Messages

826

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: REPORTS: Referring to Stage Manager IN the report

« on: Dec 26, 2010, 11:30 pm »

I used to write two reports.  The Rehearsal report only went to production management & the company head, and included start times, end times, and any personnel notes, e.g., tardiness, absences, scheduling conflicts, personality conflicts.  This document was written as evidence in case of terminations or future lawsuits.  In this case I always referred to myself as my role for the sake of clarity, as the rehearsal report could very well be used by the company many years later.

The Tech Notes went to the design team and implementation leads.  (TD, Wardrobe, ME, Props, etc.)  This was for all of the concrete decisions and needs that evolved during the course of the rehearsal and was designed for clear communication.  For Tech Notes I'd use far more colloquial phrasing, and would generally refer to myself by name or in the 1st person.  This was mostly due to doing remounts.  When saying "stage management did X" in the context of a remount, it becomes a bit vague as to whether you're referring to the present day or the original production.

827

The Green Room / Re: Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark

« on: Dec 23, 2010, 01:39 am »

Agree with Matthew. If the feds and the Times are involved, this is a big spinfest.  The safety team isn't the only crew working round the clock here, PR is probably going nuts (and very happy).

828

The Green Room / Re: Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark

« on: Dec 21, 2010, 08:49 pm »

OK, I know that Spidey is a big deal but we really didn't need four topics about it.  All of the posts have been merged into this big one - they're all integrated by date.

829

Tools of the Trade / Re: Useful applications for Blackberry

« on: Dec 16, 2010, 10:29 pm »

Now if they'd only come up with one that lets you track your absent actors by GPS, we'd be all set!

830

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Student SM Challenge #12: Twelve Drummers Drumming...

« on: Dec 15, 2010, 01:43 pm »

OK, I think this one is a little too fun to restrict it just to the students.  It's less than 24 hrs since I posted it, we've got 5 likes and no replies.  Pros, have at it.  Happy holidays!

831

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Student SM Challenge #12: Twelve Drummers Drumming...

« on: Dec 14, 2010, 10:15 pm »

Student SM Challenges present puzzles for our members who are taking classes to become stage managers.  They are open-ended situations with no absolutely correct answers.

As a reminder to our pro SMs out there: The Student Challenges are primarily for students.  While they may be fun to think about, let's leave this to the students and novices for at least the first week! Thanks!

OK, I got this idea from dallas10086's 12 days of Xmas post.  'Tis the season, and our 12th challenge to boot.   Our script is the lyrics to the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas."  It's got music, it's got animals (even waterfowl!) onstage, it's got props, it's got a cast of 46, and nobody needs copies of the sides.

Your challenge: rip apart the song and analyze it from a stage manager's perspective - approach it like this was pre-production week.  Figure out the props, costumes, wing layout, technical demands - everything you possibly can, as if you were going to start rehearsing a production of "the Twelve Days of Christmas" next week.  Bear in mind that you have no staging yet, so this is just the work you'd do before meeting your director for the first time.

Extra credit if you approach it like you're going to do the song as interpreted by the Muppets or the Blue Man Group.

Have fun!

832

Introductions / Looking for homework help? Read this first!

« on: Dec 08, 2010, 07:25 pm »

We get a lot of requests from students for help with homework.  They require a lot of effort on the part of our members, and unfortunately a lot of these students never return to SMNetwork after completing their projects.  They also tend to involve the same questions over and over.  We're looking to build a community here.  So we've created some special rules for homework help.

1. If you're looking for help with a school assignment, your request should to in the Homework Help board.  If it appears anywhere else, it will be moved to Homework Help.
2. You must have made at least five posts elsewhere on the boards before you can post to Homework Help.  This allows you to get used to how we do things here, and figure out the lay of the land.
3. Certain questions are off-limits.  You can find a list here.
4. If you haven't made at least five posts, your question will not only be moved, but it will be locked until you've reached five posts.
5. We've got some other rules about Homework Help which can be found here.  Please read through those as well.
6. Curious as to why we did this? A lengthy discussion can be found here.

Thanks!

833

The Green Room / Re: Rehearsals are Like Relationships

« on: Dec 03, 2010, 04:37 pm »

The May-December Relationship: When the cast is either substantially less or more experienced than you.

Variant: Interracial relationship, when the cast is predominantly of a different race than you.

PS: loebtmc, you can "like" the entire thread by liking the very first post.  It doesn't add your "like" to every post, but it does register your like a little differently.  Thanks!

834

The Green Room / Re: Rehearsals are Like Relationships

« on: Nov 15, 2010, 11:19 pm »

2nd Marriage - The show you inherited from another SM - complete with book, actors and scenery.

Online Dating - Signing a contract having never seen the venue.

Shotgun Wedding - The show you have to take in a season in order to get the show you really want.

Barroom Betty - Every company in the country has done her, you'll get your turn eventually.

Brokeback Mountain - Summerstock.  You vanish for the summer, do plenty of unspeakable things, but for some reason you keep coming back.

