Messages

361

Tools of the Trade / Re: Making prop red wine

« on: Apr 18, 2009, 07:03 am »

You can search this forum for "Beverage Recipies," a topic that has been discussed before.  But I don't remember discussion of non-staining red wine recipies...

362

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: How to explain what we do...

« on: Mar 26, 2009, 09:46 am »

Matt,

How kind of you to post your presentation on your website for everyone to refer to!  The humor in it is completely and utterly Irreverent You.  If anyone else tries to use it, they will be unsuccessful, as it will immediately out them as having "borrowed" it, for no one else in this Stage Management world has YOUR sense of humor.

 Have a great vacation, and don't bother sending that postcard that I know you already have addressed and stamped.  Just have a good time!

<snip>
And on that note . . . I have posted it as a web presentation at http://www.stagemanager.net/10minutes.htm.  I will keep it for a while, and then take down eventually.  Please do not steal my work.

363

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Cancelling a show

« on: Mar 22, 2009, 06:09 pm »

On TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) tours without Understudies, tours I SM'd for more years than I like to remember, my company and I always had a plan of how the show could be done if we were one actor short.  Sometimes our Artistic Director and her Staff came up with these plans, sometimes those of us actually out on the road came up with the plan. (After all, who knows the show better than the people who perform it, sometimes two or three times a day?)  I don't recall ever canceling a TYA performance down one actor, but I've heard stories of shows down two or more that have done so.

364

The Hardline / Re: Dance Call

« on: Mar 15, 2009, 10:13 pm »

On shows I've done with complicated lifts, drops, spins, acro., etc., the dancers have usually taken care of all of this, on their own, during their warm up.

So, this has come up on my past two shows.  Working on the LORT contract, we are allowed a fight call, but you can't do a "dance call" - I am wondering what, if any AEA contract allows that - both times, I have had sort of knock down, round and round conversations about this. 

365

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Requests for Electronic Scripts -- Post 'em here!

« on: Mar 10, 2009, 07:46 am »

Rights were secured months ago!!! I guess these shows are not touring anywhere near enough to Brunswick, Maine to matter!

My turn now.  Can anyone hook me up with:

Light in the Piazza
Crazy for You
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Drowsy Chaperone

I am doing all four this summer.

Thanks in advance,
Ruth

Drowsy and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels can't be licensed at the moment, as they're on tour. (I don't know if you can secure the rights in time for your summer production...)  Just a heads-up. 

366

The Hardline / Foothills Theatre in Trouble

« on: Mar 02, 2009, 01:39 pm »

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/02/28/mass_theater_needs_cash_fast_or_it_will_close/

Mass. theater needs cash fast or it will close
February 28, 2009


WORCESTER, Mass.—The operators of the Foothills Theatre Company in Worcester say they need to raise $200,000 in two weeks or the theater will close.

Mel Greenberg, president of the Foothills board, tells the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester that this year's attendence has been largely "dismal." He said the company, which was founded in 1974, is also suffering from decreased grant money, a lack of corporate support and ongoing debt payments.

Greenberg added that the opening of the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts in Worcester last year didn't help.

The Foothills has started a last-gasp fundraising campaign on the Internet, stressing it's not "crying wolf."

The theater company faced a similar crisis in the early 1990s, but a "Save Our Shows" campaign was successful.

367

The Hardline / Re: Just got my card with a SPT contract

« on: Feb 27, 2009, 10:43 pm »

Congratulations, John!

Funny how things work out, isn't it?

 

I just got my card by signing a contract for a new SPT production in NJ

Any tips with the contract or being new to AEA?

I have worked under AEA contracts throughout my career but always as an intern/apprentice or it was under the showcase code in NYC

Thanks,

John

368

Employment / Re: Unemployment Benefits Claims??

« on: Feb 26, 2009, 11:31 pm »

Congratulations on your perseverance and on the outcome! Now get a good night's sleep!  You deserve it!

TRIUMPH!

As of today my case has been closed, and I will be able to receive my back benefits as well as further benefits.
<snip>

369

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

« on: Feb 25, 2009, 01:33 pm »

Chicago's About Face Postpones Show, Launches Emergency Fundraising Campaign

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/126677.html

370

Employment / New Federal Unemployment Regulation

« on: Feb 25, 2009, 11:46 am »

***Disclaimer***

This is my PERSONAL understanding of the new regulation. I am not an Unemployment expert or lawyer!!

There's a new Federal Unemployment regulation that the Bush administration kicked us in the butt with, on their way out the door.

