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November 8, 2008

End of Week 1

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:34 pm

Today is the last day of our rehearsal week.  We did a straight 5 hours of staging, with a little bit of rewrites from the playwright.  We have now blocked 9 of the 21 scenes in the play, of which many of the more complicated ones remain, but still it’s a nice sense of accomplishment.

Right now we are on a long lunch/dinner break, followed by a movement education workshop, where selected members of our cast will be instructed on how to teach movement classes to students while we are on the road.  Part of our usual “performance” schedule is to conduct workshops with schools in between performances, so the cast will be receiving training throughout the rehearsal process on how to run the workshops.

I have sent Nick home (he’ll be attending next week’s class, on stage combat), and I’m just here to mind the breaks, so it will give me a chance to catch up on whatever organization I can get done in the room.  My paperwork is pretty caught up, but there’s a lot of work I want to do on our filing cabinets, which have almost no organizational concept or labels at this point.  The stage management road box arrived from the company’s storage earlier in the week, and it contains lots of goodies that we’re still discovering.  One of the goodies Nick discovered this morning was an inventory of what’s in the box!  Because we only have access to the studio for an hour before and an hour after rehearsal, I haven’t yet found the time to tear everything out and see what’s there and put it all back how I want it.  Maybe tonight I can do that without being too disruptive.  I did, however, add my first sticker to the collection of decorations already on it — one of those white Apple stickers you get when you buy a new computer or other Apple product.

I’m looking forward to having a day off tomorrow.  Whenever I take on a really big project, I tend to forget that they actually do come with a day off.  So now I have no idea what to do with it.  I better figure it out, though, because I don’t get one next week — I agreed to do two shows at The Fantasticks next Sunday, just because I miss the show and it will be fun to do it again.  And they needed a sub.  The show has closed and reopened under new management since I last worked its closing performance in February, but I’m told it’s pretty much the same — enough that I can walk in and be told the changes to the deck track when I get there.  Apparently I have two new cues.


November 7, 2008

Week 1 of Rehearsal

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:47 pm

We’ve really started blocking now. We did the prologue for a little while on Thursday, but today we spent the whole day staging. We got about a fifth of the play staged. It feels good to see a lot of it on its feet. The actors have come pretty prepared and are either off book or comfortable enough not to be buried in their scripts. We’ve been dealing with a few actor conflicts for people who are still performing in their previous jobs, but after tomorrow all of that is over so we should be able to schedule more freely without having to jump through hoops to find scenes we can do with the people we have.

A lot of what I’m starting to work on now relates to the schedule for next week — scheduling production meetings, fittings, voice and stage combat sessions.


November 5, 2008

Start of Rehearsals

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:41 am


Forgive me for being a day and a half behind.  The start of rehearsals has kept me very busy and exhausted, but we’re starting to get into a routine.

We began rehearsals on Monday, with our meet-and-greet.  We had about 60 people in attendance, including the cast, office staff, production staff, creative team, and board members and other friends of the company.  The opening speeches were made by founder and Artistic Director, Margot Harley; director of The Spy, John Miller-Stephany; and Harriet Harris, who was a member of the company early in its life and still stays involved.  They spoke about the history of the company, its mission to bring high-quality classical theatre to parts of the country that may not normally have access to the arts, and the importance of this tour in continuing that work.

Everyone in the room was introduced and spoke a little about themselves and their involvement with the show and how they came to the company.  The designers spoke a bit about their vision for the show.  Our set designer was not able to be there, but we had the model and some photos to show, as well as costume sketches which were also shown on a projection screen.

We also had a camera crew in attendance, taking initial footage which hopefully will be used to create a documentary about the tour.

After all the guests left, we finished the day with a read-through of the play.  Once that was done, we used the few remaining minutes for the Equity meeting, where we elected the deputy, and voted on a few issues pertaining to rehearsal hours (straight 6 hour rehearsal day, 1 hour lunch, and rehearsal on a two-show day — all passed).

———————————–

Day 2

We began table work.  In attendance, besides Nick and myself, were the entire cast, John, the playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, and staff repertory director Ian, who will maintain the show artistically on the road (which I must admit I’m kind of glad to have taken out of my hands).   They spent the entire day reading slowly through the script, discussing questions about plot points and character relationships, while Jeff made many small script changes after hearing each scene read aloud.  Act 1 was finished by the end of the day.

