Messages

841

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Sweeney Todd's bloody razor.. Ideas on How??

« on: Oct 20, 2010, 04:01 am »

OK. Wow.

and mega-cool

He also provided us gratis with enough seamless muslin from Rose Brand to fill a 25' wide x 30' tall proscenium arch.  It's really fun and REALLY nerve-racking to SM for a guy with that kind of clout when you're not quite old enough to drink legally.

... and now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

842

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Sweeney Todd bloody razor.. Ideas on How??

« on: Oct 20, 2010, 01:25 am »

I was privileged in a college Sweeney production to work with original Bway set designer Eugene Lee, who provided us with the original then-20 year old razors from the 1979 Broadway production.  The handles were about 7 inches long, made of wood with an oval opening on the underside.  The opening was about five inches long - enough to get all of your fingers inside to push down on the squeezy bladder inside.

The bladder was cylindrical and reusable, the same sort of material used in the bulbs of blood pressure cuffs.  They were filled by syringes with Rosco blood diluted with water - not sure of the dilution we used as it was over a decade ago now, but I do remember trying several different densities.  Too thin and you saw a stream of blood fly out towards the rail if Sweeney was feeling particularly energetic!  Too thick and you couldn't get it out of the Judge's white ruffled collar.

The blade mechanism screwed on once the bladder was filled.  It was a simple hollow metal tube about 3/8" diameter with a threaded end, then a wider metal flange, then about a 15 degree bend to make it look realistic and also help keep the blood from sloshing all over until it was needed.  The tube served as the spine of the razor.  It was punctured with small squirt holes about an inch apart all the way down the length. 

The tube was then wrapped both sides in sheet metal (I'm guessing it was aluminum, possibly steel) bent into a U shape like a taco and secured onto the unpunctured side of the tube.  The metal stuck out about an inch on both sides from the tube, folded parallel but not quite touching so that from the house it looked just like a very thick razor blade.  The sheet metal was blunted, of course.  It served as a pane to help smear the blood coming out of the tiny holes and make it look more uniform. 

We used three razors - two from the original show, and then we built a one for the contest which stayed empty so that there was no chance of it ever "bleeding" during that scene if someone forgot to dry it off after washing.  Having the smaller one made it easier for our Sweeney to make the dainty motions necessary for the contest music.  He would also use the empty one if he had to do any stropping or heavy motion with a razor - swapping out razors can certainly be made into believable business.  The other two were filled, as we didn't have time in our particular staging to refill them between the Beadle's and Judge's deaths.

With the tiny pinholes in the tubing it was definitely crucial to wash the things thoroughly after every performance, or they'd clog with the fake blood.  The sheet metal "blades" were quite fragile, as I recall, as was the threading that secured the blade to the handle.  Given that you're dealing with goop inside, you definitely do not want to strip that particular thread!

Hope this helps.

843

Employment / Dear Abby: How can I discreetly put myself on the market?

« on: Oct 18, 2010, 08:23 pm »

SMNetwork moderators sometimes receive questions from members who wish to remain anonymous, but still need the support of the community.  We post these on their behalf as "Dear Abby" questions.

I have been steadily working with Theater X for 2yrs. In between seasons   there, I've done some work with various companies in the city. They all   know that my main job is SM at Theater X. However, I have grown   restless and feel I have outgrown the theater and want to jump into   freelancing. (Theater X and I have no bad blood, and they have mentioned   writing my recommendation letters or anything else I need.) Is there a   tactful (not tacky) way to contact former employers/coworkers and let   them know I am going freelance, and see if they have any   jobs/connections available? I want to work with the connections I have,   but I know many of them think of me as Theater X's full time employee   and assume I'm not available for jobs. I also don't want to look   desperate. Any suggestions?

844

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 17, 2010, 10:12 pm »

I'm sure one of our illustrious editors will fix that on their next visit.

Thank you!

845

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 15, 2010, 11:18 am »

The Author field is really only there so that we can tell the difference quickly between shows with similar names.  So, what goes in the Author field should be the shortest possible secondary identifying characteristic for the specific script.  (That's also why I said last names only.)

Choreographer for dance would probably be more useful than composer, as a Balanchine Nutcracker would require different techniques than a Tharp one.

846

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 13, 2010, 11:08 pm »

Yay! She has the power and is NOT afraid to use it.  (I like that in an editor.)

I've just implemented a cleaner version of the live search drop down menus.  They should be much faster, and more importantly, they should now properly hide themselves if you click out of them or move to another form field.

847

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 13, 2010, 09:53 pm »

OK, three new people have requested membership to the editors group, and have been approved.  Congrats to RuthNY, damjamkato and cschott, who now have access to the BTDT editor.  All existing moderators also have access to it.  I think I'll take on one more editor and then close applications for now.

Bear in mind folks, if you miss this one, there will be more new features coming in over the next few months that will also need moderate supervision.  While release dates aren't set in stone yet, I anticipate features pertaining to schools, links and the calendar. 

848

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 13, 2010, 05:02 pm »

Alphabetic sorting on the profile - done.
Merged the duplicate operas.

849

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 13, 2010, 12:20 am »

OK, I think I've worked out the kinks in the back-end portion.  This means I can now start accepting requests for BTDT Editors.

