Messages

76

The Green Room / Re: LEGAL ISSUES IN STAGE MANAGEMENT: Discussion - no answers or legal advice here

« on: Mar 14, 2013, 07:29 pm »

I think it behooves stage managers to familiarize themselves with basic contract law, especially if they're moving into PSM/PM work, especially if they're non-equity (or equity-plus: educational theatre, touring house, etc.)

I'm also a firm believer that everyone working any sort of tech role should have read the relevant health-and-safety act cover to cover. It'll take a few hours and it won't be the most exciting time you ever devote to a project, but it's worth doing.

77

Tools of the Trade / Re: SM Kit *for students*

« on: Mar 14, 2013, 04:18 am »

I don't know how it is in the states, but I know that in Canada, if you indirectly give someone the OtC medicine, it's fine. Either putting it on a table, giving it to someone else, who then gives it to the other person. I have a small satchel that has a bunch of medicine, but I also keep sunglasses and a book in their, and if someone needs some aspirin or Ibuprofen I just hand them the bag.

The legal precedent in this area is both murky and silly, but I don't think you're as protected as you think you are.

The key question isn't how the medication is obtained, but why. An employee can take all the pills they like, in much the same way that they can eat as many sandwiches as they like: the employer isn't responsible for things that the employee puts into their body, because that would be silly.

Problems emerge when employers direct employees to take pills, and courts have found that merely issuing an employee with pills is tantamount to a direction.

e.g: "I have a headache." "Oh. Okay. Here's some Aspirin." would still constitute a direction.

The only way to be absolutely safe from liability here is to remove every conceivable element of direction. (Selling it through a vending machine, for example. The employee put in that dime of their own volition: what they do with their single-dose satchel is their own affair.) Handing the employee a bag containing Aspirin (especially if it's clear that they're being given the Aspirin because they're complaining about a headache) probably wouldn't pass muster.

78

Tools of the Trade / Re: Slapstick scenes involving water gags on stage

« on: Mar 14, 2013, 04:01 am »

You may also want to discuss alternatives to water. (Some venues simply won't allow water no-way-no-sir, and they have extremely good reasons for doing so--but when your director insists on the effect...)

Stay away from glitter for what I hope are obvious reasons (you'll never be able to use that costume again, the actor will need to shower to get it out of their hair, it very easily gets into people's eyes [where it stings like the dickens], that spot on the stage is going to glow for the next several years, etc.), but if you're doing slapstick, don't underestimate the comedy potential of a bucket full of confetti.

Confetti is readily available, cheap, requires relatively little clean-up (compared to water, but especially compared to glitter) and is unlikely to cause injuries to your actors. If you cut it chunky (like, half-inch circles) it has the added bonus of being highly visible from the audience.

79

Employment / Re: Job Applying Words of Wisdom to College Graduates

« on: Mar 07, 2013, 08:03 pm »

Speaking as someone with HR responsibilities, putting it in your e-mail also means that, even if--for whatever reason--your attachment is unusable, I can still get at your documents. This sort of problem happens often enough that it's worth doing, and this also protects you from looking like an idiot by accidentally sending an e-mail without attachments. (Forget your attachments? The text is in the body of the e-mail, so you're golden.)

Incidentally, I much prefer a PDF to a DOC for resume and cover letter. Unless you're absolutely sure the recipients of your documents have the same versions of the software, same fonts installed, same printer settings, etc., your carefully-formatted CV is going to get mangled on my end. Sending it as a PDF protects your font and format.

80

Tools of the Trade / Re: SM Kit *for students*

« on: Mar 07, 2013, 02:51 pm »

As a student, you need to know two things:
- People will borrow things from your kit and never bring them back.
- People will straight-up steal things from your kit.

They mean well, and it's not like they're hoarding your stuff: they take your tape, and they use your tape, and they put your tape down, and they don't think to return it. (Or the pen goes into their pocket. Or the stapler gets handed off to someone else who needs to staple stuff. etc. etc. etc.) It's being used on the show, it's sort of an investment in being a student in this sort of program, and you'll probably find other people willing to give in kind. (Someone walked off with your stapler? Borrow a friend's.)

