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« on: Nov 10, 2010, 12:20 pm »
(Welcome to theater in LA!)
- the u/s should have been hired even on contingency, that's just not fair to the actor. And here in LA, we always have to be prepared to lose actors to film/TV work for a day or a week or an hour, whether it's for MRE or because they are doing 99-seat work which offers a tiny stipend - I always remember a sign language Streetcar where our (deaf) Stanley was stuck on a set and we used his voice actor onstage for Act 1, replacing him in Act 2 with the deaf actor who arrived shortly before intermission at the end of the scene where Stella runs upstairs to her neighbor's apt (this being during Dallas' "it was all a dream" storyline, we cracked up thinking about the hearing actor going into the offstage shower and having the deaf actor come out)
To your other point, however, I have done too many shows where the multitasking designers were in other cities/states/countries, making notes and their responses impossible to handle in a timely fashion, or the designer became confused as to which show needed what or just plain forgot key elements - and two shows recently where the designer chose to focus on whomever had the next tech but that meant everyone else piled up to the point where each show along the way got screwed all the way thru previews, in one case until the afternoon of opening. I do understand that they need to make a living, as we all do, and that design fees have not risen commensurate with cost of living, and that some directors are needier and fussier than others in terms of tweaks and so forth, but the costs in time and angst are becoming really untenable.
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