Messages

916

Tools of the Trade / Re: iPad: What do you think?

« on: Apr 06, 2010, 01:43 am »

I'm waiting for iProp, the brushed metal prop table with a glossy, editable surface and nead little icons for all the props.  Ideally with a trashbin that automatically resorts the table when stuff gets misplaced.

Of course I also want a party and a pony, but these are just as unlikely.

917

College and Graduate Studies / Re: SUNY Purchase vs. Emerson: Outside Perspectives?

« on: Apr 01, 2010, 08:27 pm »

As a counterpoint, around the same time as Julia was at Emerson I was working with a batch of recent Emerson grads as actors in a stock theatre.  They struck me, with only one exception, as cliquey, immature and ill-prepared for the professional world.  Based on my experience with them (and with being surrounded by entirely Emerson students at that particular theatre) I would personally never hire anyone from there - bad memories last a very long time.

Bear in mind, I know at least one of those immature and stupid young actors has gone on to Broadway, and behavior always matters less than talent in the acting realm.

Given that I'm now out of theater, though, take my perspective with a grain of salt.  Things may have improved since the late 90's.

918

The Green Room / Re: Best one-liner from a performance report

« on: Mar 30, 2010, 06:14 pm »

"Rise and Fall" fell and then rose again.  (Book prop got kicked off the apron, then an audience member tossed it back up.)

919

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Title formatting for this board

« on: Mar 24, 2010, 03:17 am »

You're welcome, glad it's been useful for you!

If a thread is very popular it should be stickied at the top of the board.  The staff knows to keep an eye on the top 10 posts as listed in the site statistics and sticky things accordingly. 

Child boards actually bury things deeper and make them somewhat harder to find to our guests.  It is important to remember that SMNet's traffic on a daily basis is actually 10x higher than the number of registered members, so we need to keep things as guest-friendly as possible.  Search functions are tricky on a specialized board such as this one - there are so many different, yet synonymous terms, and the search engine only indexes words that are longer than three letters.  (e.g., "AEA" won't turn up anything, but "equity" will.)

Don't stress too much about making duplicate posts, or reopening a topic that has not been addressed in a while.  We've been doing this forum thing for years now, and some of the stuff from a very long time ago could stand to be revisited periodically.  Moderators also have the ability to merge posts on similar topics and frequently do so - it's part of our job.

If you're looking for something in particular and the site search isn't turning up enough info, it is also worthwhile to check with a moderator - they all know their boards really well, and may recall a buried post that could be helpful.  (Although we'd prefer if you ask a mod only if you've already searched and come up empty-handed!)

920

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Title formatting for this board

« on: Mar 23, 2010, 12:37 am »

As the software we are using does not permit topic tagging, the "sort by subject" option along with manually-added subject tags is the best we can do right now. 

921

Tools of the Trade / Re: New Printer Recommendations, Please!

« on: Mar 09, 2010, 05:47 pm »

I've also had good experience with Brother printers, although I haven't used their color models.  I would avoid HP.  My boss loves HP and keeps buying their equipment but they are awful to maintain and their driver software doesn't work terribly well on our MS systems - usually if something works poorly on MS it works even worse in OSX.

922

Stage Management: Other / Award Ceremonies

« on: Mar 07, 2010, 11:26 pm »

With the Oscars tonight, it struck me that we've never really discussed the methods and techniques for working award shows and similar pageant-style events.  Does anyone have any experience working in these types of productions? What have you learned from working on them? How do they differ from "normal" production work?

923

SMNetwork Archives / Profile options for registered members

« on: Feb 21, 2010, 09:54 pm »

You may have noticed that certain members have extra text beneath their usernames in their posts.  All registered members have the ability to add this text if they choose.  They are all optional for existing members, however, new members are required to select their Experience level.

You can set the following SMNetwork specific options by going to the Profile tab above, and then choosing "Forum Profile" from the menu.