Jailbait - A new, juicy, controversial script that is guaranteed to cause a huge amount of community outrage.

The nice Jewish boy - the rare show that you feel comfortable inviting your extended family to see.

835

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ESCRIPTS Archive June 09-Dec. 10

« on: Nov 11, 2010, 01:06 am »

(side comment) I think we may need to have a "39 Steps" support group at this rate.  Kind of like AA, but with less religion and more flowcharts.

836

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: FORMS: Reports - Getting actors to read them (from Tools of the Trade)

« on: Nov 10, 2010, 04:02 am »

Going back to review the original question, it was about getting "people" to read the reports, not actors, and was more about embedding the report in an email instead of attaching them.  It was far more technical although we've taken it in a more psychological direction, which is pretty much OK.

I'd say that getting actors to read reports would be substantially trickier than getting the design teams & assorted tech gnomes to read them.  The latter groups are accustomed to getting updated by the SM team on a regular basis, whereas the cast would have no expectation and might actually have the same assumption that many of us here do - the reports are not meant for their eyes and anything left out for their review must have been revealed in error.

I've edited the subject line in the original post so it's more clear the OP was not focused on actors.  Thanks. -Rebbe

837

Employment / Re: Websites

« on: Oct 30, 2010, 03:15 am »

Should I just get another domain name?  I'm not sure I want a different website for each thing I do (SMing, Photography, Dwarf tossing, etc)

Yes.  If you are planning on having any sort of career in photography, you'll want to separate the two - develop your personal brand as a photographer in the same way that you've developed your brand as an SM. 

Caveat: I own over 30 domain names and am actually using about... erm.  6 of them.  So take this advice with a grain of salt.

838

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 24, 2010, 12:45 pm »

Latest stats after two weeks of BTDT:

Top 3 shows are Cabaret (10), Midsummer (9) and then a tie between Twelfth Night & West Side Story at 8 each.
Top 3 venues are the Olney, the Kennedy Center and the Goodspeed.
55 members have added at least one show or venue.



Working on dealing with the apostrophe bug in the search.  (As well as the next new feature!)

839

The Green Room / Re: I can't believe I just had to do that...

« on: Oct 22, 2010, 10:40 pm »

This is a story that I'd totally forgotten about until I wound up in full-on nostalgia mode at the bar last night.  It occurred to me halfway through the story that it would fit perfectly in this thread.

Going back to late 1993 here.  Senior year in high school I was not a stage manager yet - I was, however, a wannabe director AND head acolyte/altar girl at my suburban church.  (For those of you who know me and my subsequent lifestyle choices this will be incredibly amusing.) 

As I was a precocious little kid and an accomplished brown-noser, I had an arrangement with the PM and Assistant PM at the Hartford Stage Company that permitted me to sit in on their tech rehearsals and watch everything as it unfolded.  I was down there every 8 weeks or so for another round of observation.  (It was really fun!)

That year, the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut appointed a new head bishop, who was to be ordained at the cathedral in Hartford, across the street from the Hartford Stage Company.  Churches from all over the state sent people to participate in this service, and I was sent from my church to serve as an acolyte.  Due to the huge number of people attending, they had rented the Hartford Stage space for the overflow with CCTV showing what was happening in the actual cathedral and one of the other bishops serving on the stage of the theatre in person.

I was assigned through the names-in-a-hat process to be the acolyte for the theatre overflow service.  As I was supposed to be leading the procession for this group of clergy, I found out about this 15 minutes before the service started, when I was giving my marching orders for where I was supposed to lead the procession.  It was for most of the acolytes a less-than opportune scenario as it didn't allow them to be seen by the majority of the congregation.  I believe I burst out laughing when I was informed.

So, carrying a rather heavy cross and wearing full religious regalia, I led my little posse of bishop... and priests... and a small choir... up the aisle of the cathedral (don't trip)... out the side door (eek it's bright out here)... across the street (this is getting surreal)... into the theatre... past the Assistant PM who had no idea that I was coming.  I made eye contact with her only briefly and the look of combined sudden recognition, amusement and relief on her face was truly impressive.  I took my seat on the stage and spent the entire service trying not to giggle at the absurdity of the entire situation.

840

SMNetwork Archives / Re: New spam prevention features

« on: Oct 21, 2010, 04:06 am »

Just thought I'd post a little update now that we've had the spam protection features in place since September 19, just about a month ago.

2471 malicious visitors have been blocked from even loading the SMNetwork site in the past month.  Included in this mess have been 72 confirmed email spammers, 22 forum spammers and one email address harvester.  Our results are shared with other websites around the world to help keep the riffraff out.

37 additional visits have triggered the warning page, but successfully passed the captcha to prove that they're real human beings.  Most of those instances were split evenly between three people - guys, I'm really sorry!  Bad, bad people had your IP address within the past 50 days - thank you for your patience!

7 spammers have made it as far as the registration page, but were caught at the velvet ropes and prevented from signing up.

I'm quite pleased with the results of this little experiment!