Messages

766

Employment / Alternatives to more money

« on: Mar 24, 2006, 07:13 am »

Typical 'garnishing' on low salary:

* Parking
* Filling of SM kit
* Rent assistance
* Food
* Membership to club/association/union paid
* Technology/Telecomunications (ie mobile paid for)
* Stationary
* Petrol card or company car.

767

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Be quiet!

« on: Mar 23, 2006, 07:26 pm »

Not worked with teens often enough, obviously. I have observed (I am not the sort of person to use tactics like that, they don't suit me) both as a young teen and as a 'responsible adult' many a stand off like this. However a lot of the inconsiderate ones are also smart alecs. So when you ask if they are finished, they are the ones that answer "I guess so, you can speek now if you want". That and I really don't believe the average show has the time to waste an entire rehearsal. In case you had not noticed above, I like to take the self riteous full blown rant mode when things get bad, and like to work on the principal that if I have told you once, a second time is too often. It works for me (may have something to do with me being male, who knows) and it keeps things running.

768

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Production, or no Production. That is the question.

« on: Mar 23, 2006, 07:20 pm »

Actually, if anything, the role would be best described as "General Technician" or just "Venue Technician".

A 'general manager' is far more paperwork and finance oriented, it would not be manning the desks, but rather ensuring you have the people on hand who know what they are doing to man the desks. It would not be cleaning and organising, but rather approving the requisition forms for cleaning supplies, and ensuring your technical staff keep everything organised.

That said, within a school situation, titles often mean bopkiss, and carry the weight of a feather - a small one at that.

769

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / a musical

« on: Mar 22, 2006, 07:22 am »

Seventy one is a tad over the top - Sounds like a school production where everyone has to be involved. YUCK! Been there, done that, got the Tee-shirt and the psychiatric commitment notice to prove it.

770

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / TECH WEEK

« on: Mar 22, 2006, 07:19 am »

ensuring a steady flow of caffine for crew is simple. As a stage manager, I assume you have at least rudimentry instant coffee making skills? That is the first way.

The second way:

Buy a slab of softdrink - I work in AUD, so adjust accordingly - at the moment, I can get 30 cans of coke for $14.95 (on special) that is under 50c a can. I place these cans of drink within the fridge at the venue (I have never known a venue not to have a fridge) and I ask for $1 a can - just a round number any way. Something that covers the cost of the cans, and a little bit extra. Current vending machines in Australia charge about $2 a can of drink, by charging half that, we double their potential caffine intake and some people who would not be willing to make the $2 sacrifice for caffine may decide that it is damn cheap for the convenience and buy big.

Non theatre related, but in my year 12 (last year of school) we wanted a way to make lots of money by the end of the year so that our end of year bash would be completely covered by our raised funds - we were having a booze up the day before, and then going to a caberet restaraunt that night.  From the first day of school, we sold cans of coke like that to people within our year level, and through an underground network of brothers and sisters of year 12's (the school council had baned the sale of coke from the canteen that year). We covered the booze up and caberet, and had money to spare, in a school of 500 students. We bought the cans for 50c each, and sold for $1. We had about 200 regulars, and as such raised about 8 grand through that venture alone. So it may just give you a few extra cents to go towards the afterparty ;-)

771

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Production, or no Production. That is the question.

« on: Mar 22, 2006, 07:08 am »

As a general rule - In a highschool, you are asked to SM _ONE_ show, or rather, to be the SM of _ONE_ show. Hence, you usually become the DSM or PSM or just the plain old SM. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

Actually, I lied a bit before. Truthfully, in australia we tend to use 2 different naming conventions for within a show - those for a musical/opera/operetta, and OTHER. Here is a brief equivilancy list assuming that the person who calls the show also rehearses it.

Musical : Other
DSM : SM/PSM
SM/ASM : ASM

Outside of the single show, you have your company SM. They have a contract with a certain company (as opposed to being contracted to a show), which says that for a certain period of time (arbitrarily, 12 months) you are a stage manager for the company. Usually, the CSM is 'above' the PSM/DSM in the heirachy of things and they usually keep the entire show (and company) running smoothly.

