Messages

61

Tools of the Trade / Re: Purchasing Gaff and Spike Tape

« on: Sep 22, 2016, 06:49 pm »

It's great to have a Norcostco in Denver that you can walk in and pick up most supplies needed, especially when you need that *one* color.
Erin

62

Introductions / Re: I'm Flying!

« on: Sep 07, 2016, 12:42 am »

I hadn't heard of a flying gym pole before, so had to look it up. Intriguing using it on Peter Pan. Thanks for the new-to-me term!

And, welcome!

Erin

63

The Hardline / Re: AEA SM wearing a costume backstage?

« on: Sep 04, 2016, 11:21 pm »

My first internship had jumpsuits, and then the theatre disbanded at the end of the year, so we were able to keep the jumpsuits. I loved mine and wore it out, so my mother made me another. LOVED it for when we had multiple shows a day, and I could wear bright colors otherwise, except for my black shoes. I get bored with too much black clothing - gasp. I also laugh at the fact that back in high school I didn't have enough black clothing to go toilet-papering properly!

Erin

64

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COSTUMES: How involved do you get with costumes and wardrobe?

« on: Jul 04, 2016, 09:53 pm »

In answer to EustaceSM, in my experience the wardrobe master or costume supervisor usually makes the decision on where we stand going into tech. Often, we'll have a quickchange rehearsal just for the crucial parts...for instance, for My Fair Lady, we did the mass quickchange into Ascot, and then continued through the first underscoring, as we did a fashion parade with changes. We also had a few 10 and 15 second changes from Cockney to Butler or reverse that we practiced before the whole show. Everything else, we felt we could address during the dress rehearsal itself. I mark the quickchanges into my own script so that when we're in tech and I want to call a hold I know if it matters for something going on backstage, too, and will say "we'll be running this through to Eliza's next entrance for the quickchange" if at all possible for such a circumstance.

For stage management, I time every single entrance and exit during runthroughs, so I can give that information to the wardrobe people for their own prep, as well as work on a document in a grid format that shows who is which character (or costume) for each scene. It also lists the location they enter/exit and what page. As for the quickchange itself, I usually trust my wardrobe folks to figure out the best way to do it, as that's more their expertise than mine...though we may have figured some things out in the rehearsal hall already. (For Crowns, we knew they could start changing their gloves offstage first, while still singing the end of a verse with live offstage mics, and when they stopped singing, then they'd attend to their hat and jacket, etc.)

Hope this helps. (I also just noticed this was a merged thread, so be sure to look for other answers "above" that are similar.)

Erin

65

Self-Promotion / Re: Weird life transition

« on: Jun 30, 2016, 02:15 pm »

Congrats! I recently did the same thing, going back to freelancing in October. Scary trying to get it all to work, but my heart is ultimately so much happier.

Erin

66

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Rail cues

« on: Jun 14, 2016, 03:00 pm »

It does depend on the show. I've had some where you've got multiple cuelights for the flyrail, and you simply say stand by for Fly Cue 6 on Red and 7 on Blue, then run off the lights. And sometimes you have such simple shows, you say "Standby the Scrim Out" and Scrim Go. Slightly more complex shows might be "Standby the Shift" - and if time, the standby includes whatever details are necessary. It's whatever your crew needs...and what you have the time to say factors in too.

Actually, I'm more likely to use "Rail"...because "Flys" and "Lights" can sound similar. Let alone if you have "Mics" to call.
Post Merge: Jun 14, 2016, 03:03 pmAnd after I replied, I noticed this "similar thread" linked at the bottom: http://smnetwork.org/forum/students-and-novice-stage-managers/calling-shows-calling-rail-cues/

67

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: My first prompt book

« on: Jun 10, 2016, 07:56 pm »

PM me your email, and I'd be happy to send you some sample documents. I always keep a Blocking Key in the front of my script so that if someone else picks it up, they can follow along.

Are you asking both about recording the blocking and also notations for writing in cues? Some stage managers split these into different books, but I'm one of the all-in-one-script people (unless working on a long run).

Also, you might pick up Laurie Kincman's The Stage Manager's Toolkit. She has a pretty good chapter dedicated to "The Prompt Book" that explains some of the "whys" of a prompt book. There is no one way to set up your script and we all do it a bit differently. I don't tend to use lined blocking pages, for example, except on opera I found it more useful.

The older I get, the more I try out new things with each script too. Some new ideas stick for the next time (like a checklist of who's in the scene on every page). Some ideas don't! I have templates on my computer and I adjust them each new show given the circumstances. The last show had two venues, so my minigroundplans had to show how we adjusted for both venues, for instance.

Enjoy putting yours together!

68

The Green Room / Re: Birth Order

« on: Jun 10, 2016, 07:13 pm »

Ha. Ditto what Kay said, from one of the other two only children who've voted so far...

