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Topics - ChaCha

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1
Stage Management: Other / bubble wrap and tarquette
« on: Mar 06, 2013, 03:48 am »
Hi dance people :)

So we are doing a contemporary dance show in a theatre with quite a hard floor. We will be laying tarquette but it has been suggested to me that we either need a second lot of tarquette to go under the white one that is the design look, or that we could lay bubble wrap under the tarquette! Has anyone ever done the latter?

Cheers
ChaCha

2
The Green Room / SM Conference in the UK
« on: Jan 05, 2012, 07:22 am »
http://stagemanagementconference.eventbrite.co.uk/?ref=esfb

Anyone in the UK going to this?
Sounds like a great idea.

New year greetings to all,
ChaCha

3
I am curious to know whether in professional theatre in the USA (especially with all your union rules to track ) it is always the stage manager who writes the rehearsal schedule? Does the Director just tell you where they want to get to each day/in the week and then leave it to you? Does the director do a draft which you then check meets union rules and slot in all the extras such as wardrobe and media calls?

I worked with both systems - sometimes a director was so bad at knowing how long scenes would take to block that I would eventually manage to wrest schedule writing control away and write it myself. It usually worked out fairly well and less time was wasted because needed cast were not present. Other directors wrote great schedules and stuck to them quite faithfully.

Is there a standard procedure where you are?

ChaCha

4
SMNetwork Archives / Welcome to SM Network!
« on: May 25, 2009, 11:36 am »
Hello and Welcome!

Whether you have just discovered the Network for the first time or whether you are a long time lurker (a status confessed to by many first time posters on this board!) please consider introducing yourself here :)

If it seems scary, take a deep breath and do it anyway. Now. Today. Why not?

We are, in general, a friendly bunch of people. (After all how many stage managers are NOT 'people people'?) We love to know even a little something about you. We love to help solve your problems, to listen to your woes and to celebrate your successes with you. But we can't do any of those things if you are just a name on the members list or an unidentified 'Guest'.

If you are a regular visitor to these Boards without posting at all I imagine you must be finding the site helpful or rewarding in some way. Maybe you have found information you needed? Or you enjoy the posts of certain members? Or perhaps you just feel better when you feel connected to others whose experiences mirror your own? I did, and felt, all those things long before I pressed "post" on my own introduction.

But I can also tell you from my own experience that if you give SM Network the chance to know you, your voice will be welcomed and the Network will be strengthened, and I will be very surprised if you don't get even more out of your membership.

Don't know what to write?

Tell us about your experiences, or about the experiences you'd like to have, as a stage manager. Tell us where you are from and where you are going. Tell us what you love about stage managing, or if its that sort of a day, tell us what you hate about it! Tell us what got you started or why you stopped. Tell us your favourite colour or who you most admire. Tell us anything you like! But the more you share, the more your fellow stage managers will be likely to connect with your story.

And now for your moderator's special request
Please try to give your intro post a more imaginative 'subject' line than "newbie here" (or variation on that theme). Go on. Let your imagination run wild. Surprise me. Or at the very least include the name of your town or region, or the type of stage management you do, or some other specifc in the title.

Wherever you are and whatever your age or level of experience, welcome. I hope to be reading YOUR introduction soon.

ChaCha
Moderator - Introductions
and
Former Stage Manager of theatre, dance, opera, bald men in shop windows, circus, 2 musicals, festival clubs, puppetry, and a strange show on a bus, now turned not for profit producer working with independent theatre and dance artists in Australia ( see its not that hard to write about yourself ) .

5
Employment / What else can you do to get the job?
« on: Jan 02, 2009, 10:21 am »
We all send out resumes (I assume!), not necessarily in response to an ad for an actual vacancy, but just trying to get into the in tray (and mind)of hirers at the 'right moment'. Personally, I  believe I have always written GREAT cover letters but I always posted them as I was terrible at 'cold calling' for work. I don't think I ever got a job from this process alone, although at one company the Production Manager eventually hired me after several years of sending resumes -  but only after a friend in their wardrobe department put my name forward when a contracted SM withdrew.