After the main rehearsal was done, we had two special meetings of an hour each.  The first was with our publicists and communications staff, preparing the actors for the interviews and other publicity events they may have to do on the road.  After that was the first session with our education staff, which provided a brief overview of the educational workshops the cast will be leading with students in the cities we play.


November 4, 2008

Recommended Reading

I call this: On the Road Again — Posted by KP @ 6:12 pm

Are you SO curious to know what it’s like to be a stage manager on The Acting Company’s 2008-2009 tour that reading one blog about it isn’t enough?  Well then you need to head over to Nick Tochelli’s Blog! Nick is my ASM, and he’s recently started his own blog just for the tour.  He has some interesting time and temperature widgets which don’t do much of anything while we’re in New York, but once we’re on the road they’ll illustrate how much we are freezing our asses off in Minneapolis relative to if we were sitting comfortably at home.   I’m sure as things progress I’ll be linking to some of his posts to further illuminate stuff that I write about.


November 2, 2008

Day 5 Preproduction

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 1:32 am

Day 4 was kind of boring.  You didn’t miss much.  I hole-punched about 2,500 pages of script, exchanged some emails with the staff of New 42nd St. Studios, and some other mundane stuff like that.

Day 5 was the fun day.  It started with a 10AM breakfast at a local restaurant with the Associate Artistic Director, General Manager, Production Manager, Technical Director, Company Manager, and Staff Repertory Director.   The meeting was basically an opportunity for the key personnel on the tour to get to know one another and discuss what our working relationship will be on the road, and how we will communicate with the office.  I thought the meeting was a great idea, and we are already feeling like a team.

After the meeting we returned to the office where Nick arrived soon after.  After admiring the new Macbook he purchased for the tour, we began preparing to pack for the first rehearsal.  We acquired all the office supplies the office had to offer us, and then with the company’s Staples credit card in hand, we went shopping!  If you are not a stage manager, it may be hard to comprehend just how exciting a trip to Staples is.  We bought pencils (Ticonderoga, of course, nothing less!), Sharpies, a small box for hanging file folders, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a first aid kit and some extra ice packs, and a few other things.  We also discovered they had 2GB thumb drives on sale for $12, so we each bought one with our own money.  That was probably the most exciting part.

When we returned to the office with our booty, we then went upstairs one flight to Karma Productions, which is conveniently located in the same building. Karma is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop which is my default source for gaff and spike tape.  We bought a roll each of black and white gaff, and four colors of spike (yellow, orange, neon green, and teal).  These bright colors will be just for rehearsal.  We decided to wait before buying the colors for the show itself, since we don’t know exactly what color the show deck will be or what the spikes will be used for. Based on the model, the deck looks like some kind of rough wood planking, but it’s hard to know now how subtle the colors should be.

Then we put all the scripts in binders and found some postcards for the show, which with a little gaff tape, made nice logos for the cover of the binders.  Towards the end of the day, we piled all our belongings in the designated corner of the office where they will be picked up on Monday morning and brought to the rehearsal studio for us.  With all that completed, we finished work for the week and said goodbye to everyone until the big day on Monday.


October 29, 2008

The Tour: Day 3

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 1:55 pm

Day 3 of my preproduction week.

A recap:

Day 1

I spent most of the day at home doing some light paperwork and emailing, then went into the office for about an hour to read and fill out about a thousand forms.  For those curious, this includes the regular stuff you have to fill out when you start a job: W-4, I-9, NYS tax withholding form, employer’s info sheet for their records, and direct deposit paperwork.  Then the contract, which in this particular case consists of the Equity contract itself, the basic Letter of Agreement rider, and a very extensive rider which covers mostly matters related to touring — what kind of housing, per diem, etc.  A lot of it was new information, and the only surprises were pleasant ones, so that made me happy.

Day 2

I went into the office for about 3 hours and started off making copies of some research packets we’re giving the cast at the first rehearsal.  The first show we rehearse, The Spy, takes place during the American Revolution, so the packets are all historical information, timelines, and maps from that period.  Then I spent the rest of the day catching up on some paperwork, getting more accurate information about actors’ conflicts and passing it on to the directors (each show has a different director).