What does all this mean? My advice:
1) Don't pack anything of any emotional significance in your kit. If you'd feel bad losing it, keep it out.
2) Don't pack anything expensive in your kit. If you have a taste for fancy pens, for example, those need to stay in your pockets. Keep a box of cheap ballpoints in the kit: those are the ones that get lent out. (Read: the ones which disappear.)
3) If something keeps getting stolen from you, stop carrying it. Do not become known as The Student Who Always Has Pencils. (A stapler, pens, etc.) Help out in genuine emergencies, don't become everyone's go-to option for free stuff.
4) Do regular inventory. Weekly should be often enough. The worst time to discover you've run out of something is right when you need to use it.
5) Keep an eye on it. Unless it's in a locker, behind a locked door or within your line of sight, someone might be plundering your staples as we speak.

"Plundering your staples" may seem a colourful term of phrase, but sometimes it really did feel like I was a grizzled old cop from a 1970s TV serial. ("I've seen a brand-new toolbox, fresh from Home Depot, emptied of all its elastic bands within twenty seconds. They're like vultures, and they don't leave until you're all out of post-its. Don't tell me what it's like on the streets: I know.")

- My personal headset for when they have the giant scary ones that kill your ears.

See, I carry a big giant scary one in my kit, for when they want me to use those piddly featherweight clip-ons that always give me migraines.

81

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Curious about unions

« on: Mar 05, 2013, 02:47 pm »

What did Birdie say in All About Eve?

"Next to a tenor, a wardrobe woman is the touchiest thing in show business. She's only got three jobs: pick up clothes, press 'em wrong, and don't let nobody muscle in." Something like that, anyhow.

Stage managers are in Equity in large part to protect IATSE jobs, and vice-versa. If there were more crossover in responsibilities (if stage managers could be asked to perform building maintenance, for example), the unions would be constantly butting heads and producers would be playing them off against each other. Keeing stage managers in with the actors frees up additional work for IATSE members, forces producers to hire more people, and also promotes the idea that stage managers are artists, rather than technicians.

82

The Green Room / Re: Thoughts on Director Acting in Show?

« on: Mar 04, 2013, 01:10 am »

Have any of you dealt with this before?

When it goes good, it goes very, very good.
And when it goes bad, it goes horrid.

Arthur actually isn't that important of a role: it's not like he's onstage the whole time, and if it's to your taste, you might even be able to get a few "traditional rehearsals" out of him, where he sits at the front of the room and the company works through the material in which he doesn't appear.

The other thing with Spamalot is that it's as much about energy and enthusiasm and willingness to make an idiot of yourself as anything else. So long as everyone's having fun, the quality of the show will hold up quite well even if it isn't as polished or thoroughly-directed as we might normally expect.

83

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SCENERY: Sand Onstage

« on: Feb 27, 2013, 01:28 pm »

we actually had a patron complain that it set off her cedar allergies and we should have used the rubber kind. Lady, is your nose broken? Because it smells like the bicycle aisle at Walmart in this theater right now.

These are always fun conversations.

My personal favourite house manager story.

PAX: "The costumes... is that real fur?"
HM: "No, no, we only use faux fur."
PAX: "Fox fur?! That's disgusting! I'm going to be sick!"

She subsequently cancelled her subscription.

84

The Green Room / Re: "I quit!"

« on: Feb 26, 2013, 09:37 am »

Two, we can stop accepting these no-pay or low-pay jobs.  Three, we can stop taking jobs with these horrific working conditions.  Four, we can have the guts to quit jobs that become unbearable or abusive.  (I know that many producers will just turn around and pluck someone else from the over populated work force to replace us . . . but if people just refused to work under these conditions, hopefully in the long run the working environments will change).

What really kills me about these gigs is that, like... okay.

I have a friend who works as a professional photographer, and she makes a point extremely well.

There are loads of people who want her to work for way below cost, if not for free. They have good reasons, too: to build her portfolio, to network, to keep herself sharp, to explore new areas, whatever.

It may be tempting to take these gigs. But where does this story end?

If you'll happily do the work for free (and your work will be perfectly satisfactory and useful), why would anyone pay you to do it? When you work for free, you're effectively pricing yourself out of your own job market: you're saying that your services can be bought for $0.00 an hour. This does not lead to a sustainable income.

