HOME

June 3, 2007

End of Week 1

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 6:51 pm

Well we’ve survived the first week of rehearsal. It actually went much smoother than I thought. I always relax more the closer I get to tech, which may seem backwards, but I take comfort from knowing what’s going on, even if what’s going on is huge and insane and may or may not work and it’s all my responsibility. At least I’m in control of it, and when the job starts to become more “stage” than “management,” that’s the part that’s fun. Nobody in their right mind would be a stage manager just because they need a job. There are plenty of other careers you could go into if you don’t care about doing something you love. So I always like to get to the part that makes me look forward to going to work.

A big hurdle for me yesterday was our production meeting. Our first week had been rather hairy schedule-wise, and I was becoming very unsettled about how late into the process we were getting without a full meeting, even if most people involved had done the show before. It was looking like we wouldn’t be able to have one until this coming Tuesday, but when I started to type the e-mail I just couldn’t bear to do it — that’s five days before tech. So with a little bit of begging and pleading, I managed to get everyone to clear their schedules so we could do it at 6PM last night, immediately following rehearsal. We had a lovely meeting, of an hour-and-a-half duration, at a rather relaxed pace. Nothing huge came up, but it was just nice to all sit down and say stuff out loud and face-to-face and make sure everybody was in agreement. We hammered out a slightly different schedule for tech, due to the need to record the orchestra and vocals for one of the movies-within-a-show. We got approval to buy additional dimmers, which is cool. Basically I just felt good that we all sat together and no major crises came up.

I was also feeling rather behind, as I’ve said before, because almost everyone has done the show, and I didn’t get much time to prepare before coming up. I was kind of dreading the production meeting because I was afraid I’d have stupid questions. So to prevent my displaying my ignorance at a meeting I’m supposed to be running, I had my “Meeting with Lori” a little early. I haven’t come up with a better name for this kind of meeting, but I’ve been doing it on a number of shows now, and it works wonders. This is when I find a couple hours to sit down with our very busy TD and she hands me a stack of paperwork if I don’t already have it (fly plot, scene shift plot, etc.) and I break out my script and we just talk through the show. It can take a while, because it starts out slow, going step-by-step. What drops are in, what pipes are they on? (I try to memorize the fly plot early because it gives me a good sense of proportion — how much room various scenes take up and where they play in reference to one another.) The real point of the meeting is to have it before tech so that we can be sure there’s no miscommunication or a change that didn’t get noted — she reads her paperwork and I read mine, and we state how we think the show goes and make sure we both think the same thing. This way when we get to tech nothing I call should surprise the crew, and nothing they do should surprise me.

We discuss absolutely everything that moves, and she will point out potential trouble spots from past experience — this unit is huge and barely fits through where it has to go; this move requires tons of crew; you can’t bring in this drop until the set is pulled upstage; this is a scene change that needs to be run in the light before trying it in a blackout. In places where I don’t quite grasp the enormity of it on paper, we walk out to the stage and I look at the set piece, look at the width of the wing, look at where the drop is hung, then we walk it, we stand where the pieces will go, we walk off like we’re carrying a huge table, the table goes off and turns this way, the doors go off and turn that way, meanwhile the stairs are coming in here. So when the stairs come on the big unit is clear to move to its storage space. It all starts to make sense, in a good way and a bad way — good because I now understand exactly what has to happen, and bad because I understand why it’s going to be so difficult. But as I said earlier, I don’t care if it’s difficult as long as I know what’s going on.

All these things are very helpful, but the best result of the meeting is that I start writing tentative cues in my book. Even if they’re not in exact places, it helps me the next time we do the scene in rehearsal to see the cues there and start thinking about where they might go. Do I need to learn an actor’s mannerisms to catch a visual cue, is it a piece of scene change music I need to concentrate on? Do I need to wait for an actor to cross downstage of a drop before bringing it in? When is he crossing? Then rehearsals stop becoming about the actors’ process with me just being an administrator. It starts to become my process, too, and I can visualize what I’ll be doing during these scenes we’re working on.

We didn’t quite get to do a run of the show as was optimistically put on our schedule for today, but we’re very close. I thought today was a great day. We did only the big group scenes, in order, including one big one we had not yet staged, and we took the time to make sure everything was running smoothly, not just that it was blocked. It was also the day the ensemble and the principals finally got to spend some time together. I always think that day is one of the more magical moments of the creative process.

With many shows, rehearsals are broken up and the dancers are rehearsing in one room with the singers in another, and the principals off doing their scenes somewhere else. There may be a principal leading a dance number, or a singer playing a speaking role in a book scene, but by and large the groups don’t get to spend much time seeing what others are working on, while all working towards the common goal of putting on this show.