If you're interested in helping to keep the plays/venues lists neat and tidy, head over to your profile, click on "Modify Profile > Group Membership" and request membership in the BTDT Editors group.  You must be an established member with a pretty clean history of posting without spelling errors.  Editing is all web-based, no coding required, and it should work across OSes and browsers now. 

When I have enough editors I'll close enrollment for the time being and edit this post.

In other news, BTDT now shows up on the "Who's Online" page. 

I've worked some SQL magic for stats: 31 people have entered at least one show or venue to their profile.  Most popular show is Midsummer Night's Dream (6 members), followed closely by Big River and The Miracle Worker tied at 5 each.  Venues are racking up more slowly, but three DC area venues are currently in the lead - Olney, Kennedy Center and Round House at 3 members each.  Eventually I'll have a little box with some tasty stats once I finish unloading my portal gun at the site.

850

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SHOWS: How many times have you Stage Managed the same play/musical?

« on: Oct 12, 2010, 05:42 pm »

Amusingly, one of the top search terms that brings people to SMNet is "Bye Bye Birdie script".

851

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 07:44 pm »

Woops.  Fixed that.  Sorry, was tinkering with the sorting some more.

852

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 06:13 pm »

OK, Sorting has been sorted.  Sort of.  It now ignores A, An and The.  I'm somewhat divided on whether to make it also skip Le, La, L', Die and Das.  Opinions, esp from the Ballet & Opera folk, would be appreciated.

You can also now link back to a member's full forum profile from their member detail page.

Thanks for saying all those nice things, folks, it's appreciated!

853

The Green Room / Re: BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 01:44 pm »

Thanks for the input, Lauria!  I've gone ahead and made the corrections you specified for the time being. 

We had the titles listed with A, An and The at the end, but it looked really funny.  I'll muck with the code and see if I can't improve the sorting regardless.

As for a checkbox selection method, with 500+ plays in the system already it would probably crash your browser.

Regarding entering alternate names, as you did for Gaslight, the search is pretty fuzzy and can return any section of a title, so if someone searches on Angel, Gaslight or Street they'll get the same play somewhere in their list.

Oh, and I made one more little tweak, you can now access someone's BTDT profile from their regular forum profile.  I'm still working on implementing a route back in the other direction. 

854

SMNetwork Archives / New Feature Overview including "Been There, Done That"

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 04:54 am »

You may have noticed a few new things around here.

First of all, the menu has been split in two.  For most folks, the old menu was perfectly functional, but for those of us on the staff it was getting far too long and unwieldy.  (We have a bunch of extra buttons to make sure that things don't fall apart behind the scenes.)  As I'll be adding more and more new features over the next few months during my slow work season, I split things up a bit.  Stuff that is more global in nature (staff list, rules, the calendar, features outside of the forums, etc) will appear in the upper right hand corner of your screen.  Stuff that is specific to the forums (personal messages, tags, searching) will appear in the same place they've always been.

I'll probably shuffle stuff back and forth a bit, but won't be deleting any links.  If at any point you don't see something in the old place, it may be in the new menu instead.

Secondly, I'm pleased to introduce you to "Been There, Done That" (BTDT), the first bit of completely original code I've scratch-written for SMNetwork in about 8 years.  I've added a lot of pushbutton features using open-source add on modules for the forums software.  I've written a lot of dynamic code for other projects.  This is the first time in a long time that I've typed every curly brace and semicolon in the code for something on SMNet since before IE6 was released.  I expect there will be lots of bugs. 

What is BTDT? It's something I've always wanted, and if I'd known how to do it in 2000 it would have been a linchpin from the start. 

It's a quick and easy way to search for other members who have first-hand experience on specific show- and location-related issues.  I've loaded a ton of shows into the database and a handful of venues, and my expert crack team of beta testers have started listing the shows and venues they've worked on & in previously.  Contribute to BTDT by editing your profile, adding the places you've been and the shows you've done.  (Bear in mind that if you list it, you'll probably get questions about it.  BTDT listings are visible to anyone with an SMNetwork membership, so use professional discretion.)

If you have questions, I've opened up a discussion topic down in the Green Room.  I'll be happy to answer anything that comes up, and tweak/fix stuff to the best of my ability.

Oh, and a tiny bit of bad news - in order to not go totally insane while implementing these new features, I've had to turn off the alternate themes for the time being.  I'd rather make sure I get everything working in one theme before I have to go tinkering about with multiple variants.  The old themes may come back or I may pick a raft of new ones.  We'll all be using the forum default for a while, though.

855

The Green Room / BTDT help and discussion

« on: Oct 11, 2010, 04:30 am »

Hey all - I'm guessing there will be some questions about the new features.  (Menu & Been There, Done That.)  Feel free to ask stuff here.  Yes, you can request more stuff.

I'll be looking for a couple of spelling geeks with some spare time and relatively recent operating systems to help patrol the lists of shows and venues.

I only request that if you find bugs, check with me first via either PM, chat or email before posting them live.  I'd rather not have any crazy exploits running around in public for too long.  The staff and I have beta tested until our modems squealed, but I'm sure we've missed stuff.