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April 26, 2010

Stage Management Survey

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:35 pm

A while back I took a stage management survey that I saw advertised in an issue of Equity News (which is a monthly newspaper for Equity members). It was organized by a stage management class at the University of Iowa.

There was recently another note in the Equity News that the results are now available at smsurvey.info. Based on their numbers, they got approximately 15% of all Equity stage managers to respond, which is really cool. It’s only a few hundred people, but in such a small profession, that’s a good turnout. The survey was open to students and non-Equity professionals as well, but it’s much harder to know how many of them are out there.

It was a very extensive survey, and the analysis of the results is quite detailed. If you’re interested, I encourage you to take a look, I’m not going to quote all of it here.

I will paraphrase some parts of interest:

  • Stage managers have no personal lives
  • Female stage managers especially have no personal lives
  • More people (12%) have called a show from a computer than I would have imagined, and not just young people. I very much want to do this, but I have not settled on the software that would work best (during a very boring load-in recently I wrote the first two pages of my R&J calling script in HTML/CSS. It was fun, but time-consuming and way more complicated to get proper margins than just doing it in Word.) They mentioned InDesign for making calling scripts (not necessarily to call on screen), which has kind of blown my mind, and must be thought upon.
  • Young people like calling from booths, old people like calling from backstage. I don’t even remember what I responded. If the options are both equally viable, that question generally will shut down all my brain function for several minutes. I probably said backstage, though. I like both for different reasons, and on tour, being in a different theatre almost every day, sometimes I mix it up just for the sake of mixing it up.

The statistic of particular interest to me is that 11% of responding stage managers call light cues as “electrics.” This has been a frequent topic of debate on the tour because I say “electrics,” and it’s unusual, and especially unusual for someone of my age. Indeed the survey found that the percentage was more than twice as high among older stage managers.

Devon (our lighting director) had a little informal survey of his own that he would do in every venue: He would always be in the booth at the start of our first show, and would watch the reaction of the board op to the first cue, and would note if they were a) completely clueless that “Electrics 2” was them, b) a little bit thrown off for a second, or c) reacted like it was totally normal. We didn’t keep records of the results or anything, and we also played a variety from IATSE houses to high schools, so the experience of the board op varied quite a bit. But on the whole I would say that the majority of the reaction to it leaned toward the belief that it was at least a little bit weird.

And now, a little bit about why I say “electrics:”

It has been a consistency in my entire Equity career that at any given time I need to be ready to call two shows: the show I am currently employed on, and Phantom. Phantom (being from the dawn of time) uses “electrics,” thus by calling my other show the same way, I am less likely to screw up by saying the wrong word. Especially earlier in my career when I was doing short runs of showcases and stuff, it was very common for me to be calling a couple performances of Phantom and a couple performances of something else in the same week.

I also think that “electrics” is a better idea because there are so many syllables that the chances of the board op not hearing it, or mistaking it for another word, is almost impossible. It’s a little more work for me to speak it all, but I think that’s worth it to increase the chances of the cue coming out right. I have done a few shows where certain sequences were so fast that I had to switch to “lights” (just for those parts) because there really wasn’t time for three syllables.

The program intends to conduct another survey in 2011, so be on the lookout for it!


January 29, 2010

The One-Hour R&J

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 6:35 pm

This is my post where I talk about the one-hour condensed version of Romeo and Juliet that we’ve been rehearsing in between performances of the full R&J, which is designed for younger student audiences (roughly 5th and 6th grade), schools that for some reason can’t come to see the Big Show, or to be performed in places where the Big Show can’t go.

The beauty of the show is that it can scale down to the tiniest venue imaginable. The only requirements are some floorspace (even a regular classroom would work) and 16 chairs (3 of which have no arms and can be stood on), which are provided by the venue.

The actors wear street clothes, and the only props are carried around in a small trunk under the actors’ bus.

The reason the trunk is on the actors’ bus, as opposed to say, on the truck, is that one of the tricks the 1-hour does is to be able to perform in a city the day after the Big Show performs. When the Big Show comes down, the set is immediately struck, and within a few hours of the end of the show, everything is packed up and the truck and the crew drive through the night to the next venue, where the load-in starts at 8AM, for another show that night.

