Messages

181

Stage Management: Other / Re: Tips for "Ariadne auf Naxos"?

« on: Mar 25, 2007, 11:25 pm »

You definitely want a piano/vocal score - if you have the full orchestra score you'll be turning pages every four bars!  The one thing I would say is that opera singers tend to be more diva-ish than actors - at least I've found it to be that way.

182

Tools of the Trade / Re: Make the Clicking of the shoes STOP!

« on: Mar 14, 2007, 01:27 am »

Get the cast to walk on the balls of their feet rather than their heels.  I can run silently in any shoes, no matter how "clicky" they are when I walk properly (OK, tap shoes might be an exception, but I've never tried!).  If you don't put your heels down the clicking is reduced a lot.

183

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Vacation! London/Paris

« on: Mar 09, 2007, 10:19 pm »

A tour of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  I worked a few shifts there just before I left London, and it is a phenomenal place, well worth a look.

184

Tools of the Trade / Re: New Tallescope ruling in UK

« on: Mar 04, 2007, 07:15 pm »

its not a cert thing bout motorisation but iv been talking to a few technical managers around cambridge (UK) and they say that HandS want to bring it in! driving one of those around isnt safe at all. they arent that easy to manuvure in the first place 

Driving one?!  I've never had any trouble maneuvering a tallescope around, even by myself (and I'm 5'2").  I've done my fair share of focusing and rigging off one, being moved around while I'm in the basket.  If I'm nowhere near the edge of the stage I'm happy to have one person at the base, shifting it, but if I'm anywhere near the edge then two people is necessary.  This is with the basket not raised beyond the minimum (we trim our bars to the scope - happens to be just the right height!); with it raised any I don't really like moving around in the basket.  I think the advantage of a 'scope over a genie/MEWP is the weight, and the fact that you don't need a IPAF certificate to use it (I know, I know, you don't HAVE to have one for a MEWP but it's recommended...).  I'm not saying I don't prefer a genie, but I very much doubt the 'scope will be outlawed, there'd be too much of an outcry.

185

Tools of the Trade / Re: New Tallescope ruling in UK

« on: Mar 04, 2007, 03:04 pm »

According to a technical manager i have worked with there is a new ruling in the uk that from later on this year all tallescopes will have to be motorised and control from the top of the tallescope, is this the same anywhere else? Surely its suicide?

I hadn't heard that one - I knew there had been moves afoot to ban moving tallies with someone in the basket, but motorised and controlled from the top? That gets rid of tallies as we know them and essentially means people will be converting to VPP motorised elevated work platforms - ie, what's commonly known as a Genie - which is different to a tallescope!  Are you sure you heard correctly?

- this is a tallescope

186

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Taking over a show

« on: Feb 23, 2007, 05:18 pm »

Emergency procedures - what you're responsible for in an evacuation/fire alarm/bomb threat/whatever.

187

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: The Ultimate Decision

« on: Feb 19, 2007, 06:19 pm »

It's my dad's fault.  He used to light school productions for a friend of his who was a primary school principal (we have a nine-channel dimmer and desk in the garage at home!) and I used to go and "help" him from the age of about six.  At high school I got involved with the tech side of the drama department, and worked on loads of productions there, then got heavily involved in student theatre at university - lectures and classes were almost incidental to the countless hours I spent in the on-campus theatre.  I graduated with a BA in psychology and then realised that theatre was what I really wanted to do with my life, so I went to drama school for two years and did a technical and stage management course.  Since finishing that I've ASMed for an opera company, worked in England for two years and on returning home I kinda fell into a full-time stage manager job - timing worked out perfectly for me (the guy whose job I took had a breakdown.....).  I'm not only a stage manager, I love working in lighting as well, and fortunately my boss knows this and is happy to mix it up for me when schedules allow for it.  One of our technicians enjoys stage management as well, so we swap things around sometimes - our latest show he's stage managing while I'm chief LX.  So I'm very happy in my current job!

