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Messages - workinhard853

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1
The Green Room / Re: The Stage Manager's Nightmare
« on: Apr 19, 2015, 09:07 pm »
I started my professional career doing Outdoor Theatre, but even before that, I had the nightmare that I had to explain to two tornadoes that they would not be able to fit into the theatre. This started when I was doing an indoor show and continues to this day, I have it at least once a year.

2
I have a mild form of dyslexia, usually only with numbers or large words, that really acts up when I'm tired. My crew and I have worked together for at least 4 shows now and they've come to realize I'm getting tired when I call Lights 74 instead of 47 or when I am reading them a note from our director and I say we need to move the 'Pippomotomus' entrance to the second wing instead of the Hippopotamus.

3
The Green Room / Keeping Focus avoiding burn out
« on: Apr 19, 2015, 07:48 pm »
I'm sorry if this is a duplicate I've looked and haven't found anything.

I have been stage managing for years now and I've found lately that my focus has been lacking. I believe this to be the beginning of 'burn out' as all of us seem to reach; that moment when you have worked too often on too little energy and your body (and mind) says no more.
I am wondering if anyone has found a way to keep focus during rehearsals, especially choreo or massively repeated blocking rehearsals. I tend to notice when it's later in the day I start to mentally wander off and not pay as close attention than I usually do.

Almost along the same lines, how does someone avoid burnout?

4
I am hoping to stay a Stage Manager as long as I can, however once I decide I want to slow down I am planning on getting into the event planning industry. It is almost like SMing but you get a little more of the creative side and you don't have to do the same 'show' over and over.

5
Thanks for that helpful advice, I'm keeping it in mind for later. We just found out that he, and his current girlfriend, are both dropping their contracts with us to go to another theatre this summer. This puts us in a bind for the next show because he's leaving before the winter season is finished but we are dealing with it and are now looking for a good sound person and a stitcher.

6
I work at a theatre that just recently turned from a summer regional theatre to an all year regional theatre. In this switch the technicians were contracted to have housing provided, we had cabins at our outdoor space. Since the change into full year the upper management has kept to contract and found the technicians a house near our full year space, about 30 minutes away from our summer space. Five out of Six full time technicians are all living in this one house. We all have our own room, except the couple who are dating and chose to live in the same room, so we all have our own space but we share the common areas. We are around each other all of the time and one guy has made tension in the house rise very high. I don't think he realizes it, he started sleeping with another technician while dating another girl who lives halfway across the country.
The tension he has started has risen higher because he said if we don't hire his girlfriend from across the country for our summer season he will leave. He has now brought the tension of the situation from our house into the workplace with this move. Now he is a good sound person and right now we are having a hard time finding a good second for him let alone being able to replace him if he leaves.
How do I get him to realize that he has caused this tension that is just poisoning the good nature of these company members?

7
I like to point out that if everyone is taking their cues off the SM, then the SM is the one to blame is something goes wrong. All the responsibility is on one person's shoulders.

I do the same thing, I make sure they realize that they are doing something that could make someone angry (the director or designer) and if they follow your cue then those people can only be made at you the SM. In my theatre once I have tried to talk with the board ops I then go to the TD to talk to them. I'm a short girl and I know that some people won't listen to me right away, but if the big burly TD stands up for me and tells them to listen to me, that I know what I'm doing, and that they can trust me.

8
I usually work with the director on scheduling during Prep week, but sometimes I only get an outline of when they want to start and stop from them at that point. Usually we don't get into the detailed schedule until just before we start rehearsals and if I'm lucky I get more than the first week schedule from them at that point.
I'm also working at a place which has a set system that they have used for rehearsals from years and are nervous to stray away from so I am constantly trying to get them to see that we don't usually need a full day for Sitzprobe

9
I actually type out everything that I notice that people in the production team might want to know; people are crawling, people are drinking, people are breaking in through the window, things like that. Then at the end of the night I briefly go over everything in the report with my director to see if I caught everything they said, if they agree with everything I put in, and to see if they had any other ideas about additions that he didn't tell the actors about. This is also the moment when I would discuss the next days schedule and any concerns or questions the director might have. It's like a cool down from the day with my director.


10
I have always wondered about this and now it's becoming more prominent because I have a director who wants to play popular modern music, for instance Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, in the preshow. I am not comfortable doing this without having permission but I don't know how to get permission or bring this up to the director.

11
I agree that this shouldn't turn into too big of a problem, however being prepared isn't a bad thing either in case they are late some days. I've been in the situation where my director was coming straight from another job to the rehearsals. I frequently went over lines with the actors in the time until the director was able to get there, this helped move the process along by getting the actors out of their books sooner. There were also days where the director would send over warm ups that they wanted the cast to try before the scene to get them into the feeling of the scene.

12
I've worked at a couple different theatres and had both the CSM title and the PSM title. In my experience it follows as others here have said mostly with some variation; the CSM deals more with housing/ transportatin/ and other Company Manager Duties, where as the PSM is more on the technical side dealing with Set/Props/ Lights/ and costumes where I can help and doing some of my own show up keeps.

13
Employment / Re: Finding jobs for when I graduate
« on: Dec 18, 2014, 07:38 pm »
Are you looking to get into Equity or Are you looking for regional work?

Ali

14
Uploaded Forms / Re: Line Notes (for going "off book")
« on: Nov 05, 2014, 08:28 pm »
  So you can see from the attachment that I use excel.  The sample that I sent is from a show that had very short scenes (often no more than a page or two).  In shows with longer scene there is also group for page numbers. 
  I then turn on the auto filter for row 1.  You can find it in the data toolbar under filter menu.  This creates pull down menus on each of my row 1 headings.  Now I think this only works the best in the new version of office (so if you have an older version I don’t know if this file will even open).  What you can then do is click on these pull down menus and you see for example, under actor, all the actors in the show that have notes.  By selecting a name it filters out the other names and you can then print out a sheet for that actor. 
   I don’t always enter these notes directly into the computer (sometimes I do).  Most of the time its just posits until I put them into the computer.  I also don’t pull the post it out until the line is correct!  This reminds me that ive gave the note before.  I started to rename the worksheets within the workbook by date.  Another thing you could do is have one sheet and a date group. 
   There are so many things you can use this for, and by all means I don’t know that this is always the best format or way to go.  In fact I enjoy seeing everyone else’s form and it is always fun to try new forms!  Anyway enjoy.  In case you can't tell, I love microsoft office!


I do it this way aswell and email them out so that they can get them quickly and work on them before the next rehearsal, which for me is generally within 12 hours. I love the simplicity of this and that they can still easily understand.

15
I am constantly doing large musicals that rehearse sometimes from 10am - 10p. I was asked once upon a time to include the fallowing days schedule and have been doing that ever since. Does anyone else include the full daily schedule (including breaks) and the fallowing days rehearsal schedule?

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