Meanwhile, the cast wakes up the next morning in the same place they went to bed, and boards their bus to head to a school, or sometimes the same venue from the night before, only now on a bare stage. The 1-hour can be performed without any support from the Big Show — all the props are different or duplicates of the show props, and in our case this year, the only sound support will come from a boom box with a CD in it.

There’s only one tricky fact, which leads to the part of the 1-hour that most affects me: if the crew already has the set halfway up, hundreds of miles away, by the time the 1-hour starts, how to stage manage it?

The solution The Acting Company uses in these cases is that the ASM stays behind in a hotel and travels with the cast to the 1-hour performance, and then rides on the cast bus to the next venue, while the PSM loads out with the crew as normal, and advances the Big Show. This is necessary because sometimes immediate decisions need to be made based on the situation found at the venue, which might impact everything from where the set is placed to what spaces should be set up as dressing rooms. The PSM is the person who has to be available when the call comes over the radio, “I need you to come look at something…”

When I took over as PSM last season, I was given very little instruction on how the 1-hour worked. The above situation was explained to me, in the sense that the ASM needs to be able to do the 1-hour self-sufficiently. Now my personal philosophy of management is that if you’re going to make someone responsible for something, you have to also give them authority over that thing (i.e. if the ASM is dealing with props, they are in charge of props, and I won’t do a thing that involves props without clearing it with them.)

So in the spirit of The Acting Company, and its mission to bring professional theatre to new audiences, while also giving young theatre professionals a chance to work on their skills, I took the approach that the ASM should essentially be the PSM of the 1-hour show. I don’t know if this is exactly how it was done before, but in my mind it makes a lot of sense.

Contractually I’m the PSM of all 3 shows we’re touring with, and I’m responsible for the operation of the tour in general, so I can’t entirely check out when it comes to the 1-hour. I could step in if something truly ill-advised was happening, but I’ve never had to do so, and I doubt I ever will.

When we started 1-hour Henry last year, I told Nick he was in charge and could organize things as he saw fit, and in cases where I was around, he could use me as his assistant. It’s nice for me, because I get to switch gears once in a while, and it’s good for Nick because he gets to do the tasks and making the decisions that a PSM gets to make. Some may be big or small, but I think the concept is pretty brilliant. What ASM doesn’t hate something about their PSM’s show report or other paperwork? — or maybe while assisting, thinks of something new and has to wait for their next job as a PSM to get to try it out. So the 1-hour is like a sandbox for the ASM to do things their way.

It’s also good for me, because I don’t assist that much, and when I do it can take time for me to start seeing things the right way. Until I get my head around which job I’m doing, my brain doesn’t naturally react to situations in the way most helpful for an ASM or PA. When a director asks for a prop to be used in a scene, for instance, my instinct is to take a note first, rather than to hop up and get the prop. To have to switch between the two from day-to-day or hour-to-hour within the same job is an interesting exercise.

It’s also been funny these past couple weeks because we’ve been rehearsing every day around our performances, but alternating from day-to-day between Alice and 1-hr R&J. We’re in the same room, we don’t even bother to switch seats because Nick, Ashley and I have had “our” spots at the desk for months now, and there really aren’t many clues as to who’s supposed to be in charge each day.

The other day in 1-hour rehearsal, we were sitting at our desk on a break, and Nick said, “We’re back,” and while finishing up what I was doing, I said, “Thank you.” Then I got up out of my chair, and while crossing to close the door, said, “I mean, yes sir!”

Nick gave me “the look,” and I explained that whether he heard the difference or not, my “thank you” was the PSM thanking the ASM for pointing out the time, not the ASM responding to the PSM’s declaration that the break was over, and I was trying to get myself out of that frame of mind.

I think I was successful because the following day at Alice rehearsal, I was repeatedly disappointed to realize that I was in charge!

Required Reading

For the opposite perspective on the 1-hour, you must read

NICK’S POST

No, seriously, you must. Click on it now. If your browser isn’t total crap, ctl-click on that link (on a PC) or cmd-click (on a Mac) to open it in a new tab, and as soon as you’re done with this, read it. It’s a really good post.

