Messages

61

College and Graduate Studies / Re: Help Choosing University!

« on: Apr 13, 2016, 11:34 am »

If you are on LinkedIn you can also use their advanced search to find stage managers who list specific schools in the "Education" section of their profile. It won't let you refine by the year they graduated, but it's at least a start.

As for a general theatre BA, you can become a stage manager.

You can also become an arts administrator, a world-renowed handmade crafts specialist, an educator for a group supporting the empowerment of teen girls through the arts, a teacher, a lighting designer, a game designer or a web developer. (That's what the folks from my graduating class are doing now.) You could become an attorney or an instructor or an entrepreneur or a real estate agent - all things that I've done or considered doing that would use my gen-theatre degree in some way.

62

College and Graduate Studies / Re: Help Choosing University!

« on: Apr 12, 2016, 07:56 pm »

I had never stage managed (or done any backstage work) when I started college. I never took a stage management class in college. I did, however, get a very thorough education in stage management while I was in college by studying everything else that the department had to offer and constantly doing gigs.

If you go into SM as a career you will never really get a chance again to learn first hand what the rest of the creative team does. That kind of knowledge/sympathy will be crucial once you're on the job. Go where you can learn everything - not just backstage. Learn to understand directors and their language, acting techniques and the prep required to use them, choreographers and their notation styles or you will be lost during the table work, refinement and choreography part of the rehearsal process.

Learn dramaturgy and how new plays are born because we need them badly. Learn how to rehearse and put in understudies. Find somewhere to get put into a long running existing production - they're very different from the short runs that college theatres tend to mount. My first eight week run was a real shock.

Theatre is an area where grad student TAs can be handy, as they can turn into industry connections a few years later if they like you and manage to escape academia.

I'd say, check out their alumni pages and see if you can find lists of all the graduates from 2011. Search for them online to see what they've gotten up to since they left - not just the big success stories that the college will brag about, but all of them. That's the real tell of the school's strength.

63

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Mary Poppins HELP!

« on: Apr 12, 2016, 07:16 pm »

This reminds me of the Sweeney Todd razor post from a few days ago. No need to be hyper-realistic. It's a musical about a magic babysitter. If they've come with you on the journey they'll come with you with pretty much any suggestion of floating/flying you can come up with. If the actors can sell the flying right it's great. If not, I find it actually takes me out of the world of the play.

Unless it's a show like Phantom where the audience comes to see how you're going to pull off a specific tech gimmick and everything else is fluff, or Singin in the Rain where you kind of need rain, I don't see as there's a need to go overboard. Selling the concept without the budget is actually more impressive to me as an audience member.

64

Introductions / Re: Hello

« on: Mar 17, 2016, 06:35 pm »

Your message seeking an exemption from the minimum content requirement for advertisers was shared with the team.

Thank you for being willing to make the effort.

65

Introductions / Re: Hello

« on: Mar 16, 2016, 05:52 am »

Good to see another developer on here. A quick search of your name tells me that you're the developer of an app that was recently mentioned in another thread on our site. While I do wish you welcome, I hope you'll forgive me for being leery of any developer who joins the site. Every single time I see a post like this, the developer immediately jumps over to Tools of the Trade and posts an ad for their software.

I hope you are genuinely interested in joining our community of stage managers for the long term, but you and I both know that you're here to sell your app to us. I would like to point you to our guidelines regarding advertisements, as we are very, very, very strict about those rules. I look forward to seeing your contributions to our community so that future stage managers can benefit from your prior experiences.

66

Self-Promotion / Re: Dead Man Walking

« on: Mar 03, 2016, 06:45 pm »

Oh hey that's my 'hood. I live in the city near North Park U. Break a leg!

67

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: CALLING: Calling a group of stoodby cues

« on: Feb 07, 2016, 01:45 am »

I'd be a little leery of any calling sequence issued in January for a show that mounts in June, as things will change based on rehearsals, staging, etc. But calling standbys in batches is pretty simple, just batch them by department and number. You can batch an entire sequence this way:

"Standby for the transition to the lunchroom, that's LX 126 through 150, Sound double A through AT, Spot 1 to pickup Carmen in stage left vom, soft iris, blue, Rail on lines 3, 8 and 10 by cue lights in order."

68

Job Postings / Re: Tour and Company Manager (1 year Maternity Leave with Possible Extension)

« on: Feb 04, 2016, 06:21 pm »

Is this position restricted to AEA/CAEA members?

69

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Rehearsal Reports

« on: Feb 02, 2016, 03:11 pm »

Depends, are the auditioners filling out forms with their basic info? (Age, vocal range, gender, etc?) If so, then I'd think only the management team would need a record. Time spent, number of rooms needed, which staffers were present, and any major snafus/meltdowns/security issues.

I'm of two minds about documenting rudeness in the lobby. Part of me thinks that this is better done via soft-communication to the casting team. However, I did have an occasion where the only record of behavioral problems with an actress were in my reports until the day she was found with her hand in the box office drawer.

70

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SHOWS: How many times have you Stage Managed the same play/musical?

« on: Jan 25, 2016, 02:57 am »

Chances are good that nearly every December since you were born, you gathered with the same group of people - people that you did not choose, but have probably come to love. You drag out old scenery and put it precisely where it was a year ago. You go through scripted rituals and songs for a few days. For some folks it lasts all the way from Thanksgiving to December 31 and they fly in from all over the world to participate. You just call it "celebrating the holidays with family" instead of "putting on a play."

How do you stay sane doing that year after year?

71

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof music

« on: Jan 15, 2016, 07:37 pm »

Here's the folks who have listed the show as something they worked on before in BTDT.

72

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: Writing the Show in Rehearsals

« on: Jan 09, 2016, 07:34 pm »

We've touched on this before. Here are some other discussions that may be of use:

http://smnetwork.org/forum/stage-management-plays-musicals/new-works-making-a-prompt-book-when-there-is-no-script-at-all
http://smnetwork.org/forum/stage-management-other/first-time-on-a-devised-show/
http://smnetwork.org/forum/stage-management-plays-musicals/devised-theatre-the-how-to/
http://smnetwork.org/forum/students-and-novice-stage-managers/pm-for-a-devised-site-specific-piece/

73

The Green Room / Re: Can anyone name the SM & Production in this photo?

« on: Dec 17, 2015, 12:13 am »

I've bounced the project back over to Lawrence, but if you feel like reaching out, leastlikely, that could work too.

74

Tools of the Trade / Re: The Naughty List of Advertisers Wot Have Annoyed the SMNetwork Staff

« on: Dec 16, 2015, 04:41 pm »

We've got a new member to add to this list of poorly marketed products that stage managers and their production teams should avoid:

Shoflo - Web app - failure to disclose affiliation, links in first post, promotional information in first post, post created by an advertising exec with no experience in stage management.

75

The Green Room / Re: Can anyone name the SM & Production in this photo?

« on: Dec 16, 2015, 04:10 am »

Ok I've figured out the production, but am having trouble finding an SM credit.

The production was Hysteria (Terry Johnson), directed by Todd Olson, and it was a joint production mounted at WHAT in Cape Cod and American Stage in Tampa.

So that narrows it down to two houses and a handful of SMs, one of whom will probably be female with dark curly hair.

EDIT: I remember removing the current PSM of WHAT from the Facebook Group a few days ago. I just sent her a FB message but if anyone is friends with her please give her a shout? Her first name is Jamaica. I'm sure my message will go to her spambox.