Messages

61

The Green Room / Re: ARTICLE: National Theatre SM report archives

« on: Dec 14, 2013, 01:55 pm »

I am adoring all these comments. I will definitely pass this one on for non-theatre folk to get a better idea of my work life!

Reminds me. I happened across this gem in a co-worke'rs report, earlier this week: "A kid threw up in the back row after the ballad. Like really threw up; it sounded like Jabba the Hut exploding."

62

The Green Room / Re: Catchphrases

« on: Nov 07, 2013, 11:33 am »

"It's that time..." has become a new one for me. I use it mostly for getting people back from breaks, but since I'm in the green room with the cast through most of half hour, this has become our variation on places, as well: "It's that time! Let's go do a show."
Also used when we're about to rehearse something that no one likes doing.

63

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

« on: Oct 17, 2013, 05:33 pm »

I cannot lock up
and go home until you leave.
GO AWAY NOW, JERKS!

Why are you still here?
The green room is small and gross.
Hotels have lobby bars!

An hour post show
Facebooking all your puppets;
Same as yesterday.

64

The Hardline / Re: Employee-Handbook Required Preshow Calls (and more)

« on: Oct 11, 2013, 04:19 pm »

Where I'm currently at, I have to give a 30, 20, 15, 10, 5 and places call for every show to both performers and front of house. Up to 13 shows a week. I've never been asked to do a 20 before, but if that's what the producers want, it's what I'll do.
However, with all that, I think I have locked the timing of five minute increments into my blood. Forever.

65

The Green Room / Re: Being Human vs. Professional

« on: Apr 18, 2013, 12:09 pm »

Yes, taking two jobs is a choice. But sometimes, especially in your early career, or in an arts-light city, the choice is between taking the two jobs and not being able to pay your bills or rent. The economy right now is brutal, and people in the Arts aren't the only ones working themselves to the bone just to stay above water. So I do have some sympathy.
As long as the people who see your frayed ends know you're working as hard as you can to make sure that they and their show are as successful as possible, they will be sympathetic.
I remember one particular show where the producers were impossible. They kept springing "extra" stuff on the cast at the last minute, and I was always the messenger-girl. "Today's rehearsal is actually a photo shoot." "We're letting a school group in to watch rehearsal. Right now." "They added an extra matinee, tomorrow." I was frustrated as anything that they weren't treating my cast right.
When they told me at five minute call, the day after opening (and hence an exhausting tech week) that, "There's going to be a long talk-back after the show and could you please got tell the cast they have to stay," I had just had it. I went backstage to make places call and this announcement and I was just so angry and frustrated and pissed that I couldn't do anything to protect my cast that I burst into tears when I was done. The lead swept me up in a big hug and they all told me they weren't mad at me, it wasn't my fault, and they knew I had always worked as hard as I could to make things as easy as possible for them.
Am I embarrassed about losing my composure in this way? To this day, and it was years ago. But because I was doing my best work and everyone around me knew it, they had a lot of sympathy when I had my very human moment.

66

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / TECHNOLOGY: Commercial Mobile Alert System

« on: Mar 21, 2013, 06:31 pm »

I've begun receiving alerts from the Commercial Mobile Alert System on my phone. For those not in the know, you can take a look at the link below.
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/commercial-mobile-alert-system-cmas

Basically, those severe weather alerts that used to go across the bottom of your television screen  (do they still? I don't have TV.) are transmitted to your phone. There's the same loud, buzzy tone, and when you shut it off, you see the nature of the alert. All of mine have been tornado warnings for the area I was currently in. Not watches, warnings, so I'm pretty satisfied with the usefulness of the system.

Problem is, the loud, annoying, unmistakable tone happens even if your phone is on silent.

For lots of reasons, I keep my phone on silent in the booth, not off. (Good example: I am the only technician on any of my shows. Power went out in the booth during a show but I was able to keep running the show since the boards were on UPSs. I texted the TD who I knew was just down the hall and he managed to get things fixed, and no one was the wiser. Had I needed to turn on my phone, which boots slow, the UPSs may have run out of power and the show would have stopped.) But if one of those alerts goes off, everyone is going to be able to hear it.

So I'm weighing the decision whether or not a theatre full of patrons hearing that tone is worth the advance warning I would get of bad weather and being able to start our theatre mandated tornado warning practices to keep our patrons and casts safe. In theory there is supposed to be someone watching the weather for us when there are shows on. But I know how mad things can get for my co-workers when there can be upwards of 1500 kids running around, and for some reason, I am the only one in the building (that I know of) that gets these alerts. My phone company is an early adopter, I guess? If I got the warning I could text my producer and ask for instruction instead of waiting for someone to notice a radar screen that might be hiding behind their e-mail, ticket software, or down the hall from where they were dealing with some other issue.

Yeah, it's kids, so that's weighing on my thoughts, too. Has anyone else had to make this decision?

Edited to add topic tag. - Maribeth

67

The Green Room / Re: Sleeping in your theatre

« on: Mar 11, 2013, 04:17 pm »

Green-room sofas, under the sound console, the couch in the TD's office, on a pile of old soft goods in the steam-tunnel, on beds and sofas on the set, and stretched out across several seats in the house (provided they don't have arms).

As a matter of fact, here's a shot I took of 3/5ths of my cast and my ASM on the dinner break of the second 10-of-12 several years ago. These seats weren't great to sit on, but pretty nice to stretch out on!



