Messages

391

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Re: Labtop vs. Pencil and Script/Notepad

« on: Apr 07, 2010, 04:36 am »

I have two (admittedly rather weak) reasons to add to the paper-please side of things:
1) I enjoy the tactile response of paper. Flipping the pages keeps me cognisant of where we are in the show, how much ground we're covering, where things fall sequentially, and so on. I find I miss this when I work with a computer, and it's certainly advantageous to have that sort of sequential data memorized.
2) I don't like having a physical barrier between me and what I'm observing. Even if my head's up and I'm looking forward, the laptop screen still occupies a good chunk of my frame of vision--which bugs me like you wouldn't believe. I've found that actors find it unnerving as well: they want to know what I'm writing, dammit! Is it innocent blocking? Is it junk for the rehearsal report? Am I making--*gasp*--line notes? (Oh no!)

And as someone else has said, when other people have used laptops in rehearsals, the clickity-clickity-clickity of typing just grates on me. (I also find this gets ten times worse once we move into the space: it's annoying in halls and studios, but get us in a theatre and I get tempted to toss your laptop off of the second balcony without a parachute, so help me...)

392

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: SHOWS: What\'s the most controversial show you\'ve ever worked on?

« on: Feb 28, 2010, 11:21 pm »

To cheat a little, on one occasion back in high school one of the vice-principals had us stop a show during the intermission because a scene involving a gay rape was just too much.

In retrospect, it probably was way over the line. The gimmick for the scene was that the two men were raping each other: as they rolled across the stage, the one on top would always be the rapist and vice-versa, complete with punching and choking and language. It made an awful lot of sense in the context of the play (one of the men was a married, closeted jock who loathed this part of himself; another was a self-important prick who detested his inability to control his emotions when it came to sexual attraction), but yikes, y'know? We're talking 15-year-olds here, and this wasn't even the most controversial scene.

Those of us in the drama club were utterly sold on how Profound And Important this play was, but re-reading the script now I can see why the only place this guy (the faculty advisor) could get his shows produced were high school gymnasiums.
Post Merge: Feb 28, 2010, 11:23 pm

Wow, some people have too much time on their hands.

We recently presented a show called "The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan" by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop of Calgary, Alberta.  I have no idea how this person got the email addresses of the technical staff, but we got emails condemning filth we were spreading with tax payer dollars and how she regrets voting for the performing arts centre referendum 10 years ago and we should all be ashamed of ourselves, etc etc etc.

 

Erotic puppetry? People are offended by erotic puppetry?

393

Students and Novice Stage Managers / Alcohol Backstage

« on: Feb 25, 2010, 08:33 am »

I'm going to be working on a student production over the summer as a sort of SM-TD-Dogsbody chimera, and I'm bumping up against the question of what to do with alcohol.

On one hand, I need to enforce policy. Campus Security forbids open containers of alcohol outside of licensed premises, it's highly unprofessional (IMO) for anyone to be drinking during a show, and the Department of Theatre officially forbids company members from drinking while working on a show.

On the other, these are students. I can't be everywhere at once, and the director has made it clear to me that the departmental policy has usually been honoured in the breach, particularly at opening and closing when pre-drinking in anticipation of the cast party is usually quite rampant.

I'm also at a bit of a loss as to what I can actually do. I don't think I can rely on my ASMs or dressers to keep an eye on things, and I have better things to be doing mid-show than rifling through dressing rooms looking for chorus members swilling out of concealed bottles.

Aside from emphasizing that these policies are in place for a reason and that I'm required by the department to confiscate any open bottles I run across, can you think of anything else I might be able to do in this situation?

394

The Green Room / Re: Healthy eating as a SM

« on: Feb 11, 2010, 01:55 pm »

The biggest problem I had as a student was a tendency to wait too long between meals. It's the nature of the work: sometimes you really do need to be in place for six or eight hours without a proper meal break, and 15 minutes isn't enough time to even run to McDonalds, let alone assemble a full meal, so by the end of it I'd get in the door and stuff my face with whatever was convenient.

What worked for me was snacking throughout the day. These days I'll pack a sandwich of some description, a can of microwaveable instant soup, a ziploc bag of dry cereal, a banana, a pre-cooked salmon fillet, etc. and I'll just eat as I get opportunities to do so. This means sneaking off to the lunchroom (No food in the house or on deck! EVER!), but I only need two minutes to snarf down a BLT and it gets me through the day much better: when I get home, I'm not absolutely starving, so I can take the time to prepare something worth eating.

I think it's likely I'm eating more food than I ever have before, but I've lost weight and I'm spending less. (I can get everything in my lunchbox--which will last me through a full day and replace my lunch--for less than a fast food combo meal.) Funny how that works.

If I was on tour I don't know what I'd do, heh.

I'm trying to replace soda with seltzer, but most of the soda I drink is in restaurants anyway, and it's not like Burger King will bring out a spritzer bottle for you.

395

The Hardline / Re: Excluded from Opening Night Tickets

« on: Feb 05, 2010, 04:46 pm »

Each Actor shall receive no less than 4 complimentary tickets, subject to availability, during the run of the Production.

Especially in smaller venues, there are occasionally openings where no seats are sold to the general public: everyone in the audience is either comped or part of a special class (think platinum-level special-access subscribers). Just because they've found comps for some of the cast and crew doesn't mean there's any remaining availability: those comps might have filled it right up.

396

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: Taking the house back against your HM's will

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 11:09 pm »

Come to think of it, I haven't tried playing for guilt.