Today is

Day 3

…and my first full day at the office.  Because there’s not a spare desk for me I’ve wound up parked in the conference room, trying not to look like I’m taking over the entire thing. But essentially, yes, I have the corner office.

In the meantime, the first rehearsal draft of the script landed in our inboxes during the day.  The play is a new adaptation, and will be changing during the process, but this is the version we will begin rehearsal with.  So I threw that in the fancy and so-far-very-dependable copier and made 20 copies.

There was also a staff meeting today, which I was invited to attend. Most of it was about the company’s upcoming annual gala, which I have nothing to do with, but there was an opportunity to talk about arrangements for our first rehearsal. After the meeting concluded I discussed a bit more in depth in a side meeting with the production manager and general manager. The company manager and I have been meeting periodically for a few minutes here and there over the last couple days, as issues come up. Subjects have included my flight to Minneapolis (to which my answer was, “sure, whenever.” I’m easy like that), hospitality info packets for our stay in Minneapolis, catering for the meet-and-greet.  She’s totally on the ball, and I feel fantastic about that.

I also got my first paycheck today. My ASM, Nick, showed up at the office in response to my email that his check was waiting, and I loaded him up with the new copy of the script fresh off the presses, the Equity LORT rulebook, and the 6-page stage manager’s guide to rehearsing at New 42nd Street Studios. He’s officially on contract starting today, but I’m trying to go easy on the workload with him because honestly I don’t really think there’s that much for him to do right now. On Friday we’re going to meet at the office and spend the day preparing boxes of office supplies, spike tape, and whatever else we are going to be loading into the studio on Monday. The “we” of that component actually means Nick and I show up at the studio at 10 on Monday and the stuff we left in a corner of the office will magically be delivered, along with all the props, by our production manager and crew. We agreed that this is indeed a very high-class production.

Most of what I’ve been dealing with today is the deadline to get some paperwork in to the New 42nd Street Studios, where we’ll be rehearsing in New York. A lot pertains to our meet-and-greet on Monday. The studio is pretty much the premiere place to rehearse a show, and since they deal with high-profile productions, they are used to this kind of event being a big undertaking. Apparently they reserve the right to hire a fire guard at additional cost if they think your meet-and-greet is a little too ambitious.  I don’t think we’re going to have that problem.   But they need a head count and they need the names of all our attendees, which includes the cast and production staff as well as invited guests such as board members and guest speakers, because from all I’ve heard, if you’re not on the list you’ll have a hell of a time getting past the front desk.  They also need to know who is delivering our catering, and at what time.  So since all that information was constantly being updated, it took me literally the entire business day to fax these forms.

Another full day at the office for Day 4.


October 27, 2008

OK the Job…

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:19 am

As I wrote in this teaser post, I am starting a new job.  I think now is a good time to tell you what it is.

I’m going to be the Production Stage Manager for The Acting Company’s 2009 tour.  In a very brief history of The Acting Company, they have been producing classical theatre and new works for 36 years, and every year they do a tour, bringing classic plays and educational workshops all over the country.  In 2003 they were given a Tony Award Honor.  Much more information is available at their website, linked above. 

The tour this year is Shakespeare’s Henry V, and a new play called The Spy, based on a novel from 1821 which takes place during the American Revolution.   The shows will be performed in rep by a cast of 12.  

The touring company will consist of the 12 actors, as well as the company manager and the staff rep director, who basically functions as the resident director of the company, meaning I don’t have the responsibility for the artistic integrity of the show.  These 14 folks will be traveling on the cast bus.  On the crew bus will be me, Nick, the tech director, lighting, sound, props and wardrobe supervisors.  We’ll be living on the bus part of the time, which I expect will be kind of annoying and kind of like being a rockstar.  The cast will be staying in hotels.  

There’s also going to be a shortened school version of Henry V, which will be performed out of a trunk that travels under the cast bus.  Occasionally the trucks and the crew bus will leave town to head to the next city while Nick and the cast stay behind to perform the smaller show for students, followed by workshops.  This sounds kind of fun.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the opportunity to do one of these performances.