So good, in fact, it got a special entry in the Guthrie’s Big Blue Blog. I might have felt a little left out, were it not for the fact that Nick and I had already had a conversation in which I said it was such a great post that I was just going to add a little bit and then put a giant link saying, “Read this!” Well as it turns out, I had a little more to say about it than I thought. But still, read Nick’s post. He covers some other stuff, as well as the whole PSM/ASM dynamic from the other perspective.

Okay, go now.


January 18, 2010

The Education Tag

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:03 am

You may notice a new icon on the top of the blog’s sidebar: the Education button. Clicking this will take you to all posts marked with the “Education” tag.

One group of readers that I’ve noticed increasing in the last year or so is students and teachers of theatre, or stage management in particular. As of right now this site is one of the top hits in a Google search for “stage management templates,” “rehearsal report” and that kind of thing, which I think has something to do with it, and also people I meet in my travels have started passing the site address on to their professors, students and others who might be interested, which I very much appreciate.

This all got me thinking that there should be a way for people who come to the site for real-life examples of what a stage manager does to find the posts that are the most rich in that content, and to be able to skip the ones that are about something funny I wrote in my script, or the national monument I visited before the show.

I’ve been using the tagging feature for the first time recently, to make it easier to find content by more narrow criteria than just the major categories the site has always had. I’ve been going through old posts, but I’m sure I will find more as I peruse the archives. I hope some of you find this link helpful!


January 16, 2010

The Booth Window

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:46 pm


This is my view from the booth window at the Guthrie. It’s pretty comfy. Tonight I moved our printer up here, and now I can do all of our end-of-night paperwork and phone hotline recording from here, instead of having to office-hop all over the building at the end of the night.


In the Run

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:00 am

We’ve now done 3 official performances at the Guthrie. The day after opening, the rest of our out-of-town collaborators took off, and now it’s just the traveling company here in Minneapolis, along with visits from some of our local creative team — such as Andrew Wade, our vocal coach / guru, who has continued to surprise us by showing up in person to conduct his famous pre-show warm-up, when he has had free time from Macbeth rehearsals downstairs.

But for the most part, this has become like another stop on the tour. Everyone has gone home, and Corey and I are now maintaining the show. We don’t yet have our touring crew here (mostly because there’s nothing for them to do because we’re in a union house). They will show up a few days before we leave to learn their tracks and then load the show out.

To catch you up on what’s been happening since we started previews…

We’ve had great houses, and our notes from each preview were minimal, and the rehearsals during the day very easy-going. We were still tweaking things here and there, but there was no great rush or panic about it.

On the night of the final preview, Nick and I took Ashley to dinner as our official thank you for her help throughout our process. However, she hasn’t been needed that much for Macbeth, so she’s still assigned to us for the time being. In addition to helping us as we go back into rehearsal for Alice in Wonderland and the one-hour version of R&J that we will perform for younger audiences, she’s going to observe as much as possible of calling the show and Nick’s deck track (neither of which are particularly challenging or unusual, unfortunately).

Opening night was fun. We had just a few hours of rehearsal, but the rest of our time was taken up with preparations for the opening night events, and organizing and distributing the opening night gifts for the cast and creative team. It was kind of fun getting to play Santa Claus, sneaking into all the dressing rooms while everyone was out to dinner and leaving the bright red Acting Company tote bags, with two luggage tags and an Acting Company frisbee inside.

On Fireworks

On the day off, Laura (who plays Juliet) went to speak to one of the schools that came to our invited dress. She revealed that their favorite part of the show was the fireworks in the party scene. I found this absolutely hysterical since I think of the fireworks as some sort of stage management torture device, rather than something I should be patting myself on the back for. Basically instead of the lights and sound being programmed with a delay so they execute together, the sound cue of the rocket whistling up and then exploding is called first, and then I call the light cue to create the flash with the explosion sound. I managed to get them to put a delay on the first one because it executes with another sound cue, making the rocket almost impossible to hear. The first time I called the show from the booth was during the invited dress, where I realized I needed a dedicated monitor with just sound effects in it to call it well. It was nice to find out that the kids thought the fireworks looked good, even when I couldn’t hear what I was doing.

