Onstage > Students and Novice Stage Managers

Rehearsals: Giving line notes - a real novice question

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bex:

--- Quote from: MatthewShiner on Jul 30, 2014, 05:57 pm ---

I am worry about putting this all on to a computer - and here's my on my well worn soap box - a computer, by nature, and how we interact with it - is a multi-task machine - and putting someone with an open computer, you really have to fight staying focused on the task at hand (prompting / being on book / line notes). 



--- End quote ---

I don't typically type my line notes as we go through the run- I either do it while the director is giving notes post-run, or while I eat dinner, etc. I can't type AND be on book at the same time, much as I would like to. I've only once been in a process with the luxury of having one person taking the line notes while I typed them in real time, and then I got applause for handing the actors typed line notes within 3 minutes of the end of the run.
I prefer to type them because I type infinitely faster than I write by hand, which gives me the ability to be more specific/include more information in less space than handwritten notes would. I've tried printing blank line note forms and then filling in by hand, but I found that it was more time consuming and seemed to waste a lot of paper. It was also easier for a cast of 3 than a cast of 12- my table was consumed with piles of line notes for each actor.
I've never tried highlighting the lines in the script and then copy/pasting, but I might try that...

PSMKay:
You got Project Scorpion? Lucky.  I'm stuck working on Project Short Ribs.

(back to topic ... go.)

Dart:
From the emailers - what is the advantage of emailing rather than handwriting? Are you on your computer during rehearsal, or do you do this when you get home? How large are your casts?

I would email line notes (individually to each actor) when I was in college, and I did for my first professional show. But I found that even though it was a small cast of 8, I was spending at least an hour a night, if not much longer, dealing with notes. Add this to rehearsals running until midnight, getting home, and sending out rehearsal reports, and I could be up until 4 or 5am every day of the week.

I don't remember who uploaded the original form, but I adapted one from this site for my next production and not only do I use it all the time but actor-SMs have asked me for the template so they can use it as well. And my post-show emailing is reduced to my report, which means more regular sleep for me!

MatthewShiner:
I think of lot of how you deal with line notes depends on the size of your team.

I tend to work with large teams, so one person is responsible for script and line notes (it makes sense, in my mind to bundle these).  This also allows this person to deal with line notes they way they want to.

I don't care how the notes go out - most of the time.

One of the biggest benefits of typing and email is you have a record of the lines missed, and it can go to multiple people.  (Oddly, I have had playwrights and directors wanting to be cc'ed on line notes being emailed out - partially because they are control freaks, partially to show them "Hey, Stage Management is doing their job, it's the actor who is not learning their lines. ", partially to track how often the actors is messing up the same line.)

If all things being equal and there are no special requests, I let the team member responsible for lines notes to be the one who figures out the best way to give them - I have helpful advice, but why micromanage.  Now, if they are working 2-3 hours later in the day after rehearsal . . . then, well, we have a problem.

leastlikely:
I prefer to email for several reasons.


* I type a lot faster and neater than I hand-write
* if an actor says "I didn't get that note" I can point them directly to the email
* I have a record, so that if notes are consistently repeated, I can remind the actor that they have received it multiple times, and maybe work with them to find a better way to remember it
* the director I have worked with the most prefers to be copied on line notes, because if he received it then the actor definitely received it so they have no excuse to not address the notes (plus just seeing his name in the CC section can intimidate some lazy actors into actually doing their work

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