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December 2, 2009

Day 1 of Preproduction at the “G”

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:18 pm

Checking In

First day of work at the Guthrie (yesterday). We arrived a little before our announced arrival time of 11am, to get our security badges, and hopefully have our pictures retaken, because we arrived last year unaware that there would be pictures, and coming off our travel, looked a little rough. Well of course in typical Guthrie efficiency, they just typed in our names and reprinted our badges from last year. So so much for that. I didn’t really mind. I’ve taken worse pictures, it might not have been worth the gamble. Nick also discovered when they couldn’t find him in the computer, that his name was misspelled on his badge all last year. That was pretty funny.

The important thing about the badge is that there are electronic sensors all over the building, and without one you won’t get very far before a door or an elevator blocks your passage to the non-public parts of the building. So with our access granted, we then proceeded upstairs to the 2nd floor production office.

In the Office

We were there to see Russell, who is the Guthrie’s PSM, and our direct liaison to our host theatre. Russell had stepped out, but in poking our heads into his office, we were noticed by Trevor, the Assistant Production Director, who was also very helpful to us going into our tech last year.

We learned a lot last year about the challenges of creating a show with creative and production people sprawled out between New York and Minneapolis. The collaboration begun last year between The Acting Company and the Guthrie was very successful, but behind the scenes there is also a lot of planning that goes into figuring out how the two sets of personnel work together and where the handoff of responsibility occurs for each of the countless tasks that have to be accomplished to put on a show. This year my goal, and I assume everyone’s, is to use what we learned last year to build a tighter, more efficient collaboration between the two companies. I, for one, feel so much more prepared, knowing how things work here, and how to integrate our process into it smoothly.

So with that in mind, we immediately went into Trevor’s office and began looking over calendars, schedules, and ground plans, and shared as much information as we had, until Russell arrived. Then we hopped over to his office, and met our new intern (absolute best thing about working here — a 3-person stage management team is actually not 1.5 times better than a 2-person team, it’s like a billion times better, believe me, I’ve done the math!). We were very glad to learn we would have the help of this year’s stage management intern, after our fantastic experience with Meghan last year. This year we have Ashley, who is also fantastic! And the only thing better than an extra person on your team is an extra highly qualified person on your team! While waiting for our flight the day before, we had been exchanging emails with Russell and Ashley, so we had made our introductions, and had asked for her help to set up the rehearsal room on our first day.

But before that, we sat in Russell’s office for a while having some really productive discussions. I can’t even remember all that was said, but we covered a variety of topics, from our plans for rehearsal hours, to the availability of other studios, to how the new production of A Christmas Carol was doing. We also made plans to see Faith Healer together, which inhabits our future theatre until the end of this week, so that we could get a feel for the space as an audience member, and to see Artistic Director Joe Dowling live on stage! Having just returned from that outing, it was a very helpful experience, and a great show to boot!

The Theatre

Anyway, after our meeting I was most of all anxious to get an opportunity to tour our theatre. I knew a little bit about the backstage layout of the main stages, but had never been in either theatre, mostly because last year was so jam-packed with shows, there was always a show performing or in tech. So Russell, Trevor and Ashley took us to the theatre, where we walked around the cavernous wingspace, and spent a long time on stage. We had some discussions about the orchestra pit, whether it would be raised or lowered, or used as a playing space or not. This brought up some lingering questions, and by morning things had been bounced around between all the parties and a new drawing was waiting for us when we got in today. So that alone was a productive visit.

I asked if there was a possibility of calling from backstage. I’m not convinced I want to, just because once we get on the road it will be my responsibility to make sure the show looks the same in each venue as it does here. Staring at the show every night for a month will lock that in. If I call from backstage, I will be working only from dim memories of the tech process, and whatever it looks like on a video monitor. Later in the tour it would be fun to call from backstage (which I did get to do last year in New York), but our goal as a touring company, from a technical perspective, is that every audience should see the show exactly as it will be set by our designers here, to the best of our ability given the time, equipment, and facilities available at each venue. And although I won’t have to hang a light, lay down the show deck, or play a sound cue, I’m the one who’s supposed to know when it’s right, and I’d like to be as familiar with it as possible.