Notice who is NOT sleeping there? Me. *sigh*

68

The Green Room / Re: Regrets

« on: Mar 08, 2013, 11:31 am »

In college, I saw a posting that Cirque du Soleil (I don't remember which show) was hiring spotlight operators. They were looking for people about at my experience level and the pay (to a 18 year old student) seemed amazing. I didn't apply, because I had a fiancee who would have taken issue at me being away from home for a long time, and dropping out of school would have cost me my scholarships. I would not have been able to afford to go back.

Well, the fiancee dumped me, and the most useful stuff I took away from college was the out-of-class work I did at various theatres, and the life experience of living on my own away from parents and dorm. I could have gotten that and so much more working for Cirque.

Yes, I do regret I didn't run away from home and join the circus. Or at least try.

69

The Green Room / Re: Weird Dreams

« on: Feb 25, 2013, 02:45 pm »

I will have dreams where I show up to run a show, and someone runs up to me yelling that I'm late. This person is actually the SM, and I'm apparently in the show. Then they put me in a costume and shove me out on stage, but I have no idea what show we're doing, what character I am or what my lines are. So I just end up standing on stage, staring blankly at all my "cast mates."

My favorite version of this was when my costume was a blue dress and a white apron, and I went on stage to talk to a giant cat. I thought, "Alice in Wonderland! I can fake my way through Alice in Wonderland!" It was not Alice in Wonderland.

And no, I do not suffer from stage fright in real life.

70

The Green Room / Re: "I quit!"

« on: Feb 21, 2013, 01:48 pm »

I quit a long standing run after 2.5 years where the control-freak producer/playwright/theatre owner kept taking away my responsibility and was just a growing nightmare to work with. I could not give the cast notes, or even tell them, "quiet backstage." I was allowed to make 15-10-5 minute calls only at his discretion. I was not allowed in touch-up, walk-on or understudy rehearsals, and was expected to maintain the poorly constructed set with no tools other than tape and not allowed to provide input as to how it could be repaired in a more permanent way. I really do believe he was a mental case who needed to be evaluated and medicated.  I was told that he took all his clothes off during a rehearsal for his next show and tried to make the (all female cast) take their off, too because "everyone in it needed to be as comfortable with their bodies as he was with his."

I started contemplating quitting when he told me I was no longer allowed to make shopping lists of backstage supplies (toilet paper, spray starch, light bulbs for dressing areas and bathrooms, and the like) because I put down that we needed to buy more toilet paper when we still had two whole rolls left. Not packs, rolls.

I finally gave my two weeks notice (conveniently, two weeks before winter holiday break, giving them a full five weeks to find a replacement) when he came into my booth during the show and asked me to leave the show and go do a craft project for him. I said no. I think this may be the first time someone had said "no" to him in years. He threw what can only be described as a hissy fit, backstage, the whole rest of the show. We had a post-show talk that I doubt went the way he expected. I refused to give ground, and at one point, he actually stepped up onto the stage in an obvious ploy to use his height to intimidate me. Which did not work. Please, I've been short my whole life.

I explained to him what a stage manager was, what my professional standards are, and that if he was pissed at me to never ever EVER again take it out on the cast during a show. He tried to tell me that he owned me (no seriously, owned me like a slave with a time limit) during work hours and I had to do anything he told me too, and he was being courteous by asking. I then told him this was my two weeks notice, he was lucky to be getting that, and he could hire himself the personal assistant he wanted, who could also run sound and light boards, while he was doing his Christmas shopping.

The only thing I've ever regretted is not getting out of that toxic environment before things got that bad.

71

The Green Room / Re: Production Haikus

« on: Jan 20, 2013, 09:20 am »

Puppets. HOW much blood?
How many violent deaths?
Poe. You know, for kids!

72

The Green Room / Re: Notes from SMs past

« on: Jan 08, 2013, 10:52 am »

[Puppet version of some Edgar Allan Poe stuff. You know, for kids!]

73

The Green Room / Notes from SMs past

« on: Jan 07, 2013, 03:16 pm »

I find remounts to be interesting beasts. Sometimes they want to slavishly recreate the prior production, and sometimes they want to make it "fresh." Either way, notes left by previous SMs, crew, and directors can be really useful.

Or intimidating.

Starting prep week for my next show by checking some of the old paperwork. Useful notes include:

• Wash the blood off the teeth with soap and warm water, NOT hot. Hot water will melt them. (This note was on two separate different pieces of paperwork)
• Be careful not to slice yourself open on the saw blades inside the tower when you're resetting the clock face.

And my particular favorite...

• Stick a pencil in the cat's eye to keep it from leaking blood on you.

I know I've left some doozies for future SMs, too. Anyone else ever found/left such helpful gems of wisdom?

74

The Hardline / Re: AEA and "Right To Work"

« on: Dec 14, 2012, 11:14 am »

I live in Georgia, a Right-to-Work state, and everything MatthewShiner said is pretty accurate. I'm not Equity, there's not enough AEA work in this town to make it a worthwhile choice. But I did a lot of work at one of the few Equity houses in town, and when it was on Equity shows, everything"acted" like I was Equity. I got weeks toward getting my card if I wanted it, the theatre had to pay into pension and health weeks, they had to pay me at least Equity minimums and all other Equity rules were in place for myself and the cast in regards to breaks, overtime, extra duties, etc.

If you're already Equity, I don't think things in the day-to day experience should change for you. If you're not Equity and you get on an "Equity" show, it will be a big education! I'm glad I got the opportunity to learn so much about how a show functions under union rules before actually having to make the decision to join or not.

75

December Madness I: 2012 / Re: University, Round 4: Stopwatch vs Call Button

« on: Dec 11, 2012, 01:14 pm »

As I never can seem to get my crew to see the call button when I am frantically trying to summon them, I'm going Stopwatch all the way!