Dear Fellow SMs:
I will be SMing a show this winter that is either going to be the most fun show to run ever, or it will literally kill me- either way I'm excited for it. I'm hoping maybe somebody out there has done something similar before and will let me pick your brain about it.
We are doing 2 shows with the same cast simultaneously. Not in rep. Literally at the same time. 2 related plays in connecting theaters with the same cast in each show, performing at the same time. So an actor would leave the stage in one show, go up (or down) a flight of stairs, and enter a scene in the other show.
When I have described the concept, several people have said "Oh, like House and Garden!" which I have never done/seen/read- if anybody has done House and Garden, any tips? Are there any other shows out there like this, that are meant to be performed simultaneously?
I am the PSM of one of the 2 shows, there is another PSM on the other, as well as 1 ASM apiece and 1 shared intern/PA. One of the plays (not the one I'm doing) is an already existing work- my show is a new play starring the minor characters of the other show- sort of like doing Hamlet and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead at the same time. The playwright is writing in a bunch of conventions to assist in the concept (there's a TV on stage that is showing the other show, for example) and there has already been discussion of some sort of cuing system so that I can tell an actor "get offstage you're needed in the other play!"
Thoughts? Anybody done anything like this before?
Edited to add topic tag- Maribeth