Messages

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Tips and Tricks: Raked stages

« on: Apr 15, 2008, 03:26 pm »

We did Godspell on a raked stage once, and the set designer painted this fantastic mural on the stage floor.

When he was done the floor was pretty slippery, and the actors feet were sliding a bit during the dance numbers, so he mixed up a batch of some kind of clear lacquer with sand and painted a gritty top coat over it and we never had an actor lose their footing all through the run.

Also, the first time we got the actors up on the raked stage we immediately realized that it was a bad idea to have any of the women in heels so we quickly made some costume changes to have them all in flats.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Fire Effect - need help FAST!

« on: Apr 15, 2008, 03:19 pm »

My suggestion would be flash paper. The trick is to find it. Open your yellow pages and find a performing magician in your area. Ask them where they buy flash paper (almost all of the magicians I've ever met use it), and if you can't get it in time, maybe you can buy some of theirs?

Good luck!!!

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Stage Guns in Canada - where to find information?

« on: Apr 07, 2008, 03:41 pm »

I'm going to be spending a lot of time on that Theatre Ontario site I see.

Thanks for your help. I'll be going before the board with this information very soon.

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Stage Guns in Canada - where to find information?

« on: Mar 31, 2008, 09:46 am »

Hi there all!

In the next season our theatre is doing a couple of shows that involve weapons, and gun use on stage. I'm not the production stage manager for these shows, but I may end up training new SM's for the shows.  Can anyone recommend a good place to look for Canadian rules/regs for gun/weapon use on stage?

I tried googling, but all I got was NRA sites, which don't tell me what I need to know. I'll do the reading, if I can figure out where to go to read it.

Thanks for any help.

(If you don't know of any Canadian source material, American info would at least give me a place to start.)

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Humorous story I had to share

« on: Mar 31, 2008, 09:31 am »

I think my favourite part of that story is where the actor had enough respect for the SM to check in with you first!!! I adore actors who check in before launching off into unexplored territory. Sounds like it was very well-handled by all!

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Help! My ASM is USELESS.

« on: Mar 24, 2008, 10:41 am »

Checklists, checklists, checklists.

As a community theatre SM I get a lot of people who:
a) really want to be there but have no experience, OR
b) don't want to be there but parent/SO/friend has begged/bullied them into helping backstage

I find the best way to cope with them is to put EVERY single thing they need to do into a checklist, put the checklist in a plastic sleeve and give them a china pencil/dry erase marker. (seriously, I include pictures of place settings for tables)

At the end of the night, all checklists must be handed in to me and I check them myself and ask questions. Why did you check off the suitcase when it wasn't actually at SL when it should have been? I see the lamp was in the right place, why didn't you check it off? etc. After a couple of rehearsals with this system, they know it's coming. Pre-show, post-show and intermission lists have 2 columns for checking. Once everyone has done their assigned sets, a stagehand takes the list and checks everything, then an ASM goes around and does a second check.

I've been known to give prizes (chocolate is our friend) for the fastest check, or I've moved a prop 2 inches to the right and given a prize for the first person to catch it. I try to make it fun, and bribe my crews with candy.

In your case, if you can't get your person working up to snuff, and you can't fire her, you will NEED to have at least one other person backstage so you can sleep at night instead of sitting up picturing the wagon rolling over someone in your cast.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Question about - "No Sex Please, We're British"

« on: Mar 20, 2008, 02:19 pm »

I once saw a production where they had a badly installed mechanical hatch and it closed on the actor's head during a performance.

Ouch, somebody obviously skimped on hardware.

I had gone to see the show because I heard they were looking for an SM for an upcoming production, so I wanted to see what they were like. I'm not sure what the issue was, it just convinced me that I should not be working with that group. After the show I stayed to wait for a friend in the cast and the response of the tech team was shockingly apathetic. (they don't exist anymore, wonder why?)

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Question about - "No Sex Please, We're British"

« on: Mar 17, 2008, 10:19 am »

I wasn't involved in this show when my group did it, but I've had to do some similar effects.

For the hatch door, try mounting it in sliding rails like you would see on cabinet drawers. I used that for an effect on a show just recently. The rails are cheap, reliable and easy to install. We had our sliding rails for a hidden panel, and used a basic pulley system and a stage hand to raise and lower it. For the one quick close we had, the stage hand would just let go of the rope and let it slam down.

For No Sex, you want to make sure your hatch stays securely open since Runnicles has all that business with the hatch. I once saw a production where they had a badly installed mechanical hatch and it closed on the actor's head during a performance.

As for the flowers... I'm stumped. I don't remember this part of the show at all. I'll ask around and see if anyone from our production remembers.

My initial suggestion is that you could do something with a small bundle of nice, big green straws (like the ones at starbucks)... Take a bundle of straws, tie them together with some fancy fabric and ribbon, and disguise the bundle with a few pieces of artificial greenery... then tuck the flowers and greenery that will be 'guillotined' into each straw... when the hatch comes down, all the heads of the flowers will be on the wrong side of the hatch and you should be able to slide the bundle right off... if you glue a few 'broken' looking pieces inside the bouquet, it should look right... (Does this description make sense to anyone but me?)

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The Green Room / Re: Things You'll Never Hear a Stage Manager Say

« on: Mar 12, 2008, 04:38 pm »

I have no sense of separation anxiety when someone borrows my flashlight or sharpie. 