I had to go through this exact same thing last year with The Spy, in which several military flares were sent up in identical fashion, except it was even better because we only did the show like once a month, so I had even less time to get good at it! This show has about 8 fireworks effects more-or-less back-to-back, and based on my experience from last year, I’m getting decent at it pretty quickly. It’s pretty much the only thing I do in the show that’s difficult or in any way flashy from a stage management perspective, so hearing that it was memorable makes me feel good.

I know that all of my contributions help tell the story and elicit emotion in the audience, but it can be an adjustment to go from cueing falling chandeliers and towering pillars of flame, to calling nothing but graceful scene change light and underscoring, that are most effective when the audience isn’t really aware of them happening. So I do look forward to the fireworks as the one point in the show where everyone gets to admire the cool technical effect.

As the show settles in, I can now take time to start working on the finer nuances of my cues and really fitting them into the way the show breathes. There is an art to that as well, although it requires a little more patience to reap the rewards of it than the immediate positive feedback of getting a chandelier to explode perfectly on cue. I’m looking forward to really starting to work in depth on making each cue perfect.

Student Matinee

Yesterday we had our first student matinee, which went really well. We also had our first talkback after the show. I absolutely love doing talkbacks, so I always look forward to this. Corey did a great job moderating. He had also done a pre-show session with the students, so he had given them things to think about and discuss after seeing the show. I’m always very impressed how well the kids are prepared when they see the show, which is a testament to their teachers and the people in the education departments of the Acting Company and the Guthrie. On another note, it’s also fun to do talkbacks with a new company of actors because you usually learn new things about your coworkers by listening to their answers.


January 12, 2010

Daily Routine (show mode)

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:28 pm

A rundown of my routine during performances at the Guthrie.

1 1/2 Hours Before Curtain

Hang around theatre, make sure everything is prepared for the return of the actors. The stage should be clear for warm-up and props ready for fight call. This is the trouble-shooting time.

1 Hour Before Curtain

Voluntary warm-up begins onstage. Invite the cast to the stage for warm-up.

45 Minutes Before Curtain

Call the cast to the stage for fight call. The fight captain runs fight call, and we mostly stand off to the side making sure everything goes smoothly.

35 Minutes Before Curtain

With the conclusion of fight call, I holler up to the booth where our light board op puts us into blackout check. This turns off all stage and house lights, and if anything is amiss (lights on that shouldn’t be, or spill from improperly masked running lights), it will show itself. This usually takes about 5 seconds to establish that it is indeed dark, and for me to call for the lighting preset.

After we’re in preset, I check the stage for debris or people’s personal belongings they may have left on or near the stage during warm-up, such as coats and water bottles. I check that any onstage props and furniture are on their spikes and properly set, then invite Nick to inspect for himself (it’s really his stage, so unless he’s busy I want him to have a chance to approve it). Once Nick and I agree that we’re ready to open, I tell the house manager that the house can open, and our sound engineer plays a “welcome” announcement over the PA, telling the patrons in the lobby that seating will begin.

30 Minutes Before Curtain

The famous “half hour.” First, I call half hour over the backstage PA. Then I gather up my belongings and head to the booth, where I will park myself for probably the next three hours. I set up my computer, and at least at this point where we’re transitioning from daytime rehearsals in the house, I carry my headset and script up with me.

Then I hang out and/or blog until I have to interrupt myself temporarily to call “15”.

7 Minutes to Curtain

I switch my radio from the “SM” channel for our theatre to “FOH” (front of house), and ask the house manager if we expect a delayed curtain due to late seating, traffic, weather, etc. This helps me plan the five minute and places calls so the cast isn’t standing around if we know we’ll be starting late.

5 Minutes to Curtain

I call “5”. This can be adjusted early or late depending on the expected actual start time.

At Curtain Time

I call “places.” Like the 5-minute call, this can vary, although unless something unexpected happens, I try to make it literally 5 minutes after the “5”. At this point I check in with the crew on headset and make sure everyone is ready to begin. As the cast arrives on the deck, Nick begins a head-count so we know when we have places.