188

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Microphone list

« on: Feb 19, 2007, 06:06 pm »

I usually just use an Excel spreadsheet - microphone numbers across the top, songs/scenes down the side.  That way it's easy to see both who has a microphone at any given time and also plot mic changes easily.

189

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Chicago

« on: Feb 11, 2007, 11:47 pm »

Definitely make sure your truck has enough ground clearance.  Pushing a truck offstage when it has high-centred and grounded out is no fun at all, and won't do any good to the paint on the stage!

190

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Astrology for Stage Managers

« on: Feb 11, 2007, 11:45 pm »

Sagittarius
You want the biggest, craziest, sparkliest shows you can find. Musicals are your favorite – with the glitzy costumes, the big sets, the intense cue sequences, and the glitter drops (love the glitter drops!).

Apart from the glitter drops, this is completely true - I live for the annual musical!

You enjoy theatre not for the emotional catharsis but for the pure entertainment factor. You are always the cheerleader for whatever production you are on, and can make people smile through even the most painful tech.

Pretty damn true....

Thanks for this!

191

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Guys and Dolls

« on: Jan 29, 2007, 08:27 pm »

1-Our set involves a turntable. How do you tape this out (silly thing I know but vital since lots of set pieces will be 'on top of each other' as the table revolves).?

Different coloured tape for each scene is the way I've always worked in situations like this and provided you put up a list somewhere of what colour represents each scene, you should be fine!

2-We are also using machine operated moving platforms, what advice can you give?

Safety is possibly the biggest concern here; you will probably find that from the prompt desk you won't be able to see everything, so you may need ASMs stationed at various places where they can clearly see if the scenery move is safe, and have them on coms so they can let you or whoever is operating the machinery know if there's a problem.

3-During music rehearsals if I have no paperwork to do, is it ok to...read a book and such?

If you don't read music as comfortably as you read writing, you will probably find it very valuable to follow the music along during rehearsals; this will help your familiarity with the score and your music reading at the same time.

5-ummm anything else?

I second Philimbesi's comment about prop lists.  I'm stage managing G&D at the moment, and there are bazillions of props.  Something to consider early on is what you're going to do about money; obviously real money is bad (!) but you have to be very, very careful about reproducing fake money, otherwise you may find yourself in a spot of bother.  I'm in New Zealand, so using not real US money isn't quite such a problem, but you may want to find out what you need to write on it etc so that you don't get arrested for counterfeiting....

Above all, have fun!  Guys and Dolls is a fabulous show and one you can have real fun with.

192

Tools of the Trade / Re: latest toyes...

« on: Jan 28, 2007, 08:48 pm »

I want a Swiss Army knife flash drive....http://www.giggadgets.com.au/usb_stuff.html

193

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Stop The Show!

« on: Jan 13, 2007, 06:49 am »

I've had three show stops; the first in a production of Les Mis when a smoke alarm that should have been on the isolation circuit proved not to be (the wind was in a funny quarter that night, which is why we hadn't discovered this earlier!).  I hasten to add that it was smoke machine smoke which triggered it, not something burning!  We made tannoy calls backstage and god mic calls FOH along the lines of "due to unforseen circumstances we can't continue this performance, please leave the building calmly by the nearest exit".  Fantine got to sing I Dreamed a Dream twice that night! 

The second stop was on a production of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; we had a revolve set off-centre with three walls dividing it up; each "room" was a different office and we'd revolve it to change the scene.  There was also a fixed wall off the revolve, and on opening night somehow a piece of timber came loose on one of the revolve walls, caught the fixed wall when we revolved, and pulled the whole fixed wall down on the revolve operator's head.  Tabs were shut pretty smartly, and the "voice of the Book" actor got on the god mic and announced a short unscheduled interval while we put the wall back up and made sure the crew member was alright!

