Messages

91

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Doubt

« on: Oct 31, 2009, 09:03 pm »

I should have said that our production was very non-complex in style, with a totally static set (picture below) - transitions were all done with lighting and even then I still only had about 30 lighting cues and about the same number of sound cues.  The one thing that did worry me a little was the real rosebush we had in the garden - I have a terrible record when it comes to plants in pots as I usually manage to kill them, but the rose survived my ministrations over the season and is now planted in the director's garden!

92

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Doubt

« on: Oct 31, 2009, 02:36 am »

It's a pretty straightforward play from a stage management point of view (from an actor's point of view  it's far from straightforward!).  I took a production over about three years ago and it wasn't complex at all.  Father Flynn does have one relatively quick costume change (well, he did in our production) but it has minimal props.

93

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: CALLING: Grouping Standbys

« on: Oct 29, 2009, 06:39 pm »

I do pretty much what you're doing; it does vary a little between operators (I work with four operators on a regular basis) and because we run a single-op system often I'll tend to stand cues by the way they happen - "standby LX28 with SQ15, LX29, LX30 with SQ16, LX 31 and 32" but it does depend on the operator.  If it's a particularly big sequence I'll just say "standby for the Vivaldi sequence which begins with LX67 and ends with LX97" - or when I did The Producers, it was just "standby for Springtime for Hitler"!

94

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Stage Manager as Disciplinarian

« on: Oct 23, 2009, 03:57 am »

So, what are your techniques?
How do you discipline?
How do you keep yourself listening?
What if the mistake is huge? What if someone is hurt?
How do you move on?
Do these techniques vary with different department? Do you treat technical different from artistic?

Primarily I always try to listen with an open mind - blaming or disciplining without knowing the backstory doesn't achieve anything as there may be a bigger problem which hasn't been solved.  I also try not to go in and accuse - that only puts people on the defensive; I find it's much better to say "tell me what happened" than "what did you screw up?".  To a certain degree it depends on the person and the relationship I have with them; if it's someone I know well and trust then chances are they'll be beating themself up about it anyway, and be totally aware of what they did wrong, so why should I make it worse - my primary concern is to make sure it won't re-occur.  If it's someone I'm not so familiar with, then the conversation is usually much more oriented to finding out if they know how things went wrong, and sorting that issue out.  One thing I have absolutely no patience with is people who don't admit their mistakes - if you screw up, tell me so we can fix it, don't try to weasel your way out of it by blaming someone else or the equipment.  My absolute pet hate is people who make the same mistakes more than once - anyone who works with me will tell you that I don't want people to say sorry when they make a mistake, I just want them to admit it and not do it again!  If you do that, then it's forgotten and in the past and I won't mention it again.

In my situation, if the mistake is huge and ends in injury, then it quickly goes above my head to the production manager whose job it is to investigate - so all I have to do is give my account of what happened, and I'm quite grateful for that.

I do find that I treat cast and crew differently when it comes to mistakes - probably because generally when cast make a mistake there's much less possibility for injury (well, in my situation anyway - I can imagine it'd be different on something like a Cirque show!), and so I don't tend to go too deep into it - just find out if there's anything I can do to help prevent it recurring.

95

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Advice for a newbie

« on: Oct 16, 2009, 10:22 pm »

kiwitechgirl:
Since tess is asking... Your job sounds super hectic, is there time for family or anything? I feel like the Theatre engulfs my life during shows and I don't talk to anyone but the cast for days!

but kiwitechgirl:
wow, that's a huge job. how are the productions divided amongst the stage managers? and the space for rehearsals and everything?

It has hectic and not-so-hectic times!  Essentially we almost always have one mainbill show in performance and one in rehearsal at any given time, although there are exceptions when we do a run which is longer than four weeks (like over the summer when we have a 12-week run of a musical), so effectively we can alternate stage managers - at the moment I'm about to go into rehearsal while one of the others is on show call.  The second space has bigger gaps between shows, plus also it has an operator/stage manager once the show is up and running, so the stage manager does rehearsals and production week then hands it off to the operator, meaning there's time to prepare for the next rehearsal period. 

