Messages

256

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROMPT SCRIPT: Receiving a Mess

« on: Nov 06, 2010, 11:33 am »

I agree with MarcieA- I've never run into this personally, but I think that if I did, I would ask for a clean copy of the script and to borrow the archival video and make my own set of blocking notes with a combination of the video and whatever notation I can decipher from the old book.  Good luck!

257

The Green Room / Re: I can't believe I just had to do that...

« on: Oct 27, 2010, 05:26 pm »

I just taped out a box set on shag carpeting. None of the lines are straight, because pressing the tape down so it will sort-of stick makes the carpet move underneath it.

258

The Green Room / Re: I can't believe I just had to do that...

« on: Oct 24, 2010, 05:50 pm »

Just had the first orchestra rehearsal for ANNIE in the rehearsal room. After the rehearsal, I had to mop up the spittle from the spit valves of all the brass. Can you say disgusting that they simply walked away from it!?!

I've had to do that every time I've worked with an orchestra, and it never gets any less disgusting. I just don't understand it...

259

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 22, 2010, 01:38 pm »

I just looked at my BTDT profile and noticed that one of my shows has been edited-

Spring Awakening by Wedekind was changed to Spring Awakening by Wedekind, Sheik, Sater 

I stage managed the original straight play, not the musical.  I know that there are other shows where this problem could arise (a play that is then made into a musical using the original script) and I'm not sure how best to differentiate between the different versions other than author's name, but I think there does need to be some way to tell the difference- I know in this case at least, the play is very different from the musical!

260

The Green Room / Re: I can't believe I just had to do that...

« on: Oct 14, 2010, 01:39 pm »

My favorite thing I've had to do was for a production of Deadwood Dick or The Game of Gold that I ASM'ed in college.  In the first tech rehearsal, the director decided that she didn't like the way the galloping horse sound cues sounded.  The solution was for myself and the other ASM to somehow make the sounds live backstage, and after a multitude of options were bandied about, someone laughingly suggested "We can do it Monty Python style, anybody have some coconuts?"  Unfortunately we did not have any coconuts, but the TD found some empty tupperware containers in the green room that made great horse hoove sounds when turned upside down and beaten on a wooden table top.  The problem with this was that both of us have really small hands and couldn't grip the tupperware.  Final solution: Taco Bell cups- the plastic kind that are smaller on the bottom so they fit in the cup holder in your car.  I spent the next 5 days before opening stalking people in the green room eating their dinner and fishing their empty cups out of the garbage.

261

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 14, 2010, 12:41 am »

I added a couple of shows with author's first & last names because I maybe kind of didn't read the instructions until I'd already started entering them- I couldn't help it! I was just so excited about the new feature!

For ease of editing, they are:
Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin
Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts
Black Pearl Sings! by Frank Higgins

Also, can I just tell you how cool I think this thing is?  I think it'll be really useful once people start really using it!

262

The Green Room / Re: Convolution Creep

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 02:37 am »

The backstage toilet can be heard flushing, during the show.

Our theatre too! Any running water can be heard in the audience because the pipes run the length of the house. This is especially problematic when scenic designers and directors collaborate and decide they want a working sink onstage...

263

Uploaded Forms / Re: spike Matrix

« on: Oct 10, 2010, 03:49 pm »

I don't even know what a spike matrix is, but I hope somebody posts one! Now I'm curious...

264

The Green Room / Convolution Creep

« on: Oct 10, 2010, 01:26 pm »

Inspired by On_Headset's brilliant definition in the Funny Definitions thread-

Convolution Creep: The gradual stacking-up of idiosyncrasies in your rehearsal or performance space. ("...and the lightswitch only works if you press it from the top left, and the booth doesn't have a floor, so we'll need you to wear a harness and be flown into position, and the alarm only works on alternating Tuesdays, and the coms will suddenly drop out if you end a sentence with a preposition...")


Please, share your convolution creep with the class- every theatre has at least one little idiosyncrasy.

For the theatre I'm at right now- it's the Phone of Doom (among other things. Mainly just this stupid phone...) The line of communication from the booth to the green room & dressing rooms is via an old phone- dial a specific number in the booth and it goes to an intercom system backstage.  Now when I started working here, it was explained to me that this phone doesn't dial out, isn't connected to any other line, etc. so when it started ringing during a performance, and then continued to ring even after I took it off the hook, I started asking around.  Despite my obvious proof of the phone ringing (which can be heard in the house, onstage, in the lobby, etc) no one believed me... I had to unplug the phone from the wall (a feat in and of itself, in the tangle of unlabeled cords that is The Booth) and plug it in when I needed to give calls.