The new regulation concerns Combined Wage Claims (CWC), the type of claim you make if you have worked in more than one state, but don't have enough employment in only one of them to make a claim.

In the past you could open this type of claim in your home state (based on the rates and rules of your home state) if you'd worked in two other states, without any employment in your home state.

Now you must open the claim in one of the states in which you worked (if you had no employment in your home state) which may cause you to lose money if that state pays a lower rate, or lose weeks if that state uses a different quarter system. It's even worse for us New Yorkers who can still get a wage determination based on weeks of work rather than quarters.

On top of that, the applicant is responsible for researching Unemployment laws in all the states in which s/he worked, prior making the choice of which state to use for the claim. And those websites are NOT easy to navigate!! 

Much, much more cumbersome than the old method, and likely to cause additional financial problems for many theatre folk and other artists.

371

Employment / Re: When Hiring Other SM's...

« on: Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 am »

 I do agree that there's nothing wrong with a phone call. 

But I prefer only to interview candidates who can work all of the specified dates without conflict, and who will work for the money and housing terms offered.  It's much easier to explain this in an email to 40 candidates, than to call them all with the inquiry.  I only set up the dates and take "No thank yous" via email.  Everything is else is done via the tried-and-true "old" method!

I do take the point that if you've been applying for work it behooves one to keep an eye out for responses through all possible channels.
Maybe I just think that the phone used to work well as a way of communicating...

372

Employment / When Hiring Other SM's...

« on: Feb 24, 2009, 10:14 pm »

I'm in the process of hiring my summer staff, and have come up against something interesting that I've not encountered in the past.

I receive all the applicants' resumes from the theatre, go through them, and then send e-mails to set up phone interviews with the top candidates.  The email clearly describes the position, the dates and the pay.  The applicant then replies with their interest in continuing the process (or the statement that they have another job, or can't work those dates, or for that money, etc.) and we mutually decide on an interview date and time. 

Pretty easy?  Pretty clear? It seems so, yet there is a large percentage of Stage Manager applicants who NEVER respond. It is both polite and professional to respond either way (I certainly don't take offense when someone says "no thank you" to an interview) yet some of the applicants clearly do not deem this necessary. It's a pity, because then I begin to have pre-conceived notions about whether I'd even care to work with them.

True, people get busy, but if one applies for a job, shouldn't one be serious (or smart) enough to reply when an prospective employer makes the first move? 

Has anyone else run into this?

And what might I be missing here?

373

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: What basics should actors know about tech?

« on: Feb 24, 2009, 07:39 pm »

While I don't disagree that these acting questions should have been discussed in the rehearsal hall, I would never take the prerogative away from the Director to decide whether or not the time is right to field a question of that nature.

There is always work that the crew, designers, and I can be doing while this kind of dialogue takes place.

RuthNY - I think the point of making the distinction is that cue to cue is not the time to stop to ask the director for acting notes. I saw quite a lot of that in my early days of sming, and while it's probably a valid question for the actor to pose, it's not the best time to do so. That's one of the things I want to discuss. Letting them know it's okay to ask about the timing of their entrance, but not the appropriate time to ask about their character's intention on their opening line, for instance.
<snip>

374

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: What basics should actors know about tech?

« on: Feb 24, 2009, 06:35 pm »

Whether Tech. is "rehearsal for them" (the actors) or not (and I disagree with the notion that Tech. is NOT for them as well) encourage them to use every moment onstage as if it were. This is how the cast continues to explore the stage, set, props, costumes, lights etc. (their new working environment) and develop the chops necessary to put on a performance.  Any suggestion that they should not be working to capacity when they ARE given the chance to run a scene, song, dance, etc. is undercutting rehearsal time. 

Use every rehearsal hour to the fullest, for every member of the company; designers, director, choreographer, technicians, stage management, AND actors.  Never waste a second of onstage time by putting into someone's head that it's not valuable work time for them. Actors don't "get into character" just before going onstage each night, they develop the means to do it while in rehearsal. Don't cheat them of this time by telling "them" it isn't "theirs."

<snip>
  Plus making sure they know (as mentioned above) that it isn't a "rehearsal" for them-it is for the techs, and the techs need them there like the actors need props to practice with (though that particular analogy may not be the best to use...)

375

The Hardline / Re: Help with DDR

« on: Feb 15, 2009, 09:50 am »

Thanks for taking the time to create a response to the confusion about DDR.  What a complicated concept!  You certainly have come up with some creative ways to deal with it!