• Affiliations: This is for listing your union memberships and memberships in professional societies such as the SMA.  Whatever you type here will show up under your username with every post.
• Current Gig: The production you're working on now, including the company if you choose.  Whatever you type here will show up under your username with every post.  (In other words, if you're going to be discussing show-confidential stuff, use discretion in how much you reveal about your current gig.)
• Kit List: This one does NOT show up with your posts.  However, it is visible for individuals who browse your user profile.  List what you keep in your kit.
• Experience: Indicate what type of production you normally work on - high school, college, community, professional.  This one is very helpful to other posters, as different levels of productions require different types of advice.  Your experience level DOES show up with every post.

924

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COSTUMES: How involved do you get with costumes and wardrobe?

« on: Feb 18, 2010, 02:07 pm »

I did not have any wardrobe crew for most of my career.  I did laundry for almost every show that I worked on. I did costume repairs, actor measurements and quick changes while calling.

I would frequently do entire runs with only one crew member, if any, and they were usually completely incapable of doing their own laundry.

There is no form that is unwelcome to me! 

925

Announcements / SMNetwork Rules and Regulations

« on: Feb 18, 2010, 04:09 am »

Hi and welcome!

Please enjoy the site and feel free to register/post/read/contribute.  However, before you do, please take a skim through our rules and regulations.  Stage Managers are orderly types and we get all flustered if folks don't follow the rules.  I'm sure you understand. 

If you get confused in your journeys through the forums, you can always find the rules and regs using the "Site Rules" link at the top of each page.

Thanks.

926

SMNetwork Archives / About the new layout

« on: Feb 18, 2010, 04:07 am »

So we upgraded the forum software. I've held off on doing it for over 2 years now as it's a hefty amount of work and will take all of us some getting used to, but it needed to be done before I could add any other new features.

There are new features coming down the pipe on top of this layout shift, but for now, let's just get used to this.

Things you will want to take note of:

1. Community Guidelines and Rules have been moved to the "Site Rules" link in the navigation bar.  This does not mean you can ignore them.
2. There are several new layout templates.  Feel free to swap about and find stuff, but don't be surprised if you wind up reset back to the forum default (this blue stuff) periodically until we figure out what we're doing.
3. Moderators, a lot of stuff will change, feel free to poke at it.  Members, if a moderator does wrong by you over the next week or so, please bear with them, there's a lot more changes on the back end than on the front end with this software upgrade.
4. There is now a warning system.  If you misbehave repeatedly, moderators have a right to give you a public warning.  Too many warnings and you will automatically lose the ability to post for 48 hours. I doubt this will be a problem for most.
5. Double posts are now automatically merged if you post twice in 48 hours with nobody in between.
6. Links database is on hiatus at the moment, there's a new spiffy version coming soon.
7. Clickable links are no longer permitted in signatures.
8. You can now preview how your post will look while typing it by clicking the "toggle view" button in the posting window.

If you find other new and cool stuff, please let us know in the Green room.

I'd recommend you guys take a moment and peek about in your profiles, there are some nice new options available to you that should make the transition a lot more fun.

Stay tuned for more changes over the next few months as I get around to them.

Thanks!

927

The Green Room / Re: Olympic-sized technical difficulties

« on: Feb 14, 2010, 03:52 am »

Mine was covered elsewhere - the first student challenge about the power outage takes the cake for me. 

928

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

« on: Feb 12, 2010, 03:19 pm »

Administration for the Trivia Tournament has been turned over to ScooterSM!  Thanks, Scooter, for volunteering to take this on!

929

The Green Room / Re: Thread to vent about / Actors behaving badly / As haiku only

« on: Feb 11, 2010, 02:46 pm »

Dressing room, call 10:
Flowers, gifts and Buddhist shrine.
No sign of the cast.

930

SMNetwork Archives / Re: Outgoing email issues/ Server move

« on: Feb 09, 2010, 07:20 pm »

Update to the update to the update to the update.  (Phew, I think I'm going to start using exponents next time!)

Attachments *should* be working now.  All attachments should open alright in windows.  The .doc and some .xls attachments will open alright on Macs.  For some reason the PDFS are not opening properly on Macs, not sure how to fix that right now, many apologies!