Messages

256

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Are your shows safe from busses?

« on: Nov 16, 2009, 01:47 pm »

At what point do you make your show bus-proof?  Could someone pick up your stuff in the middle of the rehearsal period and run with it?  On tech day?  Opening night?  When do you begin leaving it (or a copy) at the theatre?

257

Tools of the Trade / Re: THE Sharpie topic

« on: Nov 10, 2009, 11:56 am »

Oooo, the Sherpas are tempting...but I'd probably cry if it got "lost."  As opposed to just being very very annoyed.

258

The Green Room / Re: audience callbacks- the ones you want, the ones you don't

« on: Nov 03, 2009, 12:46 pm »

At the Cabaret last weekend, one of the acts was "Undead Standup."  Luckily, the premise of the act is that he's supposed to be really bad, so when he asked, "What do you call a witch at the beach?" and an audience member immediately shouted back, "A sandwich!" it worked.  Actually, that was the best that act ever went....

259

The Green Room / Best one-liner from a performance report

« on: Oct 31, 2009, 12:36 am »

No matter how professinal you try to keep things, we work in a field where the strange becomes commonplace, and sentences from our official paperwork, taken out of context, can just be downright wierd.  What's your favorite?

From tonight's report on a Halloween themed cabaret:  "House size: 37 + Lord Voldemort"

260

Self-Promotion / Re: Add your Industry Night info here!

« on: Oct 28, 2009, 11:31 am »

Dancing Monkey Cabaret in Avondale Estates (Atlanta), GA is having a Pay What You Can preview at 8:00 this Thursday.  Check out my post about the Cabaret for full details.

261

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PROFESSIONALISM: Help, I'm being sabotaged!

« on: Oct 23, 2009, 12:41 pm »

I'm usually someone who, not only ignores slights, but doen't even notice them.  But even I have noticed this woman's behavior, and besides baffling me, it's really starting to worry me as well.
The Office Manager, or Managing Producer, or whatever it is she's calling herself this year is trying to make me look bad.  It's been going on for over a year.  I don't really have much contact with her, except, she is my liason for cast and crew contact information, and that's where she tries to mess me up.  
For last year's fall show, she "forgot" to inform me, or the cast, about a canceled matinee performance...making me look bad.
For last year's Christmas show, despite asking several times, she failed to give me complete contact information for designers, and never gave me the scenic designer's info.  I was told, "You're just using the kid's show set."  A very pissed off scenic designer stormed up to me at the first production meeting wanting to know why, "I wasn't informed about this meeting."  "I was never informed about you."  Again, making me look bad.
This year, as I began asking her for cast and crew information for the Christmas show, I got two names, no e-mail addresses or phone numbers.  A week later, I asked her again and she answered a question I didn't even ask, and did not answer my question.  Meanwhile the producer sent me names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers for all designers, so I know the information was readily avalable.  Oh, and she failed to inform me as to the name of the Director of the show, who happens to be the other Producer, and aforementioned Producer's husband.  
My latest request has been for the names and contact information of my apprentice crew.  She responded by asking me to send her my incomplete contact sheet and she will input them for me.    What!?
I do not want to send this woman my contact sheet.  I am quite sure that she will change something besides inputing the requested information.  And also, I'm tired of her trying to take over aspects of my job.  She made the SM and crew strike list for the last show.
Out of self defense, I've begun CC:ing Helpful Producer on all my communications with my problem contact, but I don't want to go explaining my problem to the Producer, because this person is a permanent staff member, and I'm on a per-show basis.  All my colleagues, at my other job, that I've discussed this situation with say it sounds like she is threatened by me, but that's ridiculous.  I don't want her job.  I don't even know what her job really is!  The only thing that messing me up is going to do for her is (I guess) make her feel superior and powerful, and make the theatre more difficult to run.
So, what does everyone think I should do with the contact sheet situation?  I'm so looking forward to getting all this info so I don't have to deal with her, anymore!

Edit added label to subject line-Rebbe

262

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Too many sick days on Broadway.....

« on: Oct 20, 2009, 01:32 pm »

When and how to you deal with someone who's not respecting their contract that way?  I know that working 6 days a week with only one day off sucks, and that most folks feel that they should take whatever work they can get - when you life is either feast or famine, most want to take advantage of any feasts that come up.

That's the question I puzzle over, as well.  Also, what's the order of priority on commitments?  I'm sure that RENT performer has contracts on those other "commitments" as well.  Did she sign them before she took the role in RENT?  After?  In the middle of the run?  Did she take the other job, first, but it didn't begin until after RENT had opened?  If these were prior commitments, doesn't she have a responsibility to them higher than the show?  It's murky ground, and a question that most professions don't have to deal with. 
"Do your highest work at all times," is a great phrase to throw out, but we all know that the human body has limits and show business and performing is ROUGH.  I don't think that an easy answer to this question exists, but discussion is a great start.

263

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Offshoot from Are you always completely honest?