The third stop was on a panto production of Cinderella; after leaving the ball, Cinders was clipped to flying lines, ran across the stage and was whisked up in the air, out of sight.  Other cast members ran on looking for her, found the shoe and exited, then Cinders was flown back in in her rags, having got rid of the dress while up in the air (we had a bag in the rig for her to stuff it in!).  One night things were going well, Cinders flew up, cast ran on, found shoe, had discussion about it and exited.  We waited for Cinders to reappear, and waited, and waited, and waited, until there was a shout from the people-flying operator of "She's stuck!".  Turned out a wire had jumped off a pulley and so Cinders was stuck about 15 feet up in the air.  Tabs were flown in, we rescued Cinders with the tallescope, and continued with the show!  The actress playing Cinders was totally unfazed, I guess maybe because she'd got stuck up in the air, rather than falling or not flying at all because something had gone wrong, and had no worries about flying the next night (Foys did come in to check the rig before we used it again!); certainly shows trust in our flying operators

194

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: marijuana and theatre (I dont know where to put this)

« on: Jan 13, 2007, 06:30 am »

I don't smoke marijuana, so I'm not speaking from personal experience here, but rather from being around others who have smoked it and seeing what happens when they do.  From what I've seen, marijuana tends to make people more "mellow", and with this comes slower reactions.  This is what scares me about the idea of someone showing up to work stoned; the possibility of things going wrong immediately takes a huge jump.  If you've got a stoned LX operator, then all that might happen is that some of your cues might look a bit strange if they come up or go down later than they should, but if you've got a stoned people-flying operator or flyman, then the possibility of injury immediately becomes much higher.  The one that really freaks me is the idea of a stoned stage electrician who is firing pyros.  With reaction times slowed, chances are the pyro is going to fire later than it should, and therefore the possibility of an actor moving to within range of that pyro is greater.  Also, their judgement as to whether an actor is far enough away from the pyro to allow firing is likely to be influenced.  I've had to deal with a slightly drunk DSM when I was firing pyros myself; her calls were getting very sloppy and not what I considered to be safe, so several pyros were not fired that night; I simply couldn't take the risk.  I could have fired them when I knew they had to be fired, and when I could see that it was safe, but even with a drunk DSM I was not going to override her authority.  (And before anyone asks why she was still allowed to continue calling the show, well, we didn't realise quite how drunk she was until after the show - she hadn't been well anyway, and so we just thought that her concentration was not the best.  Plus I think she'd been quietly having a couple of drinks in prompt corner, hidden from where we could see her).

195

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Happy Stage Management Memories?

« on: Jan 08, 2007, 08:55 pm »

My old school produced the school's version of Les Mis, and being a sucker for punishment, I offered to go in and help out (we're lucky enough to be able to get amateur rights for Les Mis here, and I'd done a run of it a few years earlier, so I had a pretty good idea of what it entailed and the challenges they'd face).  I trained up a full SM crew - SM, DSM, and two ASMs, and helped them train up the running crew, and also spent three days making two gauzes fly properly (hemp house with very little drift, I had autotrip lines coming out my ears!).  I have never seen anything like the way those kids (technicians, stage management and actors) rose to the challenge; the whole city was talking about the show.  I worked as running crew on the show, with the idea that I'd be there if the SM or ASMs needed help with anything, but they were about as far away from needing help as it was possible to be.  The show was flawless; the DSM, who had never called a show before in her life, was outstanding, and the SM, ASMs and running crew couldn't have been more organised. 

On final night, we had an auto-trip line chew through its pulley, meaning the gauze would fly out properly but wouldn't come all the way in.  The SM was able to think through his options without panicking (after racing to the grid to inspect the damage to the pulley, I did make an executive decision that the gauze was not to be flown again, purely for safety reasons) and make a decision as to how the scenes which used that gauze were to be restaged, inform the cast of what was going on, and inform the DSM and lighting operators that they'd have to be ready to busk a few scenes to cover the changes.  Unless you'd seen the show before, the only thing that you might have noticed was wrong was that during I Dreamed a Dream the gauze behind Fantine was about six feet off the deck on the OP side, it ran that smoothly.  I was amazed at the presence of mind that the crew of 16 and 17 year olds displayed - real initiative, despite never really having done any large-scale theatre before.  I was so proud of my crew, and I'd go back and do it again at the drop of a hat!