Erin

69

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Master Cue Sheet

« on: Jun 10, 2016, 02:52 pm »

As for how to organize it, it depends who else needs to look at it. It's somewhat similar to an opera who/what/where, other than adding in light and sound cues, I've done a similar "overall" sheet when I've had just a couple crew members backstage who handle things that became their run sheet, which included all entrances and sound cues for reference of where we were in the show, but then their specific cues were in a bigger font and bold (and names in all caps). If it's not a big show and you have the capability, color coding can also work (yellow for lights is one of my go-to colors).

The other reason I could see for this is perhaps to help in setting up a QLab system with both lights and sound, in order? I've never worked directly with the program, I must say.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, when doing live events, I often do a grid format that lists the time, one cue or name of the sequence on the left, and then different columns for each department (6:30p Ready for Doors/lights: house up and stage dim preset in purple/sound: preshow music/video: sponsor loop/talent involved, etc). Columns, etc, adjusted as needed per event.

70

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ANIMALS: Birds onstage?

« on: Jun 10, 2016, 02:42 pm »

I had a live duck in a show, which really isn't similar at all to what you're describing. It was not very friendly, and I was the one in charge of bringing it to the stage every day. The other crew knew I was coming as he loudly quacked his way down the hallway on our arrival. He had his own (dry) baby pool it knew was his offstage, and loved that. We had a water-filled moat onstage, and prior to being filled, he would jump in it every time (which was not the plan). We got worried what would happen when we put blue-tinted water in it - would we end up with a blue-tinted duck? - but he actually avoided that water like the plague once it was in.

He did get loose one time while I was retrieving him (he was not supposed to be able to fly, but we'd had him around long enough his feathers had gotten longer or something), and headed towards ours cabaret/dining space. In hindsight, I really wish I had caught him while yelling out, "You! Back to the kitchen!" That said, I was incredibly afraid he was going to fly into the glass windows and break his neck. We had no backup duck - though he was only used in a prologue and probably could've been adjusted. In fact, somehow the original (new) script had called for a pig and we had it changed to a duck at some point.....don't ask me.

Totally separate, my husband the stagehand had an incredibly lovable pet duck as a child. It even took trips to the A&W root beer stand with them and got his own snacks. We have two photos on our shelf...me with the psycho duck and him with his childhood pal. Makes me smile every time.

71

The Hardline / Re: AGMA Guest Artist contract

« on: Jun 08, 2016, 04:29 pm »

I'd like to revive this thread and see if anyone has tried it since first brought up years ago. I've tried calling AGMA and don't get much response. The main thing I got out of it was that a director has used it.

72

The Green Room / Article: School show on hold after boys injured

« on: Apr 07, 2016, 12:00 am »

It appears a private school in New Zealand was doing Sweeney Todd - and two boys' necks were actually injured. Yikes.

This site seems to have the most information right now, saying it was a knife wrapped in duct tape: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11618132

73

Introductions / Re: Hello Everyone

« on: Apr 04, 2016, 03:39 pm »

My catch phrase that I get teased about is--- "We'll work it out in tech".  I guess the moral is to realize who is within earshot before you say something tongue in cheek or sarcastically that is meant to be funny.  I though tit was a good answer to the question of how will we execute a particular scene shift?  The question came up in the first week of rehearsal during staging.  YIKES!!!

I've often had the opposite, where the director says "we'll work it out in tech" and I'm the one trying to figure out a feasible way now/soon so that we don't come to a grinding halt in tech. Especially with a recent director who couldn't at all visualize the scrim coming in for "in-one" scenes and kept putting scenery and furniture downstage of the taped out scrim line. Yes, some things can wait until tech to work out, but some it's better to have a plan earlier. Depends on the show and the elements!

Welcome!
-Erin

74

Tools of the Trade / Re: PROPS: Putting out lit cigarettes placed in clear ashtrays

« on: Mar 25, 2016, 02:23 am »

Been years since I've used it, so can't remember if it made a noise, but in the past we were fans of non-alcohol clear hair gel in ashtrays onstage.

Erin

75

Stage Management: Other / Stage managing Bach's St. Matthew Passion

« on: Feb 24, 2016, 01:45 pm »

Hi all,

Have any of you ever done this project before? The score is 309 pages (Bärenreiter edition), and I'm wondering whether to just buy a score, split the binding and put it in a ring binder, rather than try to make any copies or bother with single-siding it. I've seen people split the binding and then spiral bound it, but I think I want the flexibility to add pages in between. I tried once before to put a mini-blocking page in the middle of my score pages for double-sided music; maybe it's time to try this again.

Thoughts? It's 6 soli (principals), and two different choruses, from the little bit of information I've gotten so far. We're performing one night each in two different venues, the first has "lighting in house," the second no lights, so I'll mainly be tracking blocking.

Erin