Then comes a day when the show starts to be put together in large enough chunks that your rehearsal schedule for the day looks something like:

Review scenes and songs    All   

Then everyone gathers in one room, and sits around and watches everything. The ensemble finally gets to hear the leading lady sing her big song, the principals get to watch the dancers do the big tap number, and everybody laughs and cries at scenes they haven’t seen. Today one of the most minor of things we hadn’t staged was the few background crossovers that happen during the rain scene at the end of Act I. Just a couple people running by with umbrellas and stuff, as the two leads walk through the scene. But I would say it was one of the highlights of the day. There were very few props — Don had his umbrella and hat, one passerby had a page of a newspaper to hold over his head. Just a rehearsal studio, no set, no lighting, no rain. He didn’t even sing the song, just a few bars at the beginning and a few at the end, but I think we all saw the show come to life there. I’ve seen him do the whole number a few times, but there was something about doing the scene with the whole company sitting on the sides, and adding the people walking by that made it suddenly look like a show, and it was easy to imagine how magical the scene will be. Even skipping the song itself, the room broke out in sustained applause when we reached the end of the act. I definitely feel like today was the day the company became a unified entity, and I’m looking forward to the next week as we put larger pieces together — Act I on Tuesday, Act II on Wednesday, and then a run in the studio Thursday, a run onstage Friday, and finally starting tech Saturday.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow’s schedule involves doing laundry, going to the Burlington Mall (for needed clothes, The Body Shop, GNC, and a trip to the Apple Store), and spending too much time on the internet. Tuesday, if you believe the rumors, may see the release of the long-awaited Macbook Pro that I will finally purchase.


Singin’ in the Rain, Remastered by George Lucas

I call this: summer stock — Posted by KP @ 6:44 pm


One of my actors just sent this to me. As a fan of the un-altered Star Wars movies, and as PSM of Singin’ in the Rain, I find this hysterical in so many ways.


May 30, 2007

Good Morning

I call this: summer stock — Posted by KP @ 8:34 am

I’ve realized I find the song “Good Morning” annoying. I haven’t been able to figure out if I’m the only one, but I’m probably the only one who has been so permanently scarred by that song.

When I was in high school, I had a teacher, Mrs. Schneider. She taught physics and chemistry, and she was fond of making up songs about either subject. Generally she would take some standard, and replace the words with something about physics or chemistry. Sometimes they would actually be educational, to help you remember things, and other times they were just pointless, like this one:

“Good morning, good morning!
It’s great to start the day
Good morning, in a physical way!”

If it was a chemistry class, then she’d say “chemical” instead.

I didn’t realize until now, when I actually know how the song goes, how badly she butchered it. And if it was an afternoon class, you’d think she’d be out of luck, right? Oh no. She could cram “Good afternoon” in there instead. In fact, I think she even said, “It’s great to start the afternoon.”

The important thing to remember here is not just that this annoying song existed, but that she sang it at the very beginning of class every day! And I had her for two years!

A perfectly good showtune, ruined for me.


May 29, 2007

First Rehearsal

I call this: phones,summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:33 pm

My day started with a meeting at the theatre with my ASM, Paul, and our prop master, Justin. After stopping into the office and saying hi to a bunch of people, and then arriving on stage and saying hi to a bunch more people, I sat down in the shop with Paul and Justin and went over the props we would need for the day’s rehearsal. The prop master of the previous production left us a very helpful list, and between that, our scripts, and the archival video, we came up with a list for the day and set out in search of the pieces. Not everything has been unpacked yet, so it took a little longer than we had hoped. I took what I could fit in my car and headed for rehearsal, and Paul and Justin arrived a little later with the large pieces.

The afternoon consisted of rehearsal with the three leads, who moved quickly through their material. Most of the cast has done the show before (some many times), so the whole process should be faster than normal. After dinner we had the full company present, minus a few who had conflicts. We had a little meet-and-greet, and then rehearsed the two numbers sung by the whole company. After that some folks were sent home, and we split into two rooms — the girls upstairs to learn choreography for “All I Do,” and several scenes and songs with the principals downstairs.

Then that part of my day ended at 10:30, and I began the final part, at home. First, the rehearsal report, which I start writing during rehearsal if possible, adding things as they come up, and then finish and send when I get home. Tonight I had to finish the contact sheet — Paul and I didn’t get to do our magical instant-contact-sheet production because we were at the alternate studio where there’s no copier. I decided there was no need to kill ourselves trying to get a contact sheet out as long as we had the wallet cards done so people would have all the essential numbers if they had a problem overnight. The wallet cards deserve their own post, sometime when it’s not 2AM. Then I did a rough calendar of the entire production so people have an idea of when they will be needed.

Finally, I did what is obviously the most important thing when starting a new production at Reagle — it must be because not five hours after the start of the season, I had been asked by at least three people about it — “When am I getting my Singin’ in the Rain ringtone?” Since my first show here, I have made MP3 ringtones for every show, and assigned them (using the Palm app mRing) to my Reagle category, so whenever someone from Reagle calls me it plays the ringtone for the current show. Most newer phones have the ability to play MP3s, and assign them to individuals and/or groups, although the method varies. As more people have been getting phones with this feature, and showing it off to others around the theatre, I have been getting more requests of “I hear you can give me a ringtone…” So tonight I spent a few minutes and made the glaringly obvious one — it goes “I’m singin’ in the rain / Just singin’ in the rain / what a glorious feelin’ / I’m happy again.” Generally I choose the selection so that it makes some sort of musical sense when it loops. I used to let them go for around 30 seconds, but I found that some phones had more difficulty with larger file sizes, so I’ve started making them smaller when it works well musically. I usually start with the most memorable musical phrase in the show, since I know it will be satisfactory to most people, and then will make alternate ringtones by special request, or if there’s something else I’d personally like to use. I haven’t received any requests for a specific piece of music for this show yet. I suspect “Good Morning” may be a popular one. It would actually make a very good alarm, which is the other thing I use my ringtones for.

So with that, my most important job as PSM complete, I go to bed.


« Newer Posts