When We Have Places

When we actually have places, Nick tells me, and I radio the house manager that I’m ready. She will either tell me that we need to hold for people being seated, or will order the staff to close the doors. The door people radio back that their doors are closed, and then the house manager confirms that we’re OK to begin, and wishes us a good show. And then away we go!


January 11, 2010

Post-Tech Day Off!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:29 pm

We have finished tech, we did a very successful first dress rehearsal, then turned around about three hours later and did our final dress rehearsal for 300 high school theatre students.

On Saturday we had our first preview, last night we had our second preview. Before each show we spent five hours making changes to lighting, sound, staging, choreography, and fight choreography. All the shows have gone very smoothly, and the rehearsals during the day have been low-stress affairs. I’m very pleased with how it’s going.

I planned my week so that I would have today totally off as my reward for surviving tech and first previews. I bought 2 weeks of groceries last week, and got up early on Saturday to do some needed shopping downtown.

Today I got out of bed around 1:00 and then spent nearly 2 hours dealing with the 15 emails I woke up to. Having Mondays off is kind of annoying because everyone else has just gotten back to work and has lots of questions and things to get moving on.

Other than that I’ve been taking it easy until dinnertime. Tonight I updated our electronic script with a few small cuts and changes we made in the past week. I also found some small typos and formatting errors when I began using my calling script at the beginning of tech, because before that I’ve just been dealing with the original script we began rehearsals with and making the changes in pencil, except for a few particular pages which required me to print out the updated page.

With that done, I’m now starting the electronic calling script. I have no intention of using it until after opening night, as switching scripts from the one you learned to call the show on is kind of a scary thing. Ashley is staying with us longer than we thought, and among other things Nick and I have planned, she’s going to learn to call the show even though she wouldn’t actually be able to put it into practice. At the invited dress she sat next to me in the booth and updated our per-scene running times during the show. Once the new script is done, she can be another eye reading it along with the show to look out for any problems.


January 8, 2010

End of Tech

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:35 am

The show, she is teched!

Just as we got down to the wire, we finished the show with about a minute to spare! To be perfectly honest, we were writing light cues as we went through the tomb scene and I never got to call them, but they’re fairly simple and Michael and I felt we could see them in the first run-through. In our last moments we just ran the last few lines of the show again to make sure we got the final music and fade to black looking good, and then dismissed for the day.

Tomorrow the cast is called at 12:30 (making Nick, Ashley and my call 12:00 noon — yes, afternoon!), and we work for four and a half hours on a few notes (some funereal choreography and a wig quickchange) and then we’ll do our first run of the show around 2:00. After dinner we come back like it’s a regular show call, with a voluntary warmup, followed by fight call, and then the house opens at half hour for our invited dress. How “invited” one of those is can range from a few close friends of the creative team to a wider selection of friendly theatre people, to what we have tomorrow — 300 high school students from local Thespian societies, who are apparently so excited to attend the show that at least some of them have planned to wear formal wear. In response to this I am rearranging my wardrobe for the week to wear my dressed-up-for-calling-a-show outfit to the invited dress rather than to one of the public performances this weekend.

A few thoughts from the day:

We experienced one of the funniest, most pure forms of comedy I’ve ever witnessed in a tech: towards the end of the show, Romeo visits the shop of an apothecary to buy some poison, and calls out to the apothecary when he arrives. This scene is staged right in front of the staircase, and Sonny tried to knock on the set to summon the apothecary to crawl out from his hovel, where he keeps his business apparently somewhere under the stairs. Seems like a simple task. So Sonny knocks on the side of the stairs, and it’s rock solid and makes no sound. So he knocks on the decorative spindles on the staircase. Same thing. He tries the handrail. He tries the bench which is right downstage of the stairs. Every surface he tried to knock on had absolutely no resonance. Every time he tried something else everybody in the theatre howled with laughter. The stairs are steel encased in wood, and I guess this proves that they’re very well built! Eventually, the staging was changed so that he goes up the stairs to the first landing. From there he can stomp on the floor, which is lexan over metal grating, and that makes a satisfying noise.

