Show Posts
1
Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Bad ASM's
« on: Oct 26, 2007, 11:58 pm »
I recently just closed a show with a bad ASM. She was an ASM before but didn't know anything even the basics of word or excel. I showed her some things and it helped a little. Interesting enough, she did improve somewhat, just really slowly. If you’re show opens in April you have a really long time and hopefully she’ll get into because she has the time. But I completely understand where you're coming from.
It's okay to be frustrated but I’d find someone like an advisor to more or less complain to and bounce ideas off of. Having her read the SM books might help. What lauria said is totally right. Another thing you could try is letting your director know what is going on. Once you tell him/her, he could talk to both of you at the same time about what he is looking for in an SM team. That way no one is picking on her, or calling her out and it's coming from an authority figure. But you and the director know that said talk is directed towards her. It might give her another direction to go on or better idea of what her job is.
Also, if there are any other shows going on in your high school or community theatres that you go to one of their techs and kinda get an idea of what’s going on. But I realize this might not be possible.
If I could offer you one piece of advice…find the things she is good at and use those to the best of your ability and then keep feeding her new things one at time. Don’t do it all yourself. I did that once and it makes your job as a stage manager not as good at it could be.
Good luck!! Let us know how it goes! Having a bad ASM is the worst.
It's okay to be frustrated but I’d find someone like an advisor to more or less complain to and bounce ideas off of. Having her read the SM books might help. What lauria said is totally right. Another thing you could try is letting your director know what is going on. Once you tell him/her, he could talk to both of you at the same time about what he is looking for in an SM team. That way no one is picking on her, or calling her out and it's coming from an authority figure. But you and the director know that said talk is directed towards her. It might give her another direction to go on or better idea of what her job is.
Also, if there are any other shows going on in your high school or community theatres that you go to one of their techs and kinda get an idea of what’s going on. But I realize this might not be possible.
If I could offer you one piece of advice…find the things she is good at and use those to the best of your ability and then keep feeding her new things one at time. Don’t do it all yourself. I did that once and it makes your job as a stage manager not as good at it could be.
Good luck!! Let us know how it goes! Having a bad ASM is the worst.