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« on: Sep 24, 2005, 05:36 am »
(Basic show info: Equity-waiver, LA Area 99-seat agreement, large musical, very heavy tech show)
Okay, so I could live with the fact that my producer left my name off of the promotional materials (postcard and posters) for the show, even though the entire production team (except SM & ASM) AND the entire cast were listed. I somehow also lived with the condescending speech he gave me (in an email) about how they've never done that and he's never seen anyone ever acknowledge the SM in any promotional materials and if it's really "that important" to me that he might be able to squeeze my name in IF they printed a second run of postcards. I figure, this isn't so much of a big deal, I'll still be listed in the program. (I've learned years ago to wisely choose my battles.)
I only got mildly frustrated when I found out that we were two days out from load-in and he hadn't even begun to look for running crew. I figured, hey, I've got friends, I know lots of people, throwing together a crew shouldn't be too hard. I did however, send him a snippy email where I told him that waiting this long to even begin to look for crew was just irresponsible. I had been led to believe that the company had a pool of people that usually were available for crew. (This is my first -- and my last -- show for this company.)
But today was it. I walk into the theatre and find they have no intercom system available for rental productions to use, and my wonderful producer seems to be oblivious as to the importance of communication between crew. He assured me that our sound designer would have "whatever it is you need" but upon checking with our sound designer, he only has audio equipment. No intercom equipment.
We are setting cues tomorrow and Sunday, with (hopefully) a full run of the show Sunday evening. I cannot imagine running tech without headsets, and it's just laughable to think of calling a full run without them.
I guess if I have to, I'll run out tomorrow and buy a relatively cheap intercom system for this show. I just don't know what else to do. Part of me says, "No, don't do this, not my problem" and the SM part of me says "The show must go on."
There is no way I'll walk off of this show, but it's honestly crossed my mind.
So -- when do you say "enough"? At what point can you simply not function any longer? At what point do you stop fixing things and just let the producer hang? So much of this stuff could have been so easily avoided if I had just asked the questions, rather than trusting that the producer was actually producing the show, as opposed to letting it just "happen."
Kids, let this be a lesson to you. Don't trust your producer blindly. Ask questions. Ask more questions. Stay awake at night thinking of everything that you take for granted, and ask your producer what's being done about this or about that.
Never assume. Ever. Not even the smallest thing.