Messages

286

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Calling sound cues

« on: Jul 20, 2006, 12:36 pm »

It sounds like, from your original post, that you have a separate person operating the sound cues; and that you and your operator are not on headset?  A headset would allow your voice to be heard by the sound operator clearly, along with any music playing.

If you think that the audience would hear your calls as easily as the operator, you may want to use hand signals or cue lights to call cues.  If you have a line-of-sight to your operator (for example, if you're sitting right next to each other), then hand signals are lowest-tech.  You raise your hand to warn the cue, and lower your hand or point to the operator to signal the go. 

If you don't have a line-of-sight to the operator, then you can rig a cue light - lowest tech would be a cliplight at the operator's station run to a powerstrip at your station.  To warn the cue, you turn the powerstrip on, and to signal the go, you turn the powerstrip off.

Neither one of these systems works if you have sound problems - if your operator plays the wrong track, for example - so a headset is preferable.  But if you only have a few sound cues, and you have a trustworthy operator, either will be sufficient.

287

SMNetwork Archives / Re: The new SMnetwork

« on: Jun 21, 2006, 06:29 pm »

This really is absolutely terrific.  The site looks fantastic and loads in a tenth of the time.  I'm not getting booted off with "Invalid IP address" anymore (I hope your anti-hacking software is still working just fine).

I also LOVE the reorganization of the forum topics, and the visual cues when there are unread threads since my last visit.  What a thrill to try this old link on the off chance, and to come up with such an amazing upgrade!  It's like the police saying "We think we've found your stolen VW, will you come and pick it up" and then getting there and the car is now a maserati....

288

Students and Novice Stage Managers / independent show/problems with director

« on: Apr 16, 2006, 03:48 pm »

I would actually advise avoiding a paper tech in this situation.  My bet is that the "director" will fill your script with five hundred pipe-dream cues during a paper tech meeting that will last forever.  Then they'll all change anyway when the limitations of the dimmer rack and sound system, and the clock running out on tech time, force you to five or six cues total.  Your time is better spent in reading the script four or five times to get familiar with what they're trying to do, and being ready to throw it all out the window and start from scratch when tech starts.  Like mc said, quick and dirty notes, no prep work.

Since they're adding you just for tech and perfs, they obviously don't need creative input for you.  Be real clear about your boundaries.  Give the time that you can give, and make sure that the time you are there you're making the show the best it can possibly be.  Don't let yourself be corralled into being a production manager as well as a stage manager, just concentrate on making the show you have work as well as it can.

289

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Calling a HUGE Show... HELP!!!!!

« on: Apr 15, 2006, 08:10 pm »

One calling tip I learned from my friend Monica is to sketch in a carat on the word in the script that you start talking.  That is, once the cast has settled into a standard rhythm, you mark the word on which you start saying "LX 12, Sound 3...Go" so that you control the pace at which you call the cues.  After a couple of times through the script, your calls are very standardized and easy to listen to.  The "..." becomes a standard amount of time - an inhale - that helps a crew anticipate the "Go" better.

Before I learned this, there were times when I would wait too long to start talking and I'd rush the "elextwelvesoundGO"; or I'd stretch things out - "Elex ... tweeelve... Sound .. three .... .... .... Go" and I felt bad when the crew messed up because of my calling.

290

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / What to do After the Show Closes

« on: Apr 12, 2006, 03:58 pm »

I make sure to get 24 hours alone.  After a show closes, I go camping.  I turn off my cell phone, take along a book, and just live in the quiet outdoors for a night.  Since I usually go Mondays, I generally have the entire campsite to myself.  I don't have anyone waiting on reports from me, I don't need to sign anything, I don't need to write any checks, and my spouse knows that one night away from her and the cats means that I don't spend a week or two cranky and uninvolved.

When you give so much of yourself to a project as huge as a show, you need to get away and recharge your batteries.

291

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Final draft, new scripts, and electronic markups

« on: Apr 05, 2006, 03:34 pm »

Final Draft is an industry standard scriptwriting software, used mainly in television and film, I believe.  It's very easy for one person to use, and has excellent benefits of pagination control, name changes, and scene swapping; it runs great reports on the language and structure of the script; and I think the current versions have more tools to help with the actual writing and plotting of the script.

