Onstage > Students and Novice Stage Managers

Student Stage Manager Challenge #20: The wrong show

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racogliati86:
Last year I was doing Addams Family and Lucas decided that, in a serious moment when he is supposed to be impressing Gomez, his pastimes included training squirrels in the park instead of helping orphans with their homework.  Unfortunately this was not the only improv for this line, despite a talking to by both myself and the director. He also used Wednesdays braids (her hair was about 3 ft. long) as horse reins, "giddy-up"ing her on stage and decided my ASM was waiting too long to open the grand after intermission and took it upon himself to open it for her. When I tried talking to him about it, in as calm and stern a manner as I could, doing my best not to yell at him, he just put up a wall and wouldn't listen. In this case he was on the opposite end of the age scale, 19 and irreproachable. The only thing that got him back on track was telling him that his mentor was in the audience, after that he was a gem.

Is there a better way of handling people with that kind of attitude, any key phrases that will take their walls down?

Joshua S.:

--- Quote from: Caroline Naveen on Nov 13, 2013, 01:56 am ---In the instance of the pianist I would have had a stage hand or someone step out there with the sheet music. The pianist is a professional, and probably would have seen the music before. She could have sight read it a little bit to prevent disaster. It feels as though this may not have been great judgment on the behalf of the deck crew there if there was additional music available.

--- End quote ---

From an SM's vantage point, it's actually very likely you would have no idea anything was wrong in this situation.  Many concert halls have no video monitors so you may not be able to see the stage (especially the look on her face).  You also really have no communication with the Maestro either.  Then of course if you did realize what was happening, you probably wouldn't have any music to take out to her.  Of course if you could track down the librarian and get a copy of the piano music, then you would still have no where to put it as the desk has been removed from the piano and placing it inside the piano could distort the sound.  If I were in this situation and knew what was happening, I would attempt to get my hands on music and have the piano desk ready, but ultimately would wait for the Maestro to stop the piece and decide that we needed to start over with the music.  Going out on stage and giving the pianist music in the middle of the piece would be considered rude and unprofessional and would be way out of bounds for an orchestral stage manager.  It's a very different kind of work than SMing theatre.

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