"Really, I don't mind so much: if we start late, I get paid more. Works out beautifully. But what happens when we go up late is that the actors, who have been at places for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, they start to get anxious, they start to get bored, they start to worry and they eventually wander off and turn up in the green room, in their dressing rooms, out back smoking... you know, as actors do. It's a big enough hassle to get everyone to places to start with, and having to keep them there for an indefinite period of time is even more difficult."

It's a slight exaggeration, but pointing out that it's creating problems for other people might be sensible, and if I'm careful with my phrasing, it won't seem like I'm disciplining him, either. (Which I can't do, nor do I really want to do.)

397

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: Taking the house back against your HM's will

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 04:34 pm »

I've discussed it with both the General Manager and the FOH Coordinator. The General Manager agrees that it's a problem, the FOH Coordinator doesn't, and that dynamic ensures that nothing ever gets done.

My understanding (and this is second-hand via the box office supervisor and an usher I know socially) is that this isn't a legitimate hold for the sake of patron comfort or safety, this is him being ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that EVERYONE gets into the house before the show begins, even if it means holding up everything for 5-10 minutes so one person can buy a ticket, check their coat, wander through the art gallery and finally enter the House.

And starting late does have consequences: if we go up more than 15 minutes late, I have a meeting with the PM to discuss the reason why, and the memorandum from that meeting goes in my HR file. At this point I walk into the office and the PM goes "I see you had Mr. X on House again, eh?" and the memorandum is boilerplate, but it's still a drag and not exactly a comfort to have a twelve-inch-thick HR file.

398

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PEOPLE: obnoxious crew member

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 04:09 pm »

It's interesting, in my theatre situation, we have a lot of conversations about "supervisor" and "Boss".  Although I supervise the crew, and can give notes ot them, if there is a head to head issue, there is a crew ops person is who in charge of the stage crew (like the Head of LX department is the boss for the Light Board Operator . . . ).  Something like the situation you described, I would go directly to the production manager / or the ops manager in my theater, because in some ways, I am not the direct supervisor/boss, but I do supervise their work.

Every theatre is so radically different in this, it pay to get know the hierarchy.

To build off of this, though, when I'm the Production Manager, I'm "just" the Production Manager. I might have disciplinary oversight, I might have a great deal of power and authority, and I might be able to use the step-into-my-office trick to intimidate people, but if I really need to drill a point home, I need to get that person's direct supervisor involved. Quite often people will be quite contrite and apologetic when I speak to them, but as soon as my back is turned, they literally laugh it off: just some pointless drivel from the suit, hardly matters.

If I get their crew head to speak to them instead or join me at the meeting, the message gets driven home much more effectively, even if the crew head doesn't actually have that much disciplinary latitude.

399

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / PROFESSIONALISM: Taking the house back against your HM's will

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 03:53 pm »

One of the House Managers at my current gig is a bit of a wimp. He doesn't like to rush people, he doesn't like to use the PA system, he'll hold the entire house for one single person at the box office... on one occasion, he held the house for a full 5 minutes because he saw someone walking vaguely in the direction of the building from the nearby parking lot. (They walked right past us.)

He's doing his best, and I don't want to browbeat the guy, but shows have gone in 15-20 minutes late as a result of him holding the house until he's absolutely positive that there's nobody else coming to see it, and that's a problem.

At what point do you consider it appropriate for a SM to say "I want the house back now. Close the doors, the show's going up, everyone else is a latecomer"?

400

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: COMMUNICATION: Describing Audience Reactions in Performance Reports

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 03:44 pm »

In the two years I worked as a house manager, I used the words "Nice, quiet crowd." far more often than any others.

Understand that the purpose of the audience reaction box isn't so much to get a detailed portrait of every audience, it's so that if and when things do go horribly I-want-my-money-back, screw-you-and-this-poxy-theatre wrong, you have documentation and evidence that someone took ownership of the situation.

401

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: REHEARSALS: Volunteer crew who don't want to show up regularily!

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 03:39 pm »

I would suggest you check your math.

If you have a crew of 10, but only 4 people are showing up, you actually have a crew of 4. If you need 10, you need to find at least 6 new people.

Having determined that you have a crew of 4, if the other 6 start showing up, that's great! But that should be treated as icing on the cake: in community theatre, when someone stops showing up, you need to stop wasting effort on involving them and direct that effort to finding new people.

By far the best way to keep a volunteer crew working is to literally keep them working. Always have a job on the hop. The worst thing for volunteers to be doing is sitting in the audience looking bored. If a crew shift is four hours, then you should have enough work to keep everyone actively doing something for the entire four hours. If, at any point, someone is just standing around without anything to do, and you can't find anything for them to do, send them home rather than making them wait around. Even if it's menial, non-tech work ("the publicist has some envelopes she needs stuffed", "the house manager could use an extra pair of hands cleaning the bar", "could you fetch Joan from the green room? we'd like to do her scene now.") keep their hands busy.

If they get used to showing up and doing nothing for two hours, then holding a ladder for 10 minutes, then doing nothing for two hours, then going home, eventually they'll just stop coming, y'know?

402

Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: What SMs Should/Should Not Say During Casting Process?

« on: Feb 04, 2010, 03:23 pm »

To some extent it's in the SM's best interest to not badmouth anyone: your opinion won't necessarily be considered in the actual hiring process (I've certainly worked with directors who were genuinely interested in my opinion, but only if I was agreeing with them!), and if That $%^#$ You'll Never Work With Again ends up as Polonius, you'll still have to work with the guy. If word gets back that you badmouthed him at the auditions, you're in trouble.

We might also consider that people change over time. If you haven't seen this person in 3-4 years, are you sure they haven't become a better, more professional person?