Messages

871

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / British Stage Managers

« on: Nov 07, 2005, 03:42 pm »

DSM is deputy stage manager - a typical name in a large musical for a traditional stage manager. The actual SM is more involved in the interdepartmental relationships and managing the SM team.

Fascinating!  How much do US and UK terminology differ?  I spent a year in London but didn't do any theatre work while i was there (which i now regret...)  and wonder how much titles and repsonsibilies vary.

I am aussie, so I really cannot say, but in AU, the terminologie between the rest of the theatrical world can differ greatly. Some of the most notable:

Aussie = rest of the world
Bump-in/out = Load-in/out or Get-in/out
Dome = followspot
Biobox = Booth
Grabber Gun = (not often used slang for) drill - usually with a screwdriver bit on.

I worked with a touring crew from London once, I was tour managing the australian leg of their tour. When I introduced myself the eve of their arrival, and started asking questions I kept on getting blank faces, becuase when I asked for the dome ops to submit the placement of dmes they required, everyone looked at me strangely. Luckily use of the term bump-in was easily understood, but when I directed people to put things in the biobox... again with the blank looks. And my favorite was when I said "grabba gun and secure those flaps would you" (yes, that was the origin of Grabba Gun) and they asked me how firearms could secure a flap, and didn't the person need a license to use them.

The structure I'm used to in US regional theatres is (and others please chime in with variations):

- Production Stage Manager (PSM) oversees an entire season or multiple productions by the same producing organization.  Largely an administrative post, but also SM's individual productions.

That is the same over here, although often just called the Production Manager.

- Stage Manager (SM) runs rehearsals, calls the show, organizes all elements of one production and is responsible for all things that happen onstage.  Larger shows might have multiple SM's who rotate calling, running deck, or administrative responsibilities.

Ditto - also called the DSM (as mentioned) in musicals/operas

- Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) performs duties as assigned by the SM, usually runs the deck (in the absence of a union deck chief) and is responsible for all things happening backstage.

- Production Assistant (PA) functions as a non-union ASM.

ASM's are usually in charge of props, backstage etc etc etc and liasing with the cast should the SM be unable. ASM's are also responsible for getting running props for rehearsals.

- Stage Management Intern functions as an unpaid PA.

I had an intern for a show once. I actually kept her fairly close to me all the time as a secondary SM, mainly because she was most interested in becoming a DSM in the future. Child labour laws state that she had to be paid $5 a day over here, so she was. I even let her call a matine. I was on a second set of cans incase she was going to be late. All in all, I quite enjoyed having an intern. It also helped that she had really neat handwriting, so I could get her to act as a personal secretary and take down notes of conversations between me and anyone else. I think the fuction of an intern differs between theatres though - some interns end up just running errands and getting coffee. I like to show the intern how to make a good cup of coffee then supervise as she does it (nothing will ruin an SM's reputation faster than making a bad cup of coffee)

872

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / It's Half-Hour: Do you know where your SM is?

« on: Nov 07, 2005, 03:19 pm »

What on earth is a "chookers speech?"

This is the most absurd thing I've ever heard (the rule, not the chookers).  What if you have to give notes or otherwise check in with the actors, who aren't required to be there before half hour??

I could see making a REQUEST that you be in the green room at half hour, which would allow you to do your job AND be findable by others, but banishing you to the booth is just weird.

Chookers was the nick name given to the people who put free range chickens to bed. It basically came to mean goodbye and good luck (cos you need luck to catch a bunch of chickens). A typical, run of the mill chookers is "Well here we are, another performance of X and I can feel it in my bones that we are going to nail it guys. You've all practiced really hard, the show looks great, so break a leg and I will see you after the show. Chookers."

It was also used by crew a lot - often both at the start and at the end. Chookers before the cone of cans silence fell, and chookers when they go off cans - As in see you for tomorrow's performance.

I have never had a show where all actors were not requried to have signed in before the half hour call - even if they only appear in the second half of act 3 of a 3 act play. I believe it is a contractual obligation (correct me if I am wrong). Usually, at just before half hour, I make the welcoming rounds and then give chookers and then retreat to my little corner or booth. Chookers cannot be done over a PA. It looses all meaning.

873

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / It's Half-Hour: Do you know where your SM is?

« on: Nov 07, 2005, 04:38 am »

Places - aka beginners - as it is called in AU, is typicaly (again, in AU) 5 minutes before curtain up. Normally, since I call beginers ("Ladies and Gentlemen of the X company, Act 1 beginers thankyou, act 1 beginers. Please ensure all beginners are in place and ready to start the show."), if the house is being held, I just dont call beginers. If there is a long delay, I will give them a call ("Ladies and gentlemen of the X company, the show is being held for x minutes due to..." followed by an auditorium message "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this evenings performance of X. Unfortunatly, due to (Technical Difficulties|Bad Weather|Other Emergancy) tonights performance will be delayed for x minutes. We applogise for the inconviencience and would like to take this opportunity to remind you that flash photography......")

My policy of no tallent in the wings after house opens and no one in the wings until I call beginers means I dont have lurkers.