Today was the first time the database has saved me by giving me an error when I schedule something against Equity rules. It’s always been a good guard against typos, but this time I was so sure in my incorrect math that I was actually digging in the formulas to figure out why it was broken. The formula actually thinks of the problem in a more correct way than I was counting it in my head (span of day minus length of meal break), and showed me that I had reduced the meal break without reducing the span of day, thereby making more working hours than allowed. So I felt like the time I took to build some rudimentary rule-checking into the schedule form was well spent. It doesn’t understand things like tech days, but when I get a chance to revise it before my next show that will be something I flesh out.

Another somewhat funny observation:

At one point we must have spent 10 minutes sitting watching the director, staff director, prop master, costume designer and prop crew gathered in a quiet circle, apparently discussing how Juliet can conceal a dagger on her person. As our lighting designer and I decided, we were witnessing the costume equivalent of everybody standing on the stage looking up in the air (it’s sort of a tech stereotype that if you see a large group of stagehands, a stage manager or two, and especially a director or designers all standing on stage staring silently and thoughtfully up into the grid… you’re not going anywhere for a while!)

Ow, My Ear!

By the end of today I have had a headset on my ear for 28 of the last 49 hours, and my ear was starting to hurt, despite the recent modifications I’ve made to my headset with a Dr. Scholl’s pad. I don’t have a default ear preference, though I generally have a strong preference on a per-show basis. It almost always has to do with which ear will generally be pointed at what I’m listening for — either at the stage, at people who might come up and talk to me, or at an audio monitor — and then putting the headset on the opposite ear. For example at Phantom on the deck I’m most often standing stage left facing upstage, meaning my left ear is pointed at the stage, so I always wear my headset on the right. Twice I’ve been cushioned from head injuries because I just happen to wear my headset on the right side, so I guess it’s a good choice. However, when calling the show I wear the headset on the left because the audio monitor is next to my right ear.

During a long tech I will usually try to switch ears every few hours, but in this case the comm rack is to my left and I’d be getting tangled all the time if I put the headset on my right side. I do think the Dr. Scholls was a great idea though. It’s definitely more comfortable than any on-ear headsets’ padding I know of. My custom orange earpiece foam cover is really starting to rip, and that’s making me sad (it’s a little smaller than it should be to fit properly, but it’s the only non-black one I could find, and I like it because no one can take my headset by accident, or “accident” even).

One more cute story:

In a fascinating example of how light and music can tell a story, we were kind of hanging out waiting for a light cue to be written. Ray (Friar Laurence) was lounging on an onstage bench up against the stairs. Laura (Juliet) was lying down in the tomb, where she had been for probably hours, with an occasional break.

While the cue was being built, a single par on the floor stage left was turned on, casting a wash of sidelight across Friar Laurence in his priestly garb, and creating grotesque shadows of the staircase all across the wall of the set. At the exact same moment the light was turned on, the sound department, completely independently, tested a sound cue of very loud, ominous music that we had never heard before. Everyone in the room had been just kind of doing their own thing, but for the few seconds that sound cue played, there was a very specific story happening onstage that captured everyone’s attention — the young woman laid out in a tomb surrounded by candles, the mysterious priest sitting nearby — was he there to dispel the demons, or might he be possessed himself, concealed in the disguise of a man of the cloth? Once the mood had been established, Laura played into it, reaching her arms up from under her shroud, an overhead shaft of light on her being the only other illumination besides the par and the candles. All the while Ray just sat there, silently contemplating… what?

And then the sound cue was cut off, and more lights were added to the cue, and it was just another moment in rehearsal. I feel like I studied directing for years where my teachers tried to teach us just that: it has nothing to do with your budget or resources. You can tell an entire engrossing story with a single light, the right music and some simple costume pieces like a priest’s collar and a sheer piece of fabric, without a word even needing to be spoken. I absolutely sucked at that when I was in school, and here it happened completely by accident. It was just a wonderful little moment that highlights the things that really make theatre work.

Tech Table

Finally, here’s a picture of my tech table, which I love very much, and will be sad to say farewell to after the afternoon’s rehearsal. I saw the booth for the first time today. It was rather uneventful. I don’t expect anything about it to bother me, but I didn’t see anything that blew my mind either (knowing this place, there probably is something, but like the electric pencil sharpener built into the cue light panel, you just need to know where to look).