Kids' shows, which happen during the day in school holidays, are usually dealt with by a casual stage manager, except for the summer one because there's not a lot else going on for the SMs who are not on the musical!  They play on the mainbill stage, usually with some small easily-moved set pieces to make the mainbill set fit their show! 

The late night improv doesn't actually require us to do anything except start the show when the house is in and be there in case of emergency, then fill in the show report at the end of the gig, so it's not particularly hard work.  Usually it's whoever is on the mainbill show at the time (the improv plays on whatever set happens to be in the theatre) that stage manages it.

We have two rehearsal spaces, but one is unusable during kids' shows because it is directly above the theatre and so footsteps and noise are very audible.  Because the second theatre isn't constantly in rehearsal, though, we can usually make it work; occasionally we have to go offsite but there is a school down the road that is more than happy to make their hall (which is big enough to get a full mark-out on the floor) available to us during school holidays (which of course is the only time we need it) at the cost of fifty tickets to the show - works for us!

I do manage to find time for family etc; we always have Sundays off, plus once the show is up and running I have my days free and so you can fit stuff in.  I particularly love it over the summer (I almost always do the musicals, because I'm the only one of the three of us who reads music) when I can go to the beach during the day and then go to work!  Production weeks tend to be pretty ridiculous, because we only have a week's turnaround between mainbill shows, but you just learn to cope with it.

96

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fog/Haze that wont set off a very sensitive smoke alarm

« on: Oct 15, 2009, 11:54 pm »

To the OP, have you looked at using a water based fluid?  While not foolproof, particle detectors seem to be much more tolerant when it comes to a water based haze.

Really?!  We've found that our oil cracker causes far fewer problems than our water based hazer - we can't isolate the detectors in our dock area, and so we have a heavy curtain which supposedly remains pulled across during shows.  With the water based hazer we had to be super-vigilant about it, because we had a few false alarms caused by it, but since switching to the cracker we've found that even when the dock area is quite hazy, the alarms don't tend to trigger - someone said it was to do with the cracker producing finer particles than a water based hazer?

97

Tools of the Trade / Re: Fog/Haze that wont set off a very sensitive smoke alarm

« on: Oct 14, 2009, 07:10 pm »

Is there no way you can legally get the smoke alarms isolated for the duration of the show?  Our theatre is in a historic building, and so we're subject to all kinds of extra rules and regulations, but we are allowed to isolate the smoke alarms within the theatre - it's on a half-hour timer in the control room and the operator switches it back on when it clicks off.  I don't know of any fog or haze machine that won't set smoke alarms off.  Don't even think about doing anything dodgy and illegal to isolate the alarms if you're not allowed to though!

98

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Advice for a newbie

« on: Oct 13, 2009, 11:37 pm »

In another question, what is it like stage managing for an actual company?

That's a big question!  I'm one of three stage managers in a company which produces 8 mainbill and usually 5 second-space shows a year, plus four kids' shows and about 100 performances of a late-night improv comedy show, and it's certainly a lifestyle not a job!  At various times it's crazy, busy, frustrating, incredibly satisfying, seriously hard work, great fun, boring, insane, maddening and brilliant.  I work with a huge range of incredibly creative people which is wonderful; I love having my finger on the pulse of a show and having to know exactly what is going on all the time; no two days are ever the same and I do admit that there are times when I wonder why I am doing this, but I get out of bed and look forward to going to work, which has to be a good thing!

99

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Are you always completely honest?

« on: Oct 09, 2009, 10:36 pm »

My show reports get pinned up on a noticeboard in the stairwell - so everyone in the building sees them.  Mostly I'll write everything on it, but very occasionally there is the odd thing which I don't want all and sundry to see, so I'll e-mail the production manager or admin or whoever needs to know.  For example, I had an actor wearing a radio mic pack down the front of his very tight trousers (don't ask why!) and after a while it began to cause him some pain in his genitals due to the constant pressure.  Normally if there's an injury during the show I'll make a note on the show report in general terms, but this one I really didn't think the whole company needed to know about, so I left it off and e-mailed the production manager and the admin staff member who deals with company medical issues.  Mostly, though, I try to be honest and put everything on the report!