Budding stage managers always want to know how to get jobs, so I’ll tell my little story about this one.  It’s pretty standard for the business.  Back in July, I was contacted about the show by Bill Fennelly, who was the director of Frankenstein last year, and had just taken a new position as Associate Producing Artistic Director of The Acting Company.  When they were looking for a PSM for the tour he sent out a brief summary of the job to me and some other people (via Facebook of all things) asking if anybody was interested.   I was out of town doing summer stock at the time, and not coming home anytime soon, but I called him and he told me what he knew about it.  It was hard for me to consider touring when I was already away from home, but the job fit some of the experience I’m looking for in my career.  We touched base about once a week for the rest of the summer, and a couple days after I got home I met with the production manager, who gave me a more detailed picture of how the tour would operate.  I liked what I heard, but since my suitcase wasn’t even unpacked, I still wanted a little more time to think about it.  A short time after that meeting, I met with the artistic director, who gave me the A-OK, and I accepted the job.

The moral of the story is, of course, you usually have to know someone.  The selection of a stage manager is such an important decision in a production that few people want to take a chance on someone who they haven’t personally worked with before.

On the bright side, my ASM got the job by submitting a resume in response to a job listing, I’m not sure where exactly they listed it.  Basically I couldn’t get any of my colleagues to do it, so I was ready to open it up to the world, confident that there’s somebody great out there that I just haven’t met yet.  The three guys I interviewed all had no prior history with the company and were selected for interviews just based on submitting their resume.  So there is an chance to get your foot in the door with new people, you just have to get lucky and hope the PSM’s friends all have better things to do!

As we will be all of over the country and doing a lot of one-nighters, this presents a perfect opportunity for some serious blogging, so stay tuned to the category “Tour Mini-Blog” to come along on the journey.

Also watch the sidebar, I’m experimenting with using Flickr to quickly take photos with my iPhone and upload them instantly to the interwebs, creating a real-time “KP’s-Eye-View” photostream of where I am and the interesting, or interestingly mundane, things I see.  Once I get some time with it, I’ll do a technical post about the apps I’m using and stuff.


September 11, 2008

Next Job Teaser

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:32 pm


One of the destinations of my next job. Details to come later. It should lead to some interesting blogging.

Incidentally, this view of the topography also pretty much sums up how the walk from my apartment to the subway feels, except without the pretty flowers and sky and stuff.


September 3, 2008

The iPhone App Store and Stage Management (and Fun)

I call this: mac,phones,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:07 am

UPDATE: A current list of my most-used apps is kept on the Apps Page.

Well I’m in music rehearsals for a NYMF show (Twilight in Manchego), so this means you get some blog posts while I sit doing mostly nothing to the soothing sounds of Chuck Cooper learning his music.

Today my topic is a roundup of what I’m using on my iPhone to make my job, and life, easier.  My initial reactions can be found in this post.

Time:Calc $1.99
Some people reviewing on the app store don’t seem to get this.  “Why would you need a calculator to work with time?  Just do it in your head.” These people obviously don’t understand that there are people who suck at math, or the enormous amount of time calculations a stage manager does all day long, and moreover, that there are stage managers who suck at math.  This app is so amazing, I use it all the time.  I’ve gotten pretty good in my career at calculating in 1hr 20 min blocks (the standard Equity break schedule), but for more difficult calculations, like running time down to the second (i.e. 8:05:30 – 9:21:35), there is much more room for error.  Some conductors will drive themselves crazy over a few seconds variation in the running time, no need to freak everybody out with bad math when it can be done with instant accuracy on the calculator.  This is of course for situations where you don’t enter the run times in a report that calculates it for you.  But whatevs, I don’t spend my whole life on Broadway, you know, and I don’t need to create a database for a show that runs 10 performances or less.  This app is attractive, cheap, and works exactly how you think it should.

OmniFocus $19.99
This app is pretty expensive at $20, but I find it worth the cost.  I can’t afford the desktop companion, but I like keeping everything on my phone in one place anyway.  It also backs up to my iDisk, which is great, since I’m often updating my firmware and reinstalling my apps because the App Store/iTunes is busted.  I was looking for a simple Todo app, and found all the ones I tried suck.  So I decided to go for a very not-simple app instead.  I won’t go into all the details, but it’s location-aware (so you can see a list of tasks based on which are closest to your current location), very powerful with multiple ways to organize projects and contexts in multiple sublevels, and it’s a neat and clean interface that’s very finger-friendly while containing tons of information.   Considering I stopped using Todos altogether with Windows Mobile because the app was such a pain, I feel my life getting a bit more organized already.