I expect most people here are reading this and going "how stupid is she? Of course you need to follow up..." But does anyone have any tips on the best ways to do this to share with the less experienced or shy amongst us?  Or any other thought on making your job search efforts count? 

Sometimes just reading other people's ideas is enough to make one screw courage to the sticking point and try something that seems difficult - like hand delivering resumes.

Last year I had to hire a lot of staff; some in response to adverts, some through recommendations and friends and other staff. One of my first appointments was of a person who, when I first received her request for the selection criteria, I wrote off because she lived 3000 kms away and I hadn't expected to attract any applicants from out of town ( or budgeted removal costs). But she kept popping up - she phoned to discuss the role; she sent in a strong application by mail; she phoned again a few days later with the excuse of checking that we had received the application and had some more conversation - in short she made sure she was a 'real person' to us before the phone interview. Of course she also interviewed well or we wouldnt have given her the job, but she sure did everything she could to aid her own chances.

A few months later I heard of a job going that I thought I would like but wasn't sure I would be qualified for. I contacted two or three people who might know the employer and asked what they thought of my chances. One of them happened to be meeting with the employer later that day so I asked him to bring my name into the conversation (which he did). Turned out the employer was actively seeking applicants, not just relying on the advertisements, and she later called me and asked me to apply - the rest is history as it is my current job!  I did also make big efforts to do everything you are supposed to do including calling all my referees and telling them about the job and why I thought I would be good for it (turned out one of them had also already suggested me to the employer, oh yes it is a small industry / world) See I have improved!

Even simple things like telling everyone you know that you need work/putting it out there on Facebook might be helpful in the great job search.

Any other ideas people have to share would be welcome.

Yours formerly in endless freelance jobsearch anguish,
ChaCha

6
SMNetwork Archives / Send me your puppet! (exp. April '08)
« on: Apr 21, 2007, 05:24 am »
Hello!

I have a new job (I've been in it a week and I am starting to get used to the fact that there are puppets hanging over my desk - but it's kind of odd!) and one part of it is to run the global 'million puppet project'. Anytime from now until April 6th 2008, anyone, anywhere in the world, can send a puppet they've made (any sort, any size, any standard) to us here in Perth, Western Australia. It will then form part of our World Record attempt to hold the largest assembly of puppets in one place at one time. It's all part of the UNIMA (international puppetry body) 20th World Congress and International Puppetry Festival -also being held in Perth in 2008.

So if you are looking for a creative outlet to relax after work or to pass the time between jobs, why not whip up a puppet and ship him/her/it off to Oz for its first big adventure into the world...

Yours hopefully
Fiona  :-*
Associate Producer - UNIMA2008
aka ChaCha

www.millionpuppets.com
www.UNIMA2008.com

EDIT: added expiration date to subject for tracking purposes.

7
 So my current show goes into the theatre for an extended tech week from wednesday. The LD only just came on board yesterday and will have seen one run through, maybe two before plotting. So he has persuaded the director to call all the cast (14) for all the plotting (14 hours though not all on one day) so we can do a slort of "slow tech" / plot and he can see each bit as he plots it. The director originally wanted to work like that with the original LD but i talked them out of it, as lots of the cast are under 18 and will get really tired, plus its circus based  so you cant really run things over and over anyway plus - and am I alone in this? - It's a horrible way to work for the stage manager and crew. Sure, what LD wouldn't like to have  real bodies to work on, but why doesn't it matter that the stage manager cant be at the desk getting cues AND onstage getting all the revised blocking/keeping track of cast/trying to organise teching of scene changes....
plus the venue staff are gonna hate it. Its a big venue they won't be used to such a chaotic approach.

We will have a tech as well, but without the LD who has another committment that morning...

As they say -Not Ideal!

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