100

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Electronic interuptions during a performance

« on: Sep 30, 2009, 09:25 pm »

I did see somewhere that the Jackman/Craig incident video was legit - can't remember where I saw that info, it was somewhere on a fairly reputable site - look at how steady the camera is - it's either on a tripod or with a very, very steady hand which certainly leads me to believe that it was being taped in-house for whatever reason and that it's been released legitimately.  Go Hugh Jackman though for doing what he did!

101

The Green Room / Re: "I can't do that on stage."

« on: Sep 16, 2009, 08:45 am »

Getting dancers to NOT walk in time with underscoring.  I don't know how many times I've heard a director or choreographer howl "Stop walking in time!" at some unsuspecting dancer who isn't thinking about what they're doing, and so the unconscious just takes over.

102

Tools of the Trade / Re: SM View Video Monitor System

« on: Sep 04, 2009, 08:30 pm »

Diagnostics are not too difficult.  Plug the camera into a different monitor and see if things improve; if they do, it's the monitor, if they don't, it's not!  Your problems could also be caused by the cable between the camera and monitor, so try the existing camera and monitor with a different cable to see if things improve.  Our system consists of a fairly decent CCTV camera running through a video splitter/booster and then to several TVs around the building (we have a video patch panel in the control room and breakout boxes through the building); none of the TVs is a top-end model but they serve purpose pretty well.  We could theoretically record shows through it - just plug one of the splitter outputs into a recorder, but we never do, mostly because the camera doesn't have a microphone and so it would be a silent recording!  It doesn't have night vision, but then due to the nature of our shows, there's almost never a time when I need it.  I have worked with systems where the camera flicks to infra-red below a certain threshold, and provided you have a decent IR source then it works well.  I've no idea what the angle of the camera is - but it's pretty wide, which is necessary due to the shape of our space.  It auto-focuses, which 95% of the time is great, but sometimes it does go out of focus with a new lighting state - but the next state change beyond that normally brings it back into focus.  Our prompt desk is in a corner where you have no unobstructed view of the stage, so the monitor is very important, and it serves us pretty well.

Hope that helps you some!

103

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Musical Director Issues - Multiple Problems

« on: Aug 06, 2009, 02:11 am »

Wow, that's a tough one.  Is there someone in the cast who can bash out warmups on the piano?  They don't really even have to be able to play, just to know some warmups and be able to hit the next starting note in the sequence.  If there is, get them to come in a bit early and take warmups - I usually find I have at least one person in a cast who can take warmups (and the MD loves it - if he's running late I get a text saying "can you please get so-and-so to take warmup"!).  And I think sievep is right - you have to stand up for your singers.  It's difficult to do, and you have to be really diplomatic about it; can you get one or two of the more experienced cast members to back you up?  I'd phrase it in as non-accusatory a fashion as I can - "some of the cast are finding their voices are feeling very strained, they would really appreciate it if you could give them some help with avoiding this."  As for learning parts incorrectly, maybe use the fact that he's using MIDI and ask for the cast to be given copies of the files so they can do some work on it themselves with a guide.  If none of this works, then yeah, you need to go to a producer or someone higher up.

104

The Green Room / Re: Trivia Tournament II: Electric Boogaloo

« on: Jul 28, 2009, 03:13 am »

Please, no Celebrities category again?!  I don't even know who some of these people are, let alone their birthdays.....

105

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: Conversations with actors

« on: Jul 25, 2009, 01:17 am »

A great friend of mine once told me to never take anything said during tech personally . . .and that would be my advice to you now.  I have no idea why you were the unfortunate target of his venting, but dust your shoulders off and move forward. 

Oh, I'm not too bothered about it - if I'd taken everything this director has said to me personally, I'd be a gibbering wreck by now!  I think my favourite one was when he told me that clearly I had absolutely no idea how to prompt an actor, or that I had too much initiative and should just do what I was told...I'm pretty thick-skinned - I was just amazed at the fact he seemed to think I shouldn't be talking about anything except the show!