(snicker) I feel the same way, but my husband says my crazy is showing when I admit this in public.

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The Green Room / Re: Things You'll Never Hear a Stage Manager Say

« on: Mar 10, 2008, 10:18 am »

"I wonder if these flats will burn well?"

No... I have said exactly that... during set strike when a particularly troublesome set of warped flats appeared to be on their way into storage instead of to a shop for repair or the scrap heap where they belonged!

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Tools of the Trade / Re: Spike corners

« on: Mar 10, 2008, 09:55 am »

My preference is to use spike tape until we're at opening, when I know things won't change, then use colored paint pens to draw the spikes onto the floor. Saves me having to check if they've come up off the floor, and I can make the paint pen do any shape I want!

I can't believe I've never thought of paint pens!!!  (smacking self on head)

We re-paint the floor for every show at our theatre, and one of the major issues is that previous shows have a bad habit of not pulling up all their spike tape (which is generally masking tape, but don't get me started on the 8000 inappropriate uses of masking tape). So the stage floor gets painted with tape on it, over and over and over and over... and the tape has a lovely habit of coming away from the stage in the middle of a run and leaving a lovely big mark of the wrong colour behind.

We're probably putting in a new stage floor over the summer, so I will probably be getting a big box of paint pens for the theatre for spiking.

Thanks for the idea!

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Taking Notes

« on: Mar 08, 2008, 02:52 pm »

I adore post it notes... I'm known for them when I SM.

I have all kinds of post-its or tape flags and for each rehearsal or production I have a colour scheme... eg. pink for sound issues, blue for lighting, orange for blocking, yellow for 'interpersonal' (ie. someone needs a smack)... that way if I don't have time to make a note I grab the appropriate colour and stick it in my book... then when i look back i at least have a clue what the note was about... if i have time I can scribble 2 words and sum up later...

The notes I most need to take are most likely to happen when no time to actually write them down, so the post-it note system evolved... One thing I learned the hard way... if you plan to use this system in a tech booth... make sure you the colours you use LOOK DIFFERENT UNDER BLUE LIGHTING! 

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Preshow (turn off your cellphone) announcements

« on: Mar 03, 2008, 04:23 pm »

Lots of good ideas here for the audience. I'm definitely bringing these to our preshow announcers.

Re: cast/crew phones. Whenever I'm SM'ing a show I make a group on my phone for the cast/crew who have cells. When the house opens I send a text message to all of them wishing them 'break a leg' or 'Your SM loves you' or 'I like candy' or 'Turn off your phone!'... I do something different every night. That way, if any of them have left their phones on ring, they know. The first night I do it can be funny because sometimes the entire backstage and dressing area explodes with 30 different ring tones, followed immediately by guilty laughter.

I always insist that crew keep phones on them and on vibrate if they have them, because I've also had headsets fail in the middle of a show.

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Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Directorial relations crisis

« on: Mar 03, 2008, 12:41 pm »

Scheduling issues are frustrating for everyone involved. I've had very similar things happen to me where directors have attempted to humiliate me in front of the cast because of scheduling conflicts. Fortunately, by now I've learned how to get the director out into the hallway so we can work it out in private when the explosions come.

The easiest way to get past scheduling issues is to put EVERYTHING in writing.

When I'm SM'ing, I like to make a calendar listing exactly what scenes are to be rehearsed on what dates and at what locations, by scene number or page numbers, including a list of actors and techs who will be needed. (When I get my hands on a script I make a spreadsheet of who is in each scene and where fights/dance #'s/songs/etc. happen so I can sort/filter for attendance planning. Excel is my best friend.) I review any notes I have in my calendar about cast absences or other scheduling issues (holidays, room conflicts, etc.). Then I email the calendar to the director for final approval, letting him/her know that it will be going out to the entire production team (including techs, designers, producer, cast, etc.) within a specified time frame and if no response from the director making a change before that time is up (generally 24 hours), he/she will be stuck with that schedule. I have also done this in writing for directors who don't use email. I make up the schedule, take it to a meeting with the director and have him/her initial it. People generally like to read things they are signing. If they object to signing it "Oh... we trust each other, why do we need to do that?" I tell them I have several versions kicking around and this way I know for sure which version is correct.

I once worked with a director who liked to plan rehearsal schedules one week at a time. (Okay, he wanted to do it at the end of each rehearsal for the next one, but I got the producer involved because that was definitely not going to happen.) So, what we agreed to was a similar type of outline, but on a smaller scale. He gave me his plan for the following week on Wednesday night at rehearsal. I went home that night, made the schedule for the next week and emailed it to him. He would check Thursday morning before he left for work. If there was no reply from him with changes by 6:00 Thursday night, I sent it out. That way everyone knew what was agreed to and it was in WRITING. The cast and crew loved it because they knew when they needed to show up, and had a few days notice so they could plan around it.

I've had no formal training in Stage Management, but I've had a few very good directors and stage managers over the years that I've tried to learn from, and a few spectacular failures of my own to learn from. This may not work in a professional setting if there are specific rules that need to be followed, but I find it very effective in my community theatre shows. Of course, in community theatre you can probably get away with more because a competent stage manager is hard to find and directors who alienate stage managers end up having to call their own shows.