The way it does all this is to follow VERY strict rules about formatting.  If the person working on the script doesn't know all these rules, then transferring the script to Word is a real nightmare, as above posters have said.

I can explain most of the rules of Final Draft formatting, if you want, and I've had success (though not much) in transferring the script to Word by controlling Word's Style menu.  I can explain more there if you want.

Nowadays I do all my scripts in Word if I have time before prep week starts.  I don't know of any easy way to add cue lines or blocking notes on top of an FD document, nor of any easy way to open a multi-page .pdf document in an application (Word, Photoshop, Pages) that will let you draw on top of it.

FD was created for writers, NOT for SMs.

292

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / courtesy

« on: Apr 03, 2006, 06:26 pm »

I was speaking of more than just courtesy.  It's almost standard for actors to use "Thank you" as a polite way of saying "I heard what you just said and have taken the note/announcement/warning, etc.".  But it's rare for an actor to (a) recognize that I've saved their bacon and (b) appreciate the fact by thanking me.

293

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PEOPLE: Saving an actor's neck

« on: Apr 02, 2006, 03:08 am »

Here's the fun part of being an ASM.  I'm running SR, and just before going onstage, an actor put down a prop on the prop table, then made his entrance SR.  It's one of those specific props used in the show - like Desdemona's handkerchief.  I thought, "that's not right, is it?"  He exits SL and re-enters SL a minute later, so I didn't think he would want to crossover just to get this prop.  I double-checked with the SL stage manager, and it didn't make any sense to her either.  So, I walked over to SL with his prop and handed it to him - and was thanked profusely!  He had just spaced for a second and thought he was done with it.  It was the second show of a two-show day, and he got confused.  He would have been really struggling if he had gone on without it.

It's just so rare to be thanked by an actor - during a performance, even! - that I wanted to mention it here.

294

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Original Script

« on: Mar 25, 2006, 03:18 am »

Streamline the re-write process.  Often on a new play the current script is maintained by an assistant director person, or a dramaturg, etc.  Only issue new pages for additions or changes of more than a line or two on the page, otherwise note the line change and distribute that day's line change log to the people who need it.  If you can mark the change in your prompt book without adding a new page and without making it too hard to follow, do so (i.e., in the case of line cuts or word changes).  

I keep blocking notes on the facing blank page of the text so that when I add new pages, I just tape the new page over the old one and I only have to transfer the blocking reference number, not the whole description.

But since you've done new plays before, and a new musical, you probably know this already.  What is it about your process that's not working?  Or is it not _your_ process, but is it that the director isn't keeping you up-to-the-second with re-writes?  Lobby hard for the school to give that director some support.

Stage managers need to be able to identify the constraint on the system and elevate the process to remove that constraint.

295

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Applications and acceptances HELP!

« on: Mar 15, 2006, 08:02 pm »

Call the first offer and say that you need a few days before you accept.  The other two interviews are this week, right?  So during those interviews, let them know that you have an offer that you need to reply to in a couple of days.  That'll elicit a level of interest from the new interviews, and you'll be able to gauge how to respond to the first offer.  You can probably put them off for a few days, too, unless they have a large number of candidates waiting.

296

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Portfolio?

« on: Mar 14, 2006, 04:52 pm »

Contact the internship.  Ask them what they expect from a stage manager.  "Portfolio" I would think would be for a designer. "Writing Sample" I would guess is for a playwright or a grantwriter/marketing or dramaturg internship.  The thing that would make the most sense, if I were in your shoes, would be to give three letters of recommendation - but the only person who can answer your question is the person evaluating these applications.

297

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / The SM times are a-changin'?

« on: Mar 13, 2006, 11:10 am »

It's a lot easier to give notes during the run if you establish a note-giving relationship early in rehearsal.  When I SM a show, I try to catch an actor or two after every rehearsal and give them a positive note about something they did in that rehearsal.  It lets them know that I'm paying attention to that sort of thing, and it lets them know that I'm "on their side", as it were.