Continuing on, we left the stage and got another tour through the backstage hallways. We saw most of this on the grand tour of the building on the day we arrived last year, but back then it was more in the context of, “And over here are the dressing rooms where the grown-ups put on plays.” This year we’re all grown up and now we’re being asked to think about how we want to assign those dressing rooms.

My favorite part of this tour was visiting the third floor star dressing rooms. As we walked, Russell told us that they only hold four, but if we really needed the extra space we might be able to use them. So he opens one of them, and we step into the largest four-person dressing room I’ve ever seen. I said, “Yeah, see we would call this a 10.” Seriously. If that’s their four, I can only imagine that the six-person room we didn’t get to see probably would hold all 10 of our guys! I don’t think we’ll have any problems!

On our travels we passed the wardrobe and hair area, which has giant windows overlooking the main entrance. We ran into our old friend Susan, who’s the wardrobe supervisor for the theatre, and was instrumental in making sense of the wardrobe tracks as they wrangled the amazing zipping, transforming costumes we had last year in Henry V. Susan explained that this is the area where everybody hangs out at half hour. I said, “I know, I used to see them when I’d pass by here before a show or at intermission, on my way to slink back to the 9th floor. They always had candy.” That area in a theatre, wherever it may be, where everybody hangs out is always a magical place. I must admit I was a little jealous of not being a part of that camaraderie last year. It will be very nice to be in the middle of the action this time!

Anyway, our tour was pretty much at an end, so we returned to the production office to pick up the dilapidated box of our supplies that had made its way from New York (and from the looks of it, might have traveled around the world a few times underneath a FedEx truck!). We carted the box down to our rehearsal room, where we were happy to discover that nothing was broken, not even our printer/scanner.

Setting up the Room

We set about getting some tables up, approximating where the director and staff director would sit, with the director’s chair on the centerline, and then made a very long table for us. My spot, across the aisle from the director, followed by Nick, and then closest to the door, Ashley will have the second table, which holds the printer and I anticipate will be used for displaying things for the actors to pick up (new paperwork, for instance) or to put a plate of cookies somebody’s grandmother sent. We distributed basic supplies across the tables — pencils, staplers, tissues and sanitizer.

Then we really got down to business and flattened out our groundplan on one of the tables. I took the measurements on it before we left New York, so I had a basic idea of how we would tape the floor. We took our time choosing where we would mark the edge of the stage, because the last thing I wanted was to decide after we were done that it should have moved a little bit. So we made some careful measurements and considerations of how we might use the space, and then placed our downstage center mark. It didn’t take all that long to tape out the set, at least not considering that there are quite a few stairs. Stairs are the worst!

Here’s a picture of our room with the floor taped out. It’s a panorama, so the perspective is a little weird. I assure you the walls are flat!

photo

We spent the remaining time making a list of supplies we still needed, which Ashley was able to procure from the Guthrie’s supply, and then Ashley took my reformatted script file and went to make 25 copies for our first rehearsal scripts. By default they bind them with these nice simple black covers, which we liked a lot, and once they were done, proceeded to decorate them as we did last year. This was Nick’s idea, and very successful, I think — we took our postcard and with black gaff tape, affixed one to the cover of each script, and then wrote the actors’ name on it with silver pen. We actually packed a handful of postcards in our hapless box before we left the office just for that purpose.

We selected a wall of the studio to use to display design images. We put up the ground plan and another drawing showing the main wall of the set. I printed the photograph of the set model, and hung that up as well. Before the first rehearsal we’ll also be getting costume sketches to go up there.