I mentioned above that the equivilency assumed that the same person called as rehearsing, if there are separate people:

Musical : Other : Job
PSM : PSM : Production up to tech week
DSM : SM/Calling SM : Tech week and beyond
SM/ASM : ASM

Basically though, don't worry too much about titles unless you are in a professional theatre - amdram/student theatres often do not have the people, budget and skillset required to have all the levels of stage management, and the jobs are usually not as defined.

772

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / a musical

« on: Mar 22, 2006, 03:06 am »

Well the way it works, is instead of using A4 paper, you use A3 paper, in landscape. You rule a margin about 3 cm from the left edge, and fold the right edge into the margin. You then end up with a double spread inside, and a single facing page as well. The concertina 'thing' is basically the same, you trim down the extra pages, about 3cm each (so you have one full sized, which has the holes for the binder), you attatch the extra pages to the right most edge of the right most page, and fold it in like a paper fan. Then they just fold out.

773

Employment / Company Management VS. Stage Management

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 11:28 pm »

I have never actually seen a CSM touring. Usually, that is the (P|D|T)SM (production, deputy or touring) stage manager.

Usually a show will have a rider which is distributed to all the venues being used which says how much of this, how much of that, what water is need, what specifications the venue needs to meet (including power, internet, phone) - you may have heard one of the most famous rider demand - "A bowl of M&M's, with the brown ones removed" - Van Halens show was apparently so technical demanding in it's day that that clause was placed as article #126 to make sure the rider was obeyed. The rider is usually written up by the company stage manager or the technical director. Then as touring SM, you basically need to ensure the rider is met, and raise hell if it isn't.

Basically, the TSM should be able to walk into the venue, plop the paperwork on the prompt desk and direct the bump-in without having to worry that there are only 120 channels of dimming instead of the 132 requested, that the live internet feed should be a matter of jacking into the network because they have already set all of that up.

This is the sort of heirachy we have in australia anyway, I doubt it will be too different, but the company manager (big boss) resides in the company, they manage the big picture. You, the (T|P|D)SM manage the single show. You need to set up your call board, in collaboration with the CSM (to make sure all times are correct etc). When it comes to the rider being written, you and the technical director tell the CSM exactly what you require, they distribute it to the venue, organise all that junk, and before tour present you with an exception report which may say things like
"Venue A:
*Only has 4 dressing rooms
*No Foyer
*Will have tech guy there to assist with networking
Venue B:
....
"

However, you should never see something like

"Venue C:
*Need to hire another 12 channels of dimming"

It is the CSM's job to instead have

"Venue C:
*Need to pick up 12 channel dimmer from xyz, 1231 this street, paid in full"

That said, all companies are different and you need to talk to the people you are working with the find out where your jurisdiction ends, and theirs begins.

774

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / a musical

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 10:53 pm »

1: Get help!!!! you can't do a large scale musical without 2 asms.....(in my opinion)

That is a good point which I overlooked. And if you have a chorus that needs to change 'charactors' quickly (most musicals do) you need another few people to help with quick changes and get the next change set up.

2: Find a way to integrate your music into your blocking script. With the show I just closed it was very frustrating when the choreo or director would use measure numbers or letters as they were giving blocking... and it's just too hard to follow a page that looks like this

Altos  _________ Basses: ______Tenors: ____albert:____ sop.:
goin steady ____  yeah you ___do do dum____ oh- ______mmmmmm..
goin steady! ____ know _______deeee______  -     ______mmmm...
steady _________it maaannn           dooo____HONEY ____ooooooo...

even if you are not very good at reading music, with songs that have 3 or 4 different things going on at the same time it is easier to read from the music (even if you are only following the words)

(I finally copied the music and did a cool fold-ing thing to integrate the music into my script but made it in such a way that I could instantly skip to the next page, or only use the script if for that day my purposes were such that I needed to see the words printed instead of music.)