iTransNYC $4.99
Much better than the cheaper alternative, it contains a very clean subway map, on which you can tap on a station to see a list of the trains that stop there and their schedules (which are never right, but I blame that on the MTA, not on the app).  It can put your current location on the map.  It gives you service changes as well as current alerts, like trains skipping a station because of police activity.  It can also do directions from one station to another (not from addresses, but I don’t find this to be a big problem in my life), and it will tell you where you need to transfer if necessary and give you a time estimate.  I have no idea if the time estimate is accurate, probably not, but again that’s the MTA’s problem.   It’s got my daily commute at 23 minutes, which is pretty damn close to my estimate of 25 mins, on a good day.  But if all estimates are assumed to be on a good day, at least that gives you an idea.   The best part of the app is that most of the features (including the route calculation, impressively) can be used offline, which is essential for anyone living in New York, where the majority of the time I’m looking something up on my phone I’m underground.   The service advisories are cached, although you have to remember to open the app above ground and download new ones if you want them to be up to date.  That other app, CitytransitNYC, looks up service advisories, but does it live, it can’t show them to you once you’re underground, which is close to useless if you’re debating whether or not to change your travel plans en route.

Weatherbug Free
I don’t trust the built-in weather app for a second — literally I don’t trust it to tell me what’s going on right now, much less in an hour or tomorrow.  Weatherbug is more detailed and also gives advisories on serious weather conditions.  At Reagle I used it to warn me when I was about to get struck by lighting in the parking lot.  This isn’t exactly job related (unless you’re doing outdoor theatre, in which case it might be the most important app you have), but I feel it’s one of those secondary jobs of the stage manager to have an answer for everything, including whether it’s going to rain on our day off.

Flashlight Free, requires jailbreak
There are a number of flashlight apps.  The one I use requires the phone to be jailbroken, because it makes the screen brighter than Apple will allow the official apps to be.  But if you don’t want to go that route, there are some on the App Store, many free.  Personally I think if you have to resort to this you have failed as a stage manager, but not as epic of a failure as if you don’t have a flashlight and don’t have this app.

Files $6.99
When I was looking for an app to put documents on my phone, I had three requirements: doesn’t require a proprietary desktop app, displays the documents well, and has a pretty interface.  This app has all three, so I’m happy.  If you’ve got your phone on the same network as your computer, it tells you what address to put in to mount your iPhone in the Finder (I assume it works on a PC, probably not as simply).  I keep a PDF of the Equity rulebook for whatever contract I’m working on, the script, calendar, schedule and contact sheet for my current show, and whatever else I need.

Wikipanion Free
An app to easily search Wikipedia without having to load the rather phone-unfriendly web page. I suppose this could be used for legitimate rehearsal research, but what I find myself using Wikipedia most for while working is looking up trivia that comes up while running a show.  It can be hard to do while calling some shows, but generally you can find someone on the crew who plays on their laptop while doing their not-so-demanding job. For example when I was doing Annie this summer, during the cabinet scene Morganthau is introduced as “Acting Secretary of the Treasury.” Why was he acting secretary, and what happened to the real secretary of the treasury?  Wikipedia can tell you.  I expect this app to make it much easier to answer these kind of burning questions when it’s not practical to have a laptop backstage.

UPDATE: 1 More!
Cycorder Free, requires jailbreak
This is a video-recording app which takes very good quality video for a phone camera.  It did not originally support audio in its first release, but it does now.  It’s free, and supported by advertising which is very subtle and non-intrusive, and very much appreciated as an alternative to the other video app which costs money (which I think is rather silly for an app that is technically not supported on the phone and could be disabled by Apple at any point in the future). The app doesn’t have a built-in way to get videos off the iPhone, so it requires a little more computer knowledge to do that.  I don’t know much about UNIX and I’m not a fan of using the terminal to work with files, so the method I prefer is to install an app through Cydia called Netatalk, which makes your iPhone able to communicate with a Mac through standard Apple filesharing, so if the phone and Mac are on the same network, you will automatically see the phone in your Finder under “shared.”  From there you can log into the phone and browse to the folder where the videos are stored.  Check out this post for a tutorial on how to do this.


August 2, 2008

Flying in an empty pipe with 400lbs of counterweights.

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:03 pm


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