Producers, so I see no reason to change my method!

170

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: squibs

« on: Jul 11, 2007, 05:18 pm »

Oops, my bad, that'll teach me to reply without fully knowing what I was talking about!  I guess it's a language thing, as I think of squibs as pyro (obviously!) and blood packs as blood bags!

171

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Executing both light and sound cues?

« on: Jul 11, 2007, 04:27 am »

We only ever have one operator on a show (except for the annual musical, when a radio mic operator comes into play!) and they always run sound and lights, and occasionally AV as well.  We have made it easier for ourselves by almost always programming LX to run off a GO button, and recently have switched from minidisc to Sound Cue System so that sound is all off a GO button as well.  SCS is a brilliant piece of software - dead simple to use, but very powerful! 

172

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: squibs

« on: Jul 11, 2007, 04:24 am »

IMHO, Le Maitre stage pyro is as good as it gets; probably not the cheapest, but their system is very safe, easy to use and as reliable as pyro can be.  I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say "squib" but I'm sure you could find something appropriate in their pyro range.

173

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SMing Musicals

« on: Jun 28, 2007, 08:17 pm »

Interestingly enough, I've just discovered MTI's "Stage Manager Scripts" which seem to be a new development for them.  Has anyone come across these, or know if they're combined script and score, or just a re-formatted score?  There's one available for The Producers, which I'm SMing over Christmas and if it's going to save me hours in putting my own script together it's going to be worth getting!

174

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SMing Musicals

« on: Jun 27, 2007, 11:16 pm »

I always put the score into the script.  In places it's a toss-up whether to put in music which has the dialogue over it, particularly for underscoring, or just go with the script, but I tend to put my calling script together once I've been in rehearsals and have a rough idea of what is going to be more important or easier to call from.

175

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Multi-tool advice?

« on: Jun 26, 2007, 06:28 pm »

I've got a Gerber Compact Sport, which is one of their smaller multi-tools, and I love it.  3 flat-head screwdrivers (one of which doubles as a bottle-opener, and another as a can-opener), one Philips screwdriver, knife, scissors and of course pliers.  I find the scissors are probably the tool I use most - plus they're strong enough to cut gobos with!!  I opted for Gerber over Leatherman because I like the fact I can open it with one hand.

176

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Fictional books about theatre and backstage life

« on: Jun 24, 2007, 05:49 pm »

Quite a few of Ngaio Marsh's murder mysteries are set in the theatre - Final Curtain, Opening Night, Hand in Glove, Light Thickens - and they're all very good.  Light Thickens is probably my favourite one, no prizes for guessing which play the action is centred around!

177

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: calling cues

« on: Jun 19, 2007, 10:45 pm »

thankyou people for your advice.
so it really doesnt matter what you say (within reason) to the operator to give his/her cue as long as they know that is what your cueing them with?!
Thanks.

Pretty much!  Personally I tend to write and say LX# for lights, write SQ# and say "sound q#", write and say "flys #", and write and say "spot q#" for followspots (although sometimes here DownUnder we might say "dome").  Anything else I tend to agree with the operator as to how I'm going to call it. 

178

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: And it blew like a sailboat, right into the orch pit

« on: May 21, 2007, 10:29 pm »

I would say that if they were riding the barn across the stage despite it being wedged and sandbagged, then you should definitely be fighting for brakes!  Even if it does offend the set designer (which it shouldn't), safety has to be a priority.  Brakes don't have to be visible to the audience - we put brakes along the upstage edge of wagons - and you can get those big brakes which lift the wagon slightly off its castors which are pretty fail-safe.  Rosco make 'em - http://www.rosco.com/uk/hardware/wagon.asp and you can also find them at http://www.productionadvantageonline.com/stagehrdwr.htm and here http://www.texasscenic.com/hardware.html to mention a few - I just Googled "stage wagon brakes" and got loads of hits.  In terms of bringing it up, maybe mention that you're very concerned about the actors' safety (and the orchestra's!) and that you've found these brakes and what do they think about putting them on the wagons.  If you also mention that they're quicker to operate than wedges and sandbags, and less crew-intensive, it might help your cause.  If you can get the other SM on your side, then it should help your cause.

179

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / ESCRIPTS: The Producers

« on: May 14, 2007, 11:56 pm »

I start on a production of The Producers in the not-too-distant future (the New Zealand premiere production, no less!), and was wondering if anyone has an electronic copy of the script which they'd be happy to send me?  I hasten to add that of course we have legit scripts and everything, but I want to re-format the script for my book and if I can avoid re-typing the entirety of the script it would be great!

180

SMNetwork Archives / Re: totally wireless cans...

« on: Apr 25, 2007, 04:09 am »

I second what Mac said.  I've used wireless cans (in conjunction with a wired TechPro system) a couple of times and while they're great if you're all over the place, they're not 100% reliable - ours would sometimes just stop working, you take the batteries out and restart them and they're fine - and can cause issues with radio mics.  We only used them because I was firing pyro from one place, firing confetti cannons from somewhere else, and had seven smoke machines spread around the set and it simply wasn't practical to run cables in to all the places I had to be.  Stick with wired and hire in wireless when you need them.