If you really really really want to work for free, by all means: do it. But she counts this as leisure time. This is something you are choosing to do on your time off. This is not work, and you should not think of it as work, because it isn't. (If you're really lucky, an NGO can throw you a tax reciept or put you first-in-line for a future paid gig or whatever else. Okay, now it counts as work. But shooting photos of your cousin's wedding? No dice.)

A similar attitude towards low-paying, high-stress theatre gigs seems appropriate.

85

The Green Room / Re: "I quit!"

« on: Feb 21, 2013, 02:57 pm »

I joined a project in week 3 of rehearsals. (They'd scheduled 6.)

During my first week, half the production team quit, reporting the producer's cheques were bouncing. On Thursday, building management refused to admit us to the facility until the producer paid them in cash. Then the production manager quit, and I was temporarily made responsible for show correspondence, whereupon I learned that the cheque paid to the author had also bounced, and that my predecessor had also left due to not getting paid.

I left on the Friday. During our telephone conversation, the producer admitted there were "cash flow problems", but offered to pay me out of the box office, plus 5% of the profit off the show. Just as soon as the theatre opens, I'd get all my salary and more.

I promised to think about it and hung up, and was working for someone else by the end of the month.

I hasten to add that the show never opened.

86

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: UNDERSTUDIES: No Understudies Versus the Show Must Go On

« on: Feb 14, 2013, 05:52 pm »

Our producers beamed that we made it work. Did they ever hire a beatbox swing? Nope.

I'd be willing to bet a small sum of money that you were paid neither for the time spent coordinating this affair, nor a bonus for saving their show. (In any other industry you'd be under a mountain of cash if you pulled this off.)

87

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Prop/costume responsibility

« on: Feb 11, 2013, 01:22 pm »

I'm down for not apportioning blame as such. (What are you going to do, burn the heretic?)

Nobody died. Nobody's going to be filling in paperwork for your insurance company. Nobody has to be dispatched to apologize profusely to the producer's wife. You won't be getting an angry letter from the NAACP. Your company is getting the really really really important stuff right, and while this was unfortunate, it sounds as though your backup systems (improvisation by the actors, frantic backstage searches, etc.) kicked over just fine.

If your guys are anything like the companies I've worked with, people will now be hyperattentive to every aspect of prop and costume preset, and this problem won't happen again. We learn, we move on.

88

The Green Room / SNOWMAGEDDONPOCALYPSE

« on: Feb 08, 2013, 04:48 pm »

In light of the fact that a large chunk of the eastern half of North Ameica is currently under about fifty bajillion metres of now, anyone have any interesting or worthwhile stories about snow cancellations? (Or times the show went up despite the weather?)

Back in university, we performed to a near-empty house on two occasions. Heavy, heavy snow, but most of the cast and crew lived on or near campus, and the faculty encouraged us to go through with it anyway as a learning opportunity. We offered comps to other students who were stranded at the university, and got a few dozen each night. Very warm and appreciative crowd, too!

89

The Green Room / Re: Hell in a Handbag (A Game for Stage Managers)

« on: Feb 03, 2013, 04:50 pm »

If he booked us an understudy who's working elsewhere during the show, our incompetent #$%$# of a production manager can put on a wig and play the part himself. Inform wardrobe that we'll need the high heels changed to a slightly larger size. For the sake of efficiency, we'll use a corset rather than re-sewing the costumes, and I'll personally lace him into it before every performance. Please inform Grand and Toy that the bulk shipment of stress balls will no longer be required.

And tell the musical director not to worry: I'll make sure he can hit the high notes.


NEW NOTE:
Peter Kilman-Strauss ("Bottom") is demanding that his 12-year-old daughter, Maribel Stacey Hunter Amber Bambi Maryland Reagan Olivier Kilman-Strauss-Wagner-Gruber, be cast as a sprite or he'll walk.

MSHABMROKSWG is allergic to nylon, cotton, sawdust, feathers, body paint, lycra, burlap, sunlight and the colour green.

What do we do?

90

The Green Room / Re: The things we give up for theatre

« on: Feb 03, 2013, 04:39 pm »

I've given up hours of my life to tedious and repetitive conversations about "Yes, but what do you really do for a living?"