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Messages - ManageThis

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That director sounds like a nightmare, Kiwi! But I suppose Nomie brings up a good point. I hate when people don't say what they mean though. I always try to say what I mean, while still being polite of course. Good luck, Ben!

Someimtes when you try to figure everything out before hand, it doesn't work either. With at traveling show I recently did, we had what we tought to be very thorough plans and were prepared. However, we get to the space ... and the plans were incredebily wrong! Sidelines were completely different, and lighting positions were interesting to say the least. I applaud my light designer so much for what he pulled off. Not only did it look good, but he worked all the way throgh our first performance at the space writing cues since we couldn't import the ones he had written ahead of time. It was extremely stressful to share a booth with him and the ME working frantically beside me, but the experiance was amazing. My favorite part was having to ask the ME if they were OK for me to call the next cue!

With the summer show I do every year, I was always frustrated with the "we'll sort it out" answer. I worked as prop master m y first summer -- at least that was what I was hired for. I didn't receive a script until they moved down to the space, and  I was stuck in the shop every day instead of being able to see a rehearsal or check the prop stock. When I asked the PSM for a script, or a rehearsal to view, I was told we'll sort it out, and I can watch a rehearsal as soon as I get x, y, and z done. Finally, they move down the space, so I was able to sneak out of the shop to talk to the director. Propping an entire show in a week was quite the task for a first time prop master! Thankfully, the stock was in good condition and I didn't have to acquire a large amount of the show. I worked the next summer as an ASM and I made sure to keep the prop master involved -- after they were assigned half-way through rehearsals.

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I actually love the idea of using carpet to tape out the stage. I'd have to look into some different types of material with tarps before I'd use it. But the ability to roll up the set taping and move it to another location or get it out of the way for someone else's rehearsal sounds incredible. I'm going to have to talk to my TD about investing in something for our rehearsal spaces where we sometimes have up to four different shows rehearsing (since he keeps renting out our main stage to random events, ugh). This also helps with the problem of painted over tape layers and layers thick on our stage since I'm never informed when the set is being put into place on the stage... It is fun to remove my tape after the show and see what color the stage was before.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Lobby Signage
« on: Apr 04, 2009, 06:15 pm »
We normally accomodate late sitting up until the end of the overture in musicals, or during the first break of a straight play. However, we recently did Beauty and the Beast, and sold out every show. It is printed on the tickets and signage in the lobby that if you do not pick up your unpaid, reserved ticket by show time, we have the right to sell your ticket to another patron. We had wait lists of up to 100 people one night, so we pushed that time to 5 minutes before the show. This was rarely a problem, thankfully, except for one night that really stood out in my mind. As front of house manager, I was responsible for filling seats and then turning away people we could fit. This night, however, we had a patron show up with his young daughter 45 minutes late to the show.  He came to the box office where the ushers and I were waiting for intermission, and demanded that he be given his ticket and be seated. We tried to explain to him that his extreme tardiness unfortunately meant that his ticket was resold due to policy and that we can't seat anyone that late into the show. He proceed to become very angry with us, and told us that we were ruining his daughter's birthday.

What could you say? We have sign-age and tickets explaining our policy, but I feel that even if we had a billboard outside that said we will not seat you if you are late, this guy would have still argued with us. Signs are a great way to protect yourself, but seem to me utterly ineffective for the people it was meant for like Centuara was saying.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Headset Etiquette
« on: Apr 04, 2009, 06:06 pm »
Eating on com is one of my biggest pet peeves. Unlike Dam, though, it was my ME during a show. He had no reason to have his mic keyed, but every night after repeated requests for him to stop it continued until one night I went into his booth and took away his chips.

At our school, it's really important for clear com to be very formal. For some reason, they designed our theatres with clear com panels in the dressing room and the green room. There is no built in mic in these panels, but anyone can turn on the panel and listen in to the conversation. This came up when one of our light designers was using com to communicate with his ME, and started complaining about sex with his girlfriend. That was mighty interesting.

Even with the importance of formality, its still hard for many of the crew members. During one of our musicals, the stage manager forced a quiet com during her favorite song, and she would sing along and cry with it. (She also seemed to have a lot in common with Max's stage manager -- except she liked to talk about her "female problems") During our production of The Marriage of Bette and Boo, the stage manager would remove her com when there were no cues due to crew members refusing to stop telling dead baby jokes.

Like Cat's outdoor, I work one where we have walkies, and unfortunately the company is too cheap to buy headsets for all of them. During our tech last summer, we ran into the similar problem of the SM bad mouthing certain people, but she continued even after we informed her about the open mic problem.

One problem I had on the other end of the spectrum was an ASM who never was on com when I needed her. Through out the run I asked her to be on com at certain points, and I always seemed to have to send a crew member to run off and find her. She was a wonderful ASM in all other aspects, but I had no idea how to get her on com when I needed her. And then, when she did finally come on com, she never announced it. So frustrating!

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In our black box theatre the booth is in an absolutely terrible position. Only one show in the two years since we opened has been called by the stage manager in the booth. Since our budget was cut and we don't have any video monitors in any of our theatres, we have to be a little creative with how we call. The first few stage managers started calling from the cat walks (don't get me started on those horrible things), and now our TD has even put a desk up there for the SMs. I should be calling my first show in there next year, and I honestly can't wait. I've never called a show outside of the booth, and it'll be a challenge for me since I tend to be a little too chatty on com.

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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / COMMUNICATION: Post Mortem
« on: Mar 09, 2009, 02:51 pm »
For my current show, my director wants to do a post mortem. As we'll be graduating soon we are making a guideline "book" for future directors, and he feels a post mortem is a good first step towards creating that.

We have never done a post mortem before. Right now I'm planning on running it as I would any other production meeting.

Does anyone have any tips?

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