Messages

301

The Green Room / Re: Did he REALLY ask me that?

« on: Dec 16, 2010, 03:24 am »

I looked at the red faced cast member standing in front of me, pulled the needed item out of my purse without him saying a word (packed precisely because I knew the tendancies and general preparedness level of the other folks who were going to be at the party, and if your SM doesn't look out for you, who will), handed him two without a word and stalked off in search of another beer.

And every inch a stage manager.

You should have expensed them, if your program allowed it. ("Well, no, the condoms weren't used in the production, but if Janet Weiss got herself knocked up, we wouldn't have much of a show!")

And, strictly for reference, we aren't issuing mic packs for this show. Maybe they're planning to swap goldfish?

302

The Green Room / Re: Did he REALLY ask me that?

« on: Dec 14, 2010, 04:30 pm »

"Hey on_headset, can I talk to you? See, I was wondering if we could get some condoms for the green room..."

DON'T WANT TO KNOW
DON'T WANT TO KNOW
STICK YOUR BITS INTO WHOEVER YOU LIKE
BUT I DON'T WANT TO KNOW

303

The Green Room / Re: Funny definitions

« on: Dec 14, 2010, 04:23 pm »

The Lick: The words that actually come out of your mouth when what you really want to say is "Sit down and shut up before I stick this sharpie somewhere tender and painful", "What on EARTH do you think you're doing?!", "Get your hands off my butt before I remove them at the shoulder", or something in that vein.

As in, "I gave him the lick, and it seemed to make the point".


Interesting Choices: What directors call it when someone else has a truly horrific idea.

Bad Ideas: What directors call it when someone has a good idea, but the director didn't think of it first.

Good Ideas: What directors call it when someone makes an interesting choice, but the director doesn't feel like dealing with it themselves, so they make it stage management's problem.

304

The Green Room / Re: Funnest Tech Run Ever

« on: Nov 28, 2010, 06:41 pm »

Didn't make me smile at the time, but I once worked on a production of Blithe Spirit in which we had a shattering-glass effect offstage: the maid, having discovered the ghost, would scream and drop a plate with a shatter.

We did the tech run on my birthday, and as a prank, one of the ASMs spent $20 at Goodwill, bought up a bunch of old mismatched China, and had a grand old time shattering it at inopportune moments. ("AIEEEEE! *smash*" "HOLD! That wasn't the cue!" "Sorry!" "We'll run it from..." "AIEEEEE! *smash*")

305

The Green Room / Re: Help needed!!

« on: Nov 17, 2010, 10:21 pm »

Yes.

But I'm not going to tell you which one you should do. The reason your teacher is asking you to prepare a monologue instead of a specific monologue is because they want you to identify and assess your strengths and choose a text which showcases these strengths. The legwork is arguably just as important as the performance itself (especially if you consider that the legwork leads to the performance), so IMO it's something you should be doing yourself.

306

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: New Experience: Advice/Opinions Appreciated

« on: Nov 17, 2010, 03:03 pm »

If you have access to a faculty advisor, something you might do is schedule these two actors a meeting with that advisor to discuss the importance of professionalism. As the SM (and a fellow student), your words only carry so much weight. A faculty advisor saying "No, sorry, this won't cut it in the real world: you need to be on time, you need to be in touch, you need to keep the affection to appropriate times and places... and if you can't figure that out, you're in serious trouble" would drill the point home much more effectively, and would allow you to ramp up your own rhetoric (and, should it come to that, consequences) if the situation doesn't improve.

This with the caveat that it depends upon the advisor's schedule, personality, relationship with you and the show, and so on.

307

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Bad Behavior?

« on: Nov 17, 2010, 02:56 pm »

Even if his behaviour does not escalate further, this is something you should at the very least address to the show's faculty advisors. They might not be aware that it's going on, or they might not realize how serious it is. Write them (the faculty advisor) a letter, include references to specific events and instances, and--if possible--get multiple people to sign it. (Don't pass it around at rehearsal or anything like that, but if he's also being an ass to the PM, his dressers have witnessed him being an ass to other actors, etc. then they're the sorts of people who can corroborate your allegations.) Meetings and conversations are one thing, but your advisor will almost certainly need on-paper documentation of the situation before they can act on anything, so save yourself the trouble and get it done before you sit down with them. The process of writing it up will also allow you to consider what you want to say, how you want to frame it, and so on, which will make a difficult conversation much easier.

308

The Green Room / Re: The evolution of a scene

« on: Nov 17, 2010, 02:51 pm »

Adding it to fight call was what I would have suggested. Aside from the basic health-and-safety stuff associated with such a violent scene, I would imagine that the additional rehearsal (especially with professionals involved) might bring a degree of seriousness and--indeed--repetitiveness to the performance itself.

309

The Green Room / Re: Did he REALLY ask me that?

« on: Nov 17, 2010, 02:08 am »

In community theatre, I once had a newer actor tell me this great idea he had:  a table backstage to put props on!  We weren't even using props at this point.  But I smiled and told him we would have a "prop table,"  one for each side of the stage even.   

Ooooh! We ended up deputizing an actor to work as an ASM on a (low-level community theatre) show I worked on this summer, and in one of the design meetings he had a fantastic suggestion.