« on: Oct 15, 2009, 07:22 pm »

I'm more likely to note my own mistakes than others.  At least I have first hand knowledge of what exactly went wrong!

264

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / POLICIES: Are you always completely honest?

« on: Oct 09, 2009, 01:44 pm »

So, how honest is everyone in their show reports?  Do you always put EVERYTHING in?

My reports always include any differences from an "average" performance.  More laughter, less laughter, audience talking back, garbled lines, a particularly "on" scene, low energy, etc.

But, depending on the producer, I get really tempted not to include things that are, in the long run, irrelevant.  I know they're going to have histrionics about something of no consequence.

Example: an onstage actor dropped his prop, earlier this week, which was a wireless mic he was pulling out of a stand.  It happens, human beings are fallible and we drop things, from time to time.  A look at anyone's drinking glasses cabinet at home will confirm that.  This was the only time it has occured.

But I was really tempted not to include it in my report, because my producer tends to think that one dropped prop is evidence of a continuing underlying problem that needs to be fixed.  "The mic stand must be rigged wrong and the mic must be slippery.  We can add some clamps on the stand and grip tape on the mic and maybe add more light in that scene so he can see the prop better!" when the reality is, the mic and stand and lights are fine; it was just an accident, a clumsy moment.  One dropped prop out of six weeks of show.

Of course, I put it in my report because I'm a good like that.  But the temptation to save the ME and props folks from likely, unnecessary trouble was really there.

Is everyone else always honest, even when they know the result of such honesty is going to, in the end, negatively impact the show?

265

Stage Management: Other / Re: Cabaret paperwork?

« on: Oct 03, 2009, 06:30 pm »

Libby,
That's brilliant, thanks!  Makes perfect sense, but I'm sure without an idea of what people have used before, I would have just been jotting notes on a legal pad and the wondering what they meant, later!

266

The Hardline / Who makes sure the rules are followed?

« on: Oct 03, 2009, 06:24 pm »

Just a caveat: I'm not AEA, but I'm currently working under an Equity contract in a Right-To-Work state, and do plan on getting my card in the next year or two.

So, who's responsibilty is it to make sure the producers are following all the AEA rules?  Is that another duty of the SM?  The Deputy?  Each Actor taking care of themselves?
It's easy enough to make sure the rules concerning breaks, days off, etc. are followed, and I don't have a problem keeping track of overtime, because, hey, I want my extra pay, too!  But what about rules concerning, say, rental of costume pieces owned by the actor?  Or scene changes out of character and not during entrances or exits?  Ultimately, whose responsibility is it to step up and say, "Hey, there's this rule that requires extra compensation (or whatever the rule is) and a rider on the contract; we need to take care of that."

267

Stage Management: Other / Cabaret paperwork?

« on: Oct 01, 2009, 12:42 pm »

Has anyone got an example of the sort of paperwork they've used for a cabaret style show?  I'm working one later this month, and I could certainly fly by the seat of my pants, but having a framework would be more efficient.  Obviously, my usual sort of work up wouldn't work very well.   
Thanks!

268

The Green Room / Re: audience callbacks- the ones you want, the ones you don't

« on: Sep 20, 2009, 02:27 pm »

We had one just last night!  The last bit of Act I is, of course, quite emotionaly charged, and the female lead is staning on stage, shouting, "I'm Laurie Jamesone, and I still know what I know."  She's echoing a sentiment that her father, who is sufering from alzheimers, said a few scenes earlier. 
Into the silence and soft flutes of the end of act music, as she walks moodily upstage, some woman in the front row with a thick Jersey accent said, tartly, "You sound just like yer faaather."

We were still laughing about it at the end of the night.

269

The Hardline / Re: Theatres That Have Closed--Can You Say "Emergency?"

« on: Sep 20, 2009, 02:24 pm »

Chalk me up as another one who did a number of shows at Blowing Rock.  Wow.  I had no idea that they were going.  Very sad.

By the by, ddsherrer, that friend with two kids would be Jesse McN would it?

270

The Green Room / Re: audience callbacks- the ones you want, the ones you don't

« on: Sep 16, 2009, 01:14 pm »

Great topic!  Gotta love those audiences, sometimes.

I did a performance of The Importance of Being Ernest in high school wherin I was playing Cecily.  Her last line in Act II is, "No, men are so cowardly, aren't they?" (or somthing along those lines, it's been quite some time!).
A woman (adult, not a fellow student) in the back row jumped up, stood on her seat and shouted, "Yeah!!!!  You go, girl!"  I have never been so grateful to get off stage so I could laugh myself stupid in my life.

And the Christmas show I do, every year is Santaland Diaries, which, if you don't know it, is more than a little...inappropriate.  Audience members tend to get quite drunk and wild, and a good time is had by all, until the hangover hits next morning.  It wasn't a call back, but an audience member, male, groped the butt of our lead as he was giving his monologue from the House Left aisle.