January 7, 2010

Tech Day 2

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:23 am

I have to keep this somewhat brief as I’m a fool and left my computer charger plugged in at the tech table.

Today was our second day of tech. The first day was a 10-hour day, this was the first of our two 12-hour days. We also had the amazing tech dinner tonight. I think I mentioned this last year, but if you ever get an offer to work at the Guthrie, I recommend taking it for the tech dinner alone. An army of volunteers cooks an endless variety of foods and desserts — the hardest part is figuring out how to get all of it on your plate. Here’s my plate:

Our progress is a little bit ahead of schedule, although I’d feel more comfortable if we were further along.

We’re now in the middle of Act III Sc. 3, which is more than halfway through the show and way more than halfway in terms of scenes that are expected to be time-consuming. We had very few notes at the production meeting — the meeting was adjourned 17 minutes after we stopped rehearsal, which is pretty amazing. There are quite a few people at each meeting. When we all gathered yesterday I was really amazed. These are all the people we might have on a given day:

1. Production Stage Manager (that’s me)
2. Assistant Stage Manager
3. Stage Management Intern
4. Director
5. Staff Repertory Director
6. Choreographer
7. Fight Choreographer
8. Production Manager (Acting Company)
9. Production Manager (Guthrie)
10. Scenic Designer
11. Associate Scenic Designer
12. Lighting Designer
13. Assistant Lighting Designer (Guthrie)
14. Lighting Supervisor (Tour)
15. Prop Master
16. Costume Designer
17. Associate Costume Designer / Wardrobe Supervisor (Tour)
18. Wardrobe Supervisor (Guthrie)
19. Voice and Text Consultant
20. Assistant Voice and Text Consultant
21. Sound Designer
22. Composer
23. Acting Company Artistic Director
24. Acting Company Associate Artistic Director
25. Crew Supervisor (Guthrie)

It takes a lot of people to put a show together, and that’s just the people who are there physically putting the show together. Outside the room there are press and marketing people, education directors, general managers, house managers, security, photographers and videographers, and countless others who are involved at various stages of the process, before an audience ever sees the show.

The cast seems to be in good spirits, even though the show is structured in such a way that some people end up waiting hours and hours between scenes. We have been able to give five of the actors a later call for tomorrow because we next see them in Act 5. We have an amazing greenroom known as “the hub” with gorgeous views of the Mississippi, a fridge, two microwaves, a toaster over, four vending machines, coffee, water, tea, and a number of very comfortable couches, tables, and a computer. I think that may have something to do with people’s patience! I have visited on breaks to spend some time with our neglected actors, only to find them deeply engrossed in card games and internet surfing, so I think they’re doing OK!

Here Elizabeth and Jesse enjoy a break in the kitchen area of the hub, in their party costumes (Act I Sc. 4). Elizabeth plays the Nurse and Jesse is Abraham (shown here) and Friar John.

People have also been in the house watching a lot, which is really nice. The house is comfortable and very intimate, and despite being a traditional proscenium with two balconies, you really feel like you’re all in the same small room. It doesn’t have much of an “us-and-them” feel between the people onstage and those in the house, so I think that also adds to the camaraderie among everyone involved in the process. There has been a lot of laughter and enjoyment of everyone’s work, and no yelling, which is always the best way to have a productive tech process.

We have another 12-hour day tomorrow. The good sign is that we have started with actors at 11AM every day this week. The first day Nick, Ashely and I got in at 9:30. Today we got in at 10. Tomorrow we get in at 10:30. The three of us decide this at the end of the night in a form of decision-making I would call a democratic dictatorship (which means that we all put in our ideas and reasons, I make the final decision, but can be influenced if Nick and Ashley tell me I’m an idiot or a masochist), based on what we think we need to accomplish before we officially begin work. Getting to sleep later on longer days is a really good sign, and good for our mental and physical health, too.

A Special Announcement

I have to give special credit here to Nick. As I was finishing this post, my battery up-and-died on me, while still showing half a charge. At 1AM I sent him an email asking if he was still up and if I might borrow his charger, and he kindly obliged and even delivered it. So I am much indebted to him for making this post possible, as well as allowing me to do my job in the morning!

