Messages

1

Employment / Re: When Hiring Other SM's...

« on: Feb 25, 2009, 11:52 am »

I personally think its rude to not give a response immediately, whether its a yes, no, or let me get back to you. Why would you give any potential employer any reason to write you off? Honestly, with the competitiveness of this business, you have to do everything you can to make yourself seem like best candidate possible to everyone and anyone. 

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Tools of the Trade / Re: The comfort of a featherweight headset

« on: Mar 04, 2008, 01:22 pm »

I've been checking out all the websites people have listed, and I noticed that the lightweights on eartec.com are all under $100, which would fit my budget nicely, but has anyone had experience with them? I'm looking to try the over the ear non-headband kind. Thanks!

Samantha

3

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Do you call from house or backstage?

« on: Mar 03, 2008, 11:10 am »

Personally, I am a fan of calling from FOH. I do mostly musicals, so I like seeing things on a larger scale. I feel like if I am backstage, people come to me unneccessarily, which can be distracting, especially if its super cue-heavy, like a lot of my shows have been. I have also been lucky to have really great ASMs though, that I trust.

There has also been one show where the LD got fancy with a SIMTI (sp?) system on the last songs of a show with a track, but something kept going wrong with the firing of the sound and lights (the light board was programmed to fire sound cues as well), so 4 out of 6 shows, my board op and I were on our toes, basically going off of a previous version of the show I had done and what she remembered the LD programming from tech. It was insane and there was no way I could have landed those shows from backstage. I also have not been a fan of SIMTI since...

4

Stage Management: Other / New to Opera questions

« on: Feb 29, 2008, 11:57 am »

So I got tossed into ASMing an opera at the school I'm working at, and I seriously wanted to kill myself. My background before I came here was all musical theatre, with a few straight plays here and there, and then all drama since September. My first day on the show was the first day of tech, and I was completely lost. I had heard horror stories from some of the other interns who had done the operas here, who would cue entrances and get the deer in headlights look from the chorus after which the director would yell and blame the ASM... I was NOT excited. Luckily for my show most had already learned their entrances, since I didn't get there until tech, I just had to coordinate a bunch of incredibly awkward shift changes.

My next assignment is on the bigger opera in the building, which apprarently is going to be so large-scale that there is a PSM and four SM/ASMs, and I'm a little nervous. I really feel like there is a huge disparity in the way opera singers and regular actors, musical theatre or drama, are trained. I don't know if its just this vocal arts department, but both myself and the SM have been treated very disrespectfully, and are mostly ignored when we ask them to do very average things like sign-in on time and not talk backstage. One of the chorus members even told me a different name when I asked him what his name was. Then I looked like an idiot when my SM asked who I had gotten to do a shift change, and I told her, and she told me there was no one by that name in the cast. Of course, I had already typed up the shift changes and the fake name was on there, making me look like even more of an idiot. In our drama division, there are serious consequences for tardiness and behavior, but absolutely none in vocal arts.

I'm just wondering if this kind of behavior and lenience toward opera singers is the norm or if I just got lucky. It kind of makes me not want to work in opera, which sucks because I do have a very musical background, and its nice to put it to good use.

5

Employment / Re: Seeking Stage Management Fellowship

« on: Feb 29, 2008, 10:51 am »

Its a little hidden, here's the direct link:

http://www.juilliard.edu/about/profintern.html

6

Employment / Re: Seeking Stage Management Fellowship

« on: Feb 28, 2008, 01:10 pm »

I'm in my second semester of the Juilliard School's professional intern program for stage management. Its really hard, but totally worth it for the connections. The pay isn't great, but most rehearsals are at night so I do odd temp jobs during the day and manage to afford a Manhattan apartment. Most people just live in Brooklyn or Jersey. I also like that they expose you to drama, dance, and opera all in one year. And the students are amazingly talented of course, which makes the job more fun.

Samantha

7

The Hardline / Searching for EMC positions...

« on: Apr 17, 2007, 01:53 am »

Ok, so I've read aaaaall the info on the AEA site and searched the web till my eyes have gone blurry... but its seeming a lot more difficult to actually *find* EMC-qualifying positions than it says. I went through the EMC theatre list on the website, all 24 pages of it, and sent out a bunch of emails to theatres in my area (Los Angeles, CA) but am waiting on replys. Anyone have tips for getting the ball rolling on EMC credit? I'm starting to worry a little now, since I was planning on relocating to NYC around August, and wondering how to go about finding EMC positions there as well.

Samantha