There are a number of ways to do it, and it is certainly something you will have to look into when you start making your book. A lot depends on how the music is writen - for example, some musicals have a lot of songs where multiple parts are sung over each other (RENT is the one that comes to mind here). When I did that (just finished.. love it), I re-wrote the entire vocal score, so that I had one line for each different 'tune' (ie if there are three different sets of lyrics, there are three staves) and different vocal ranges were done on the same stave. If there was a lead singing the line, I annotated that fact, if it was chorus, I noted that too. The folded/concertina prompt book is a great way to do it. That way, you can have the facing page with just written lyrics, then fold out to have the score

3: Also, I think musicals are just harder in general: more elements to fit in, more set changes, more light/sound cues, 100 times more mic cues, bigger cast, more directors/management to deal with (you have the md, choreo, director, etc.) it just seems like there is MORE of everything....

AMEN!

775

Students and Novice Stage Managers / broadway

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 07:53 pm »

really? That surprises me - after working with a 'tallent recruitment agency' for a few months, I saw a couple of the bigger shows call us, and we also kept an eye on all the usual channels and advised (and made) applications for clients when they did not approach us (one of my jobs was to scour the arts job pages for positions that fit within the scope of our clients for example)

Maybe that is an Aussy thing...

776

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Production, or no Production. That is the question.

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 07:14 pm »

Yes - we Aussies work (pretty much) like the Brits do it, with a few Aussinisms thrown in just to make sure that international people working on Aussie shows get confused.

As far as 'power structure' goes, there is certainly a British slant on it.

777

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / a musical

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 07:12 pm »

A sitz probe is a full company sing through with the orchestra.  It gives everyone an idea of what the show is going to sound like and is generally a fairly low pressure event (at least that's been my experience).

Very low preasure. no costumes, makeup, technical elements, just a sing along. The simplest way to run one, gather the cast on stage, and just let the MD do his thing. The only thing you really need to do, is make sure the MD does not stop to correct mistakes. If the MD starts treating it as a technical rehearsal for the band/cast integration, things will never get done. If they are really worried, send an ASM into the pit with a notepad and pen to take notes when he gives them.

778

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Be quiet!

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 07:07 pm »

I think lecturing people on their inability to keep quiet is a bit extreme.  Sometimes people simply don't realize that their volume is climbing.

Well I have been raised not to talk whilst other people are talking - and as such it is my policy in the rehearsal room that whilst the director (or other member of staff) is talking to a cast member about an issue during the rehearsal, that everyone stays quiet and pays attention. I warn them first of course, but after the second warning, I am usually annoyed enough to go into rant mode, I have been giving them Glare #152 (If you don't shut up soon, I may do something I will regret) for a fairly long time by then, and a good, quiet lecture on their lack of manners and proximity to the missing link in the evolutionary chain is usually a good way to get them to behave.

779

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / a musical

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 05:16 pm »

Tip one - if you cannot read music, learn

Tip two - leading ladies are (9/10 times) fairly easy to deal with (not your typical primadonna), however leading men are often a bitch.

Tip three - keep tech running. Musicals are notorious for slow techs - part of the blame lies on the musos, the rest lies on the fact that a LOT of scenes start and end with large concophonies of sound (aka a song) making your life hell when trying to get attention. My advice would be to ask that only two or three members of each 'section' sing, so that there are never 20 or so voices singing at the one time, just a handfull.

Tip four - a sitzprobe is nearly essential (you can cut it if you are running behind). Try and make time for it, so that the actors can really hear what is accompanying them, singing to a rehearsal pianist is a lot different to singing to a band or orchestra.

780

Tools of the Trade / Condom reference??

« on: Mar 21, 2006, 05:08 pm »

Yep, that is the fun intern job. I frequently get called by one company, and we all know each other, and we are all fairly tallented members of our occupation, and there fore by extension, we all occasionally have interns. During one of the pre-tech tech meetings (No interns alowed) we dish out a whole bunch of embarasing jobs to the interns, just for fun, it is a great source of laughter.