Tony Awards

[VSM]

And that is what makes RuthNY the "Queen of Talent !!!"

[RuthNY]

Then Vernon must be the "King of Talent," as he was also there, live and on the phone, to hear "M" talk about the sound at the Tony Awards.

[VSM]

"King and Queen..."
Do we need to alert our Prospective Others?
It is definately my pleasure to be associated in this fashion...

[Mac Calder]

A lot of the time, I really wish that the people who organise these sorts of things would let the "pro's" organise things.

We have five or six really large award shows with OB components in our largest ballroom. Every time, their poducers come in and try and make us re-invent the wheel, and it generally ends up with 15 straight edges and the axis off center. They insist on full broadcast splits, but use a studio engineer, who is not used to the nature of live events (with differing playback levels, odd noises, weird accoustics etc) the list of little niggles that 20 minutes talking to people who do live events day in, day out would solve is insane.

We pull off about a hundred of these award type shows a year - it is our bread and butter, many with more awards, and some that are a fair bit more difficult production wise. We frequently broadcast our events as full web casts, use video conferencing and live streaming to run our event over upwards of 7 live sites, and have even done full live to record "tv-esq" style shows - so we know what we are doing.

Yet the TV crews show up, throw a thousand people at the job, take 5 times as long to build it and often get worse results by applying studio rules to what is really an ENG event.

I gather it is the same over in the 'States with events like the Tony's;

[Caroline Naveen]

I think there should be a tony award for stage management. They have Tony's for everything best direction, sound, orchestra, set, lights, etc. But why none for the stage manager? I mean the show doesn't happen without the SM. Is it because if we do our jobs right you never notice anything goes wrong? Because we completely fly under the radar? These are the things I thought about when I watched the Tony's....Well that and what has already been mentioned in this thread so I need not go over it again. lol

[Beatr79]

I think there should be a tony award for stage management.

This year, a stage manager IS receiving a Tony Honors of Excellence in Theatre - that distinction is going to career Broadway stage manager Peter Lawrence. I'm sure he'll receive it during a non-televised event, but know that one of our own is getting some recognition this year.

Here's the link to the Tony website, and the blurb on Mr. Lawrence.   http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/artists/201304291367199153929.html

[Caroline Naveen]

I think there should be a tony award for stage management.

This year, a stage manager IS receiving a Tony Honors of Excellence in Theatre - that distinction is going to career Broadway stage manager Peter Lawrence.

Yes! Thanks for sharing lol it made me happy .

[MatthewShiner]

How would you judge good stage management from seeing the show?

[Caroline Naveen]

I honestly don't know, the only real way I guess would be connected to the headset as you watch and see how the stage manager handles problems and such, neatness of prompt book, call board. Idk it would be a really hard field to judge because if we do our jobs right you never even know we're there.

[MatthewShiner]

I honestly don't know, the only real way I guess would be connected to the headset as you watch and see how the stage manager handles problems and such, neatness of prompt book, call board. Idk it would be a really hard field to judge because if we do our jobs right you never even know we're there.

That's exactly right (although I don't think a clean prompt script is a hallmark of a good stage manager).  It would be impossible for the Tony voters all to listen to a show being a called - and what if that night there were no problems over headset.  Could be a boring show.

General Managers, Company Managers, Crew Members, stage managers, child wranglers - there are a lot of people who make the show work who don't get awards.  And that's just part of the business.

[Caroline Naveen]

Yes, you're right of course. What was posted was more of a spur of the moment posting and I'm sorry for that. Yes, you're totally right there are lots of wonderful people that make the show work that never get awards. You're right no problems could be a boring show .

[loebtmc]

(not counting, the mark of a good stage manager isn't always determined by the difficulty of calling a show, but solving problems on the fly, dealing with fractious designers or battling actors during rehearsal, etc - how do you determine what to choose as the above-and-beyond factors)

[MatthewShiner]

And the reality is that often, the Tony's, like many of these awards, are popularity contests.  And often times, the popular stage manager is not the best . . . sometimes you are the "bad" cop. 

In the end, I am very glad there are no awards for stage management - - - I think it would be a bad thing in the end.  I take the greatest award from a job well done.

[KMC]

Further, a good stage manager mitigates risk (to the extent possible) so that problems don't happen in the first place.  There's also the act of managing a company, balancing personalities, runnng the day to day business, and loads of other intangibles that are impossible to quantify.  Much of the SM's most important work occurs before the curtain is up or after it's down.  Issuing an award for the 90 minutes the curtain is up would be an incomplete award. 

[nick_tochelli]

Further, a good stage manager mitigates risk (to the extent possible) so that problems don't happen in the first place.  There's also the act of managing a company, balancing personalities, runnng the day to day business, and loads of other intangibles that are impossible to quantify.  Much of the SM's most important work occurs before the curtain is up or after it's down.  Issuing an award for the 90 minutes the curtain is up would be an incomplete award.

And it's for reasons like this I've always wanted to see something akin to a lifetime achievement award. Doesn't even have to be given out every year. Maybe every 3-5 years.