I will close this post with a portrait of Nick at his ASM station backstage. Which, by the way, is more full-featured than most PSM stations I’ve worked with. It has the same two-camera monitor I have, the paging mic, a script holder and an area where he keeps his laptop, as well as drawers of first aid, spike tape, and who-knows-what-else. That’s one of our prop road boxes in the rear.


January 4, 2010

On Stage!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 12:36 am

A magical thing happened this week. The show has really come to life. It’s hard to describe, but it’s the difference between a show that just kind of happens, and a show that sucks you in and makes you feel like the action is really happening for the first time right now in front of you. In a few short rehearsals our cast has found many new ways to bring their characters to life. On one particular day, I left the room for maybe 15 minutes to make some phone calls to take care of set issues, and when I came back the scene was totally fresh and new. I don’t know what exactly occurred, but all week we have made leaps and bounds in the show. Our run-throughs in the rehearsal room have been highly complimented, even by veteran designers and crew, who usually don’t come to runs to be entertained or moved.

Today was our first day onstage, and the excitement of the show in the rehearsal room has been topped by the excitement of the show on the set. The depth and texture of the structure really makes the action pop off the stage. Everything just looks so good and feels so comfortable. A large part of what we had to do today was to adjust spacing for the actual set, but we haven’t hit any problems, just things we can now refine better in three dimensions.

In the most unexpected good news ever, our platform Fred does not appear to need brakes. Through some combination of the quality of castors and the fact that it’s moving on marley, it rolls almost silently, yet has enough weight and stability that it doesn’t move at all even under significant leaning and sitting. It moves easily when you want it to, and not at all when you don’t. It’s like the scenic holy grail! So we have had to take back all the nasty things we said about Fred.

The theatre has a very warm feel. It’s very intimate, yet also has a grandeur that feels like working in a real honest-to-goodness professional theatre. And of course the Guthrie facility provides all the little goodies a stage manager wants. At my personal tech table, I have plenty of power and ethernet, my headset console, with four channels (of which I assume we’ll use three — deck, lighting and sound), a paging mic, infrared and color monitor, and a cue light panel that I hope to God we don’t need. We have cue lights set up here, but I’d really rather not have to worry about that on the road if all our actor entrances can be handled by Nick giving hand signals off my cue. Anyway, the best part of the cue light panels here is that they have a built-in electric pencil sharpener. Uh huh. Yes, they do. I believe the reason I never blogged about this last year is that they removed the panel from my tech table before I got a chance to take a picture. So this year I made sure I did:

As you can see, it’s a regular electric pencil sharpener that just fits right into the casing. It almost makes me wish I used regular pencils.

My other favorite thing in the room today was our rehearsal mock-up of the victrola we have in the show (what does a victrola have to do with R&J? Well part of what happens at the Capulet party is that Capulet shows off his new technological purchases, such as this fancy device that plays music by itself, and electric lights). In the rehearsal room, we used a cardboard box that vaguely resembled a pizza box, so while waiting for the real victrola to be delivered (supposedly Tuesday), our prop master, Scotty, wanted to make us a more accurate mock-up to use on stage.

Here’s what it looks like before it’s unveiled at the party:

Looks pretty nice, huh? And here’s what it actually is:

I think it’s the greatest rehearsal prop ever. Most of the cast hadn’t seen under the sheet before we rehearsed the party scene, so the reaction when the new victrola was unveiled was very special!

Our day went very well today. Between getting spacing done for all the major scenes, and apparently solving the Fred problems, we’re in good shape. At my urging, everybody on the production team who’s in town was present for the entire rehearsal, as well as our two local carpenters, Craig and Sarah, who are awesome. It’s so nice to finally all be in one room and able to discuss things in real time. That’s why I find tech less stressful than the rehearsal process — aside from learning to call the show, what I really have to do is guide all these people who are specialists in their respective fields to work together and solve problems, and I find that fairly easy and relaxing, once all the people are in place.

We have a very welcome day off (our second in four days, due to our weird Christmas schedule shaking out back to a normal schedule), and then we begin tech on Tuesday.


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