Let's hear your convolution creep stories!

265

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Taking notes

« on: Oct 07, 2010, 01:52 pm »

My best advice to you would be to do the best you can to keep up with the notes as the director is giving them and then ask the director if you can set up a time either before or after rehearsal to just sit down and quickly run through all of the set moves and quick changes.

266

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: REHEARSAL: Duties during acting exercises, movement, vocal work, etc.

« on: Oct 06, 2010, 12:13 am »

I often take notes  on what is done during this time, usually on what is accomplished. Then, when actors can't understand something the director says, I can reference the exercises.
Also, once paperwork and general attendance is finished, I take pay close attention to what is being instructed.. You never know when someone throws in a blocking note.
Generally, I always find it helpful to take notes on vocal or movements that are taught. But I draw the line at choreography. Recording choreography, I have determined, is the responsibility of the choreographer or dance captain, and is of no concern to me. If they are learning dance, then I have some (well deserved) time to relax.

Interesting... I generally am the exact opposite.  I almost never take notes during acting exercises (that are strictly exercises, of course, no blocking). I occasionally take notes in music rehearsals (but generally only when it's something like "You 3 sing this part, then you switch to the top on the chorus") and I always take choreography notes- not every single movement, but I definitely make note of big shifts in choreography, who is paired up with whom if it's a partnered dance, and often draw diagrams of various formations the dancers make.  I've found it to be invaluable when talking through sections with lighting designers- as much as I might want to call from the score, the designers I've worked with have almost always worked off of the choreography. 

267

The Green Room / Re: Thread to vent about / Actors behaving badly / As haiku only

« on: Oct 02, 2010, 02:47 am »

You're on vocal rest?
Why the heck are you belting
This karaoke?

268

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SCENERY: Video

« on: Sep 24, 2010, 11:46 am »

Video tip for Q-lab folks!  If you're using a lot of video make sure your video designer sets it up as all the same format!  I know Q-lab will run multiple formats even at the same time, but it can casuse instability and spontaneous crashing.  Two years ago, I was doing a musical with canned music and lots of projections, MIDI gos for the light cues.  HEAVY Q-lab stuff.  The first two weeks, it kept crashing on me, never in the same place, about every other show.  Finally, we chatted with Q-lab support, and they suggested putting all the video in the same format.  Never crashed again.

Thanks for the tip! The theatre I'm working at now has me running lights & sound out of QLab and it's a brand-new experience for me (I've never actually run it myself, I've always had a board-op...), so I appreciate any Q-Lab tips I get.

269

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SCENERY: Video

« on: Sep 23, 2010, 04:15 pm »

I've worked on one show that used a combination of video & projections, and another that used just projections. 

The one with video & projection was a dance piece that was inspired by a letter written to the choreographer by a friend of hers serving in Iraq, and the video was a combination of a voiceover of the letter itself with pictures of his unit, pictures from the news of soldiers' funerals, etc. and some dynamic text using words from the letter.  There was also a portion of the dance that was performed with a projection of the American flag on the dancers' bodies. We used QLab to sync everything together, and it worked really well in my opinion (technically, anyway. The choreography left something to be desired, but I had no control over that...).

The other production we used projections in was in Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel.  Each scene in the script has a title, and the scenic designer had laundry lines strung above the set, with the center piece of laundry being a bed sheet folded over the line.  We used the sheet as a projection screen for the titles of each scene.  We also used it to solve the problem that the script calls for the end of each act to end as a photograph with a caption- we had a flash and then fade down to a sepia-tone wash and the actors froze in place as the caption of the photo was projected above them.  It was REALLY subtle, but it worked really well, I think.

270

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ESCRIPTS Archive June 09-Dec. 10

« on: Sep 21, 2010, 12:27 pm »

August: Osage County?

Out-of-town director has put in a request for an electronic version of the script, and if one of you has it and saves my poor intern soul the trouble of typing it, I will be forever grateful. PDF, .doc, anything!

PM me or send an email to becky.reed.88 at gmail.com