See, what you do is you take a piece of paper, and you cut out a shape... like, say, a moon. Then you tape it to the front of the light, so the beam cast by the light will be in the shape of a moon! Here, I have a flashlight with me, anyone have some scissors? I have such a great feeling about this idea! C'mon, guys!

It didn't end there. Once we got into actual rehearsals, he came up with the brilliant idea that, instead of keeping blocking notes in full sentences, we should all use this "blocking notation" he invented on the weekend. Here, I have photocopies for everyone, it's much more efficient than full sentences, I swear...

I fully expected that, at some point, he would suggest we should assemble a funny structure built of wood which he calls a "stage", and then we should hire people to say pretty words--let's call them "actors"--to a group of other people who have paid to have those pretty words spoken to them. ("Audience"? I like the sound of that!)

310

The Green Room / Re: Did he REALLY ask me that?

« on: Nov 13, 2010, 02:07 am »

Because, I mean, who doesn't come to the ballet two hours early in a black t-shirt and jeans, and with a keyring the size of their head? Clearly you'd blend right in with the pearls-and-cufflinks crowd.

311

The Green Room / Re: Did he REALLY ask me that?

« on: Nov 12, 2010, 05:46 pm »

The university I attended had spectacularly well-trained ushers. They knew all about the significance of the half, and the importance of not letting people go backstage, and guarding the appropriate doors, and not taking "no" for an answer, which led to conversations like this:

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not allowed to let you go backstage."
"I'm the stage manager."
"Well, if you're going backstage, you need to go all the way out and around to the stage door."
"The house isn't even open yet!"
"If I let you through now, then everyone else will want to go through here."
"THERE'S NOBODY ELSE HERE."

312

The Green Room / Re: "Multi-tasking" actors and designers

« on: Nov 10, 2010, 01:26 pm »

I'm always hopeful that reputations will sort it out.

An actor who gets to be known for never fully committing to a project, flaking out on rehearsals, etc. will probably not be in demand for much longer.

313

The Green Room / Re: 10 things actors can do to get off to a good start with a stage manager

« on: Nov 09, 2010, 05:55 pm »

10. Understand that "no" means "no". When we tell you not to do something, when we ask you not to do something, when we implore you not to do something, you shouldn't do that thing. We aren't humourless and we aren't saying "no" just to spite you, we're just looking out for your safety, your happiness, and the theatre's bank account.

10. Respect our stuff. Yes, I have a toolbox that contains all kinds of goodies. (Cough drops! Pencils! Power tools! Teabags! Ice packs! Breath mints! Tape! Oh, such goodies!) And, yes, if you ask me for any of these goodies, I'll probably let you have them. This does not mean you can take it upon yourself to rifle around in my kit, nor does it apply to my stuff more generally.

10. Don't flake out. We will go to the ends of the earth and back again in order to support and accommodate you and make you feel happy and comfortable about the production, but please remember that we have an entire show to worry about, and any time we spend on you is time that isn't being spent on something else. Ask for support, by all means--but if we beaver away on a modification or a reconfiguration or an exception or a change, and you then decide you didn't really need it in the first place, we won't like you very much.

314

The Green Room / Re: Performers & Safety - would you walk off a show?

« on: Oct 29, 2010, 08:35 pm »

I have no idea if the show is any good, but the special effects are unbelievable.

I'll admit it, I winced.

One of the early chairmen of the BBC had a philosophy about his job. It was television's responsibility to do what only it could do well: rather than trying to imitate film, radio, and so on, television should focus on things like live coverage of news and sporting events, broadcasting programs which can only really be watched in the home (cooking programs, crafting programs, etc.), and so on. The movies will out-do television in the things that movies do best; the radio will out-do television in the things it does best; newspapers will out-do television in the things it does best; and so on. Television could only succeed as a medium if it carved out its own niche and focused on its own strengths, rather than trying to adopt those of others.

To some extent, theatre's in the same boat. No matter how hard we try, there's simply no way for live theatre to compete with movies in terms of highest-tier special effects: films have dozens of takes and months of editing and enhancement and the ability to have the entire effect supervised, coordinated, planned and executed by teams of dozens if not hundreds of specialists, while we have... running crew, who--bless 'em--can't make the wires disappear, can't completely hide the trapdoors, can't keep the audience from seeing the nets, and can't replace the lead actor with a trained stunt double right before the Big Huge Stunt Effect Bit. We can't keep up with film in this area, and trying to do so becomes very dangerous very quickly.

That doesn't mean theatre has to give up on thrilling effects and restrict itself to Hamlet and Death of a Salesman, but I'm very wary of this production in particular if the emphasis is on cinematic-quality special effects as an attraction unto themselves, especially if such incredible risks are being taken.

315

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: What to do when you're sick?

« on: Oct 20, 2010, 02:03 pm »

We aren't talking about skilled labour, though, we're talking about finding emergency day-of replacements for unpaid work in small-scale, everyone's-a-volunteer community theatre to cover a single performance. If the script is unusually complicated or the work is paid, then, yes, by all means set a higher standard, but at that point we're having a different conversation.