While we were doing that, Scott Edwards, our sound designer, came in to set up some instruments that will be used by our composer, Victor Zupanc, to explore what kind of music will go into the show. Last year I had a great time seeing how Victor works — I had never been part of a process where the composer was truly a member of the everyday rehearsal team. He was there all the time, playing with various instruments and improvised items, accompanying each time we worked a scene, and I think it was evident in the final product how closely tied he was to the rehearsal process. I got a lot of questions from people who saw the show wanting to know how the sound was developed, because it really stood out for feeling like an integral part of the show. From my perspective, it was also really fun to call the show, because Victor had such a crystal-clear idea of how each sound reflected the action of the play, so the bar was set very high for me, to translate that into telling a guy to push the spacebar on a laptop, and to hopefully get exactly the artistic impact that the composer and designer intended. I’ve met lots of great collaborators here, so I’m very excited to get to continue working with them.

That pretty much concluded our first day. We accomplished basically everything we needed to do in the studio before the first rehearsal. We will need to set up the tables for the first read-through, but I want to talk to Penny about how she would prefer them to be arranged.

Homework

Besides the on-site stuff, the number of emails and phone calls has been increasing this week. I’m working with our costume designer, Matt Lefebvre, to find time in the schedule for actors’ measurements to be taken and for a flurry of costume fittings for our ladies. The costumes are being built by a shop in Pittsburg this year, not at the Guthrie, so the scheduling will need to be a bit tighter to accommodate people coming in from out of town.

I am still very much at work on our new stage management database, which should make our lives much easier, after it’s done keeping me up all night! Nick and I are planning to have a working dinner and/or drinks tonight with our prop master, Scotty, who has just arrived in town. It will be great to see him again, too!


May 29, 2009

Crazy Pre-Pro Day!!

I call this: mac,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:33 pm

Well it would seem to be “that day” in the preproduction week for Hello, Dolly! at the Reagle Players. We start rehearsal in four days, and this seems to be the day it’s all coming together. It’s a really good thing I like to multitask. It’s like a puzzle. Some pieces can’t be put together until other ones are complete, and then all of a sudden a bunch of pieces start getting fit together and all of a sudden the things that can be completed start growing exponentially, and I’m racing to keep up before new ones come in.

I’ve been getting several emails per minute for the last few hours, mostly due to the fact that I just sent out an email blast to our 49-person cast with a bunch of questions. As each one comes in, I have to take the information out of it, put it where it goes, and get the email out of my inbox and into my Reagle storage folder before another one comes in.

While this has been going on, I’ve been making up the schedule for Week 1 based on a meeting the director and choreographer had earlier this afternoon (which in turn is based on my recommended schedule for the rehearsal process in general). That’s done, has been proofed by the director, but not the choreographer. Once she gets back to me, it will go out to the cast, who are dying to see it.

I also have a contact sheet that needs some details filled in, but is probably about 90% done, and waiting on people to get back to me. My next project is to finish the production calendar (which is in a very rough draft at the moment, only because I drew it up to show the director what the usual structure of the process is). I’d really like to be able to send that to the cast tonight with the week’s schedule.

Then I have to do all the things for me — like laundry and packing and cleaning my apartment.

What I’m Using

I have something of a love-hate relationship with the “Spaces” feature of Mac OS X Leopard. What it is, in brief, is a way to have several different setups of windows arranged on your desktop that you can flip between, instead of having 10 random windows from a bunch of apps all piling up on top of each other. I don’t generally bother with it, as I tend to find it more trouble than it’s worth. But as I’ve been having one of those days, that’s exactly what my desktop was starting to look like, and I needed some organization.

The overall project I had going on (and is still going on) was that I sent out an email to the 49 people in the cast asking them to proof their information on the contact sheet and tell me if they have any conflicts. When they respond, I need the contact sheet open, and the document where I’m tracking their conflicts (and highlighting their names in green if they have confirmed their contact info is correct). Because some of them responded right away and others might not get back to me for hours, I need this stuff open and arranged in a way where I can use it easily, but also not getting in the way of me using other apps, or other documents in the same apps. So I shoved those two documents over to my #2 space. When an email comes in pertaining to that, I see it in Mail, which is in my main #1 space, then I can hit ctl-rightarrow to swing over to the #2 space, where I have the two documents ready to receive changes. The 2nd space looks like this:
spaces1
The other major app I’m using to keep track of things is OmniFocus, which is a task manager, though that’s a bit of an understatement. For more on that, check out my section on it in the Stage Mgr Tools area of the site (it’s under iPhone and Mac apps). I’ve been checking off a lot of tasks, but also adding a lot of new ones. I have one in progress called “confirm production meeting” which has sub-tasks with the names of all the people I invited. As each one RSVPs I check their name off. When all of them are gone I’ll be able to confirm the meeting is on. I have one major one I’m waiting on — the lighting designer — which is kind of a dealbreaker if he can’t make it. So that is always a big ball of stress over my head when trying to schedule a meeting.