I believe in SM's maintaining the show, but it is a few decades since directors trained by stage-managing other directors, so SM Maintenance is not as built-in to the system as it was.

I really hate when some actor tells me what my job is, and they get it wrong.  I'll hold on to the ability to give actors notes as long as I can.  There was one director - I think it was Albert Takazauckas - who was directing a particular actor who talked back to him at an early rehearsal - Said something like "I'm not going to do it that way" or "That's a stupid note" or something.  The director just said "Ok." and then didn't give that actor another note.  EVER.  So by previews, the under-rehearsed actor was in tears because he/she was floundering with no direction.  Ah, revenge is sweet.

298

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Tieing actors up onstage?!

« on: Mar 10, 2006, 11:29 am »

you aren't, by any chance, doing Orphans?

you mean there's more than one show with this action?   :wink:

I'll have to keep my eye on the listings for this one...

299

The Hardline / AEA information

« on: Mar 06, 2006, 11:36 am »

http://web.actorsequity.org/faqpublic/browse_public.asp?locator=7

This is Equity's FAQ sheet on membership.  It answers most basic questions.

Is being in Equity helpful?  Yes, IF you have a resume and are near Equity houses that will get you hired on Equity contracts.  AEA doesn't have any job placement services.

Major points of AEA helpfulness:
1) Defined job duties: you won't be taking out the trash or babysitting children or animals
2) Defined work hours: you won't be rehearsing more hours a week than you can afford to do
3) Contract Pay minimums:  for a given level of theatre, you're getting a reasonable pay for your work, because the union has negotiated it on your behalf.
4) Health Benefits: if you can get twenty weeks of work in a year, you have good coverage that YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR.
5) Housing: if you work out of town, the AEA contract controls your living conditions that the theatre has to put you up in.
I'm sure others, like VSM, could add to this list quickly, but it's just what comes off the top of my head.

Major points of AEA drawbacks:
1) You can't stage manage non-union theatre anymore, to build up your resume or help out your friends.  (but even for this, a producer can work on getting a guest-artist agreement with AEA)  If you're union and only have one union show on your resume, and not much networking or non-pro show experience, it can be really difficult to get your second union show.

The cost:
You have to pay semi-annual dues ($59)
2% of every paycheck goes to AEA as working dues
There's an inital membership fee to join - currently $1100, and at least $400 down to open your membership.

300

SMNetwork Archives / Spike Tape Problems

« on: Feb 22, 2006, 10:22 am »

Identify your goal, specifically, and then isolate the obstacles to that goal.

Goal: accurate placement of furniture during performance.
Obstacle: spike tape comes off of floor surface.

Response: staple spike tape? Result- spike tape comes up
Response: use sharpie marks?  Result - unkown.  How about trying a sharpie mark in a corner of the carpet (like testing the colorfastness of a garment) and seeing if it actually damages the look of the carpet, or if it will come out with a cleaning solution like GooGone or something?
Response: Carpet tacks & tacking hammer? Result - unknown (good suggestion, mc)
Response:  Train crew to LIFT furniture rather than dragging it?
Response:  Marly tape over the spike marks?  if the carpet is a low pile stiff carpet, maybe this will work


If all the responses fizzle out, REVIEW YOUR GOAL:
just how necessary is accurate placement of furniture?  does furniture move a lot?  Do you have a lot of lighting specials focused specifically on the actors on this furniture, or hard focus cuts around it?  Are spike marks the only way to gauge where to place it - could you reference off of set pieces or corners of the deck, or other pieces of furniture that haven't moved yet?

Don't assume that you have to spike mark everything just because stage managers always spike mark everything.  Spiking isn't the goal.  Accurate, repeatable performances are the goal - and if your tolerances are wide enough, you might not need spike marks at all.

If placement really must be precise, and spike marks are coming up during a run (so there's no time for you to re-measure and replace them) then this is a TD/Producer issue, and I would get permission to disfigure the carpet, or get a replacement carpet for the set, or lower the standards of accurate placement by getting the lighting designer to make changes (for example)