All ops in position at 15, especially flymen. Crew I usually keep in the crew room until beginers unless they are required.

It is all personal style, however there are union rules regarding a number of things.

House manager basically has control of the house and gives you the go-ahead to open the show. Basically, you hand over control of the house to the house manager when you give the go-ahead to open the house, and then they give back control of the house when they give you FOH clearance. I usually stay in close contact with FOH - they usually either have cans or a two way radio - so that I can anticipate when to call beginners.

874

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Nov 07, 2005, 04:32 am »

I just want to share that I have always wished I was left-handed. I think it looks so cool, even with all the ink smearing you're prone to.  

thanks for listening

That is probably the ODDEST thing I have ever heard.

I am one of those weird people whose dominant hand is their left, yet I write (and do a couple of other things) with my right. That, however, is neither here nor there.

Then again, my writing would probably be neater if I wrote left handed. Mine is not at all neat when I am writing at full speed, however I can read it and translate it with 100% accuracy at a later date, so it never really mattered. I really want to take penmanship lessons to improve my writing, but it is not essential. Wow this thread has moved far far far OT...

875

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / British Stage Managers

« on: Nov 06, 2005, 05:12 am »

DSM is deputy stage manager - a typical name in a large musical for a traditional stage manager. The actual SM is more involved in the interdepartmental relationships and managing the SM team.

876

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / panto slop.

« on: Nov 05, 2005, 09:37 pm »

NO SHAVING CREAM!!!

Do NOT even THINK of use shaving cream on stage. It makes the surface slipery, burns when it gets in your eyes, and is basically down right dangerous. Look in your local joke shops. They should have something that will not cause your actors to fall A over T or gauge their eyes out if they get cream in them.

877

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Nov 05, 2005, 12:37 am »

That is exactly why I use P and OP. To me, left is left - it is instinctual. In the theatre, I am fine using it, as I can easily do a mental flip in my mind and face as an actor would. However, I find that I naturaly view the stage (even when working on it) from the audiences perspective, so prompt and off/opposite prompt are mentaly assigned to "That side of the stage", not 'the left side of the stage'.

Just one of those weird psychological intricacies. It also helps that all veterans usually know the terms, so the AV guys can easily translate it into camera left and camera right (audience left, audience right) and the stage guys can easily translate it to sl and sr, without me worrying that when I say "we need a camera to record the right side of the stage, we have one on the left already" that the camera man may be using stage sides rather than camera sides. I just say "we need a camera to record prompt side, op is already covered" and everything turns out fine.

878

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Teachers, mentors, learning

« on: Nov 04, 2005, 01:32 am »

My mentor - sad to say I have no one really. I watch every SM I come across, but there is no one person that I look up to. I would rather pick and choose bits I like from everyone I see, be they SM's or not. I think if you close yourself off to looking up to one person and following everything they advise as if it were gospel, you can miss out on some really important things.

If I was to impart one piece of wisdom to other sm's, it would definatly be that the call times your write on the call sheets are for the talent, not for you. The call time for yourself is at least half an hour before. I have an immense phobia of being late. When I am filling another role (ie lx designer or on the rare occasions I have been 'talent') and I see a reahearsal has a call time of 7pm, I am there at 6:30, ready to start at 7.

If I was a stage manager and I put a call time of 7pm, I would be there at 5:30-6pm, so I know that everything is set up by the time people arrive. Being a theatre tech, rather than a dedicated stage manager, I have seen many other SM's at work. About half of them have arrived 5 minutes before the call time to open the room. An SM should be the first to come, and the last to leave.

The final thing I would advise - 'Talent' is fickle. They have their good days and their bad. Dont take anything they say at face value. It will come back an bite you in the rear 10 minutes later when you call beginers and the overly dramatic and sensitive 'talent' has locked themselves in their dressing room.

nb. I have noted that "actresses" do not like to be called "actors", even though the term is used in a non-genderly biased manner, hence my using of the word talent. Due to the unfortunate regularity that I work with people who do not fit the description, I have included inverted commas arround the word ;-)

879

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Silent Cueing?

« on: Nov 03, 2005, 01:47 am »

cuelights, as mentioned are a good method. Should you not have a cue light system (they cost about AU$20 to make each station yourself, thousands if you want a really good system where you use mic lead and daisy chain the stations from the cueing master station...).

String is a fairly good way to cue at a distance when you have no budget. I made a system in our workshop one day where I cut 4 levers for each station - 2 go on the masters end, 2 go on the ops end. They pivot in the middle, and string is tied at one end. I painted one yellow and one green on each end. Tie the string between them using pullies, so that the string is verticle at each end, and the levers are opposite to each other. Standbys, I pulled down the yellow lever, to confirm, they pulled it their end (it is basically a sea-saw, one up, one down on each end). For the go, I pulled the green, then pulled it back in.

(diagram)

Code: [Select]


            ____________________________________
          ()                                    ()
   o     |                                       |
     \|| |                                        \||
      ||\|                                         ||\
      ||                                           || o


(sorry, it is not the clearest diagram)

880

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: bouncing off the walls?

