Messages

1

The Green Room / Re: DC actor Frank Britton

« on: Jun 01, 2014, 11:40 pm »

I was warmed that Frank's plight is on the main page of the forum. The news has spread across the country and was picked up by a variety of news sources. The initial goal was to raise $3,000 and just yesterday the fund went over the $50,000 mark! Some doctors have offered to provide their services at no cost to Frank. Frank is home now and will need additional surgeries to repair his injuries.

Last night I closed a show here in DC and the actors and crew wanted to get a gift for our directors (a mother daughter team). I suggested that we donate to the fund in the names of the directors and when we told them that the cast & crew donated $350 in their names, they were brought to tears. The outpouring of love and support for Frank has been tremendous. There is now a Googledoc for people to sign up to visit and bring food to him. If you care to keep up with this story, there is a Facebook page "Friends of Frank Britton".

2

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

« on: Aug 06, 2009, 11:39 am »

Thank you all for the input. I did discuss this with the director and they told me they agreed with me and they were happy to have the validation that they weren't the only one who thought there was an issue.

We discussed the issue with the MD and they started the evening with warm-ups. The director did stress the point that the actors are responsible for learning their parts and if they felt they needed extra work, to find some way of learning the music.

The director also stressed that we will be focusing more on singing and dancing in the next two weeks so those are steps in the right direction. We still have the issue of the kids over singing so if that is still an issue tonight, I will mention that we should focus on learning the parts rather than "belting" the songs at this point. Baby steps.

Thanks again for the replies. I love this forum!

3

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

« on: Aug 04, 2009, 11:27 pm »

Situation: Mostly young cast, musical director that can't seem to read music. Holds musical rehearsals with no warm-ups, without correcting music mistakes, plays voice parts using MIDI files on a laptop and steamrolls through music rehearsals. There is also no guidance on vocal technique so that many people (again many young actors) are over singing and stressing their voices.

The director is not getting involved with the musical aspect of the show and the issues do not seem to be on their radar.

What can I do as stage manager to fix these issues before the parts are memorized incorrectly and these voices are damaged because of the lack of direction from the musical director?