I have a lot of pending tasks I have to do (like 33 of them) cause all of the individual things I have to pack just hit the “due soon” stage, so I’m going to try to cut down on some of those now.

This is also the time to run frequent Time Machine backups, now that I actually have a ton of paperwork that wasn’t done yesterday when I last backed up. These next couple days will probably see a lot more backups than my normal schedule of every 2 days (which are also managed with recurring tasks in OmniFocus).


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.


July 17, 2007

42nd Street Pre-production

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:48 pm

It’s our second week of the run of The King and I, and I’m starting pre-production on 42nd Street. On this, our third consecutive day off (I love this schedule!) I swung by the theatre to pick up some mail, and the casting worksheet and contact info for our 42nd Street cast.

My first step is to go through the cast list and make some kind of mark next to the names of people I’ve worked with before. These will be the first to go on the contact sheet, by copying and pasting from previous contact sheets. If I have their resume in my pile, I will double-check that the info I have matches the presumably more-recent info on their resume. Since I’m in no hurry, I will take the opportunity to update my personal contact files on my computer as I go along, so that my computer and phone will have everybody’s numbers on them as early as possible, before I need to call or e-mail anyone. When I get too many of them too close to rehearsals, or on the first day of rehearsal, it can be hard to find time to properly update everything. So I’m very glad to have gotten that out of the way.

Our director, Eileen Grace, has sent me her tentative schedule for the rehearsal period. I checked it for errors regarding allowed hours under Equity rules, sent back a couple notes and questions, and then will send it out to the actors I have e-mail addresses for when it’s ready. With that I have also started my calendar (see this post for the template) based on her schedule. I will fill in the details for tech and dress rehearsals after we decide on them at our production meeting.

Putting a show together is like a puzzle… the next ball I have in the air is the production meeting. Eileen and I have decided on 11:30AM next Tuesday, so I have now reached the point where I’m ready to send out an invitation to everyone else to find out if they can attend. But in order to do that I need to know who “everyone else” is, and there were a few I thought might be changing. A few e-mails answered the questions I had about sound engineer and prop master, and finally I’m able to send out the invitation.

With that straightened out, I was also able to make my “42nd Street Reports” group in Entourage, with all the e-mail addresses of everyone who will receive the report. See this post for more details about the report. I’ve even updated my rehearsal report template to change King and I to 42nd Street, so that will be ready to go on the day of the first rehearsal. The performance report is a separate template, so I can still use the King and I version of that.

The whole thing has only taken me about three hours, so not too much of a dent in my day off, but a big help in getting things ready for the next show before things start to get crazy. In fact, for both shows on Saturday most of the off-topic discussion on headset was about 42nd Street. Things like load-out, the lighting plot for the next show and how similar it will be, and how that will affect the time needed for lighting load-out and hanging for the next show. I was mostly just listening, but for the tech director, production manager and master electrician to be able to sort stuff like that out, it’s pretty helpful.

It’s a good feeling to be ahead of the game going into the last show. It’s an even better feeling once the last show opens to not have to worry about another show after it. But then of course comes the feeling of, “Oh my God, I don’t have a job!!” and “What do you mean I’m not getting a paycheck next week?” It’s very easy to fall into a routine and forget what a blessing it is to get a regular paycheck, especially one you can live on. I have one sort-of-job on the horizon, should nothing else come up, but I would love it if I had a real show lined up by the time I leave Reagle.


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