« on: Nov 01, 2005, 04:11 pm »

there's nothing to say they "can" do that in the AEA rules but that, perhaps, is beside the point.

There is nothing to say they cannot either. As mentioned, talk to the P. Manager or the Venue Manager. They may have some perfectly reasonable justification for it, or they may tell you that you can ignore it.

I have noticed in smaller theatres and companies, that when there is a member of the team who constantly does something they dont like - ie maybe this SM could never be found because they went outside for a fag, liked to hang in the dimmer room, who knows - they make a rule. Decision making process goes like this.

person 1: I can never find the SM before the show.
person 2: Well lets put a rule in that says she has to be in the booth by 1/2 hr call, then we will know where she is.
person 1: good idea. Just let me open that word document with the rules in it... ... done...
person 2: Remember to email it to everyone.

No thought what so ever goes into the process appart from "What is the easiest way to achieve what we want now?"

881

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: asm vs sm method

« on: Oct 30, 2005, 05:02 pm »

There are very few things I "demand" from paperwork (other the now a unifed logo/header look, and the path/document title on the bottom of all printed documents.  I hate not being able to find where someone put a document.)

That is where a laptop comes in handy - I made a few of the more common forms on my laptop using adobe form designer, and now I (or my asm) just fill in the forms and press print. And they work for any show I work on. Eventually, I hope to make a every single form I could need (including risk assessment etc etc etc) and distribute it on CD to my SM buddies and to theatres.

But even before that, I would usually give the ASM a disk filled with word documents if I wanted them to fill in paperwork (very rarely would I ask that).

Most ASM's I have worked with are not aspiring PSM's (I find aspiring PSM's often don't know the boundary between their job and your own and whilst I do not mind teaching ASM's the PSM's job, in fact I quite enjoy it, if you tread on my toes and constantly over step the line, I WILL delegate you to jobs outside of the rehearsal space and give you the icky jobs when we are in the performance space) and so I find that they are really much happier when stuck in a traditional ASM role instead of doing that extra bit of paperwork for you, or designing your paperwork... that (IMO) is PSM work.

882

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Oct 29, 2005, 06:40 pm »

The bible is really one of the most important tools in the stage managers reportoir, which is why I think so many of us are passionate about it. We all have these personal styles that we have devised, and to us, it usually works, but it is great reading through this and seeing what someone else does and thinking "Hey, that is a great idea... I must try that."

Since it was mentioned that some people had two books, I thought I would mention the way I have my bible arranged for tours (quite a bit different than a standard book). I have 4. First is venue information/bump in/out shedules/accomodation information etc - everything relating to the logistics of the tour. The second is my 'report' book. Rehearsal reports, incident reports, show reports etc ec etc. Third is the calling book - the sort of thing discussed in this thread, and the fourth is my "Show maintenance and Rehearsal Book" (basically, blocking and cues together with directorial notes for maintaining the show on the road). I have seen other SM's who have done tours with a single book, and I often wonder how they do it.

ERK - I have never actually called relating to blocking - I find the blocking often changes more than the actors forgetting of lines. I do however know when the cues should be, so if a line is fudged up, well, I know what should happen.

Musicals I intersperse the vocal/piano score with the text - it is a lot of work cutting the score and script up, especially in shows where they sing a few lines then talk for a paragraph and start again, but it remains linear so that I am not switching between the two.

883

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Oct 28, 2005, 09:36 am »

It is all personal style - I dont have separate columns either. LX cues above the line, everything else below. Go's are boxed, SB's proceded by SB.

ie:

Code: [Select]


SB LX1
-------------------------
   SD1

+-----+
| LX1 |
+-----+-------------------

+-----+--------------------
| SD1 |
+-----+

+---------+
| LX2 3 4 |
+---------+--------------
| SD3     |
| RC1     |
+---------+


884

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Oct 27, 2005, 11:07 pm »

Since I have my script in the right hand column of the right hand page and my cues in the left hand column of the right hand page I don't get what you mean. The way the blocking and script relate have nothing to do with how the cues are placed on the page... that is another matter entirely.

Code: [Select]


Script/cues on right blocking on left

+-------------++--------------+
| (1) a x dsl | | LX1__ asdad |
| (2) b x usl | | SD1   ffdsff|
| (3) a x dsc | |       asdas |
+-------------++--------------+

Script/cues on left blocking on right

+-------------++--------------+
| LX1__asdad  | | (1) a x dsl |
| SD1 ffdsff  | | (2) b x usl |
|      asdas  | | (3) a x dsc |
+-------------++--------------+

885

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Your book Left or right?

« on: Oct 27, 2005, 04:01 am »

I have always placed it on the right hand side. I agree - I think that the calling is far more important than the blocking and a persons eyes naturally fall onto the right hand page before the left when they turn a page (unless held up and the person is doing reading, that is different)

There are reasons for and against both. I have seen some people who have it landscape, blocking at the bottom, script at the top. I have no idea how they call from it though.