HOME

November 2, 2012

Hurricanes and Stage Management

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:49 pm

I want to talk about keeping communication going on a show, with a constantly changing performance and rehearsal situation, in the midst of a weather disaster where the people involved in the show may lose power, internet, cell service, or all three.

As Hurricane Sandy approached, we waited to hear what would happen to our performances on Sunday, before the storm hit. My experience in the past has been that when there have been potential cancellations of shows, Broadway collectively decides what to do (through the Broadway League), and most other shows just follow along. This is what our producers were doing as well. The biggest component of the decision is usually transportation issues. When the audience can’t get in, there are always some tourists trapped in Times Square with nothing to do, but if the people who work on the show can’t get to the theatre from wherever they live in the outer boroughs or surrounding communities, the show can’t go on. On Saturday the MTA announced that it might shut down at 7PM on Sunday, and we knew that if that happened, we couldn’t have a Sunday night show because there would be no way to get home.

Sunday morning I got a text from an actor, which was my first indication that the MTA had indeed decided to shut down. At that point it was just a matter of time to wait for official word from my GM, and a decision on whether we would go ahead with the matinee.

Soon it was decided that we would do the matinee, but the evening show was obviously cancelled. I used my favorite notification method of the modern world, sending an email to 56 people involved in the show (many of whom probably really didn’t care if we had a show, but you never know who might need that information), along with a request for the cast, crew and orchestra to reply to let me know they got the message. When that was sent, I drew up a small list on a post-it, numbering 1 through 12 on one side, and then separate spots for crew and orchestra. In the 12 spaces I wrote the names of my actors, and then filled in the names of the crew and orchestra, making sure to take subs into account. Then I waited for the emails to roll in, and crossed off the names as they checked in. After an hour I texted the three people who I hadn’t heard from, and got replies from them fairly quickly, satisfied that everyone needed for the operation of the show knew what was going on.

We did the matinee and then went our separate ways to wait out the storm, and see what the fate of our Tuesday night show would be (as an aside, we upgraded to an 8-show-a-week schedule this past week — or attempted to — leading to a lot of jokes that this is a sign from God that we shouldn’t do 8 shows).

Most people were keeping in touch on Facebook, and as the night, and the next day went on, some people lost power and managed to post about it, or text me, and every time I heard something that indicated a person might not have full access to the internet, I added their name to a list and made note of the circumstances. By the end of the day on Monday I had a complete picture of who had power, internet and cell service. I referenced this list every time I had new news to share, to make sure I texted the people who needed to be texted, and noticed the ones who didn’t respond, to keep tabs on the fact that they might not have gotten the message.

When we got news of the cancellation of the Tuesday performance, I even posted it on Facebook, just in case there were some people who had no access to their email or cell phones, but somehow were able to get on Facebook. I was able to cross off some names on my notification list based on their “likes” rather than responses to my emails or texts.

In addition to the questions about whether the show was going on, we had a lot of other issues hanging in the air. Even without the storm, this was a rough week for us, with numerous actors out, a put-in that not everyone was available for, and even a day where we were going to have to do the show with one track cut. As much as Sandy screwed up our plans, she also inadvertently fixed some of our problems: we had the luxury of being able to postpone the put-in rather than do it with many elements missing, and one of our actors who was supposed to be leaving town had his flight canceled, so he ended up in the show, giving us enough actors to cover the show properly. A lot of emails were flying around trying to work out all these things, and waiting for pieces of the puzzle to fall into place, but in the end it worked out quite well.

Thankfully no one on the production was completely without a way to get in touch with the outside world, and the worst case I had to deal with was an actor who had to leave his house and go down the block to get cell service, and thus would get my texts and emails, but only when he went out to seek them. We were especially lucky that no one’s home was significantly damaged.

Aside from the lights flickering ominously for several hours, and the wifi seeming to freeze once in a while, I never lost power or internet. Having to move out of Chelsea is the great heartbreak of my life, but there are some advantages to living on a mountain, miles from midtown. The disadvantage came on Wednesday, however, when the subways weren’t running, it’s been about 130 years since the streets of New York could handle road traffic without them. Buses were “running,” but it seemed to be a universal truth all over the city that the only way to actually get anywhere was to walk.

There are a bunch of us who live in Washington Heights, and my ASM Cassie and I decided to walk, as we didn’t want to risk being late, and at least we’d be sure to arrive at the time we intended. I walked about 30 blocks to her place, and then we walked another 120 blocks to the theatre (a total of 7.7 miles for me). It was actually a nice walk, and I got to see some parts of the city that I don’t usually pass on foot. We took some photos along the way, which are on display on Silence!’s Facebook page (I hope that link works). It took us a little over two hours, and we were pretty exhausted by the time we had to work, so the show is kind of a blur, but we did it. On the way home, the six of us going to Washington Heights piled into one person’s car, and with the traffic largely gone, we got home in a civilized manner.

I’m glad the shows are up and running, but the commute is still very rough for everyone coming from Brooklyn and Queens, so I’m hoping they get service back soon. I hope all you readers in the area got through the storm without too much trouble!


September 9, 2012

Opening Wishes

I call this: Uncategorized — Posted by KP @ 12:23 am

Tonight was (or is, I guess, it’s 9:03 there) the opening of Silence! in LA, which production I am very grateful for, as it’s the whole reason there was a job opening for me in New York.

Many of the people I’ve met in my short time on the show are working on that production, and all of us at Silence! New York are very excited to hear that the show is wowing audiences in LA.

For the past week, we’ve been asked to prepare an opening night gift for our LA colleagues: to shoot a congratulatory video backstage, and to take individual photos holding up a sign expressing our best wishes.

I helped out with taking a lot of the photos, and shot and edited the video. Today the Silence! LA Facebook page presented a compilation of our photos and video to the LA cast, as seen here:

The people I work with are crazy, in the best possible way.


August 23, 2012

The Best Thing About My Job

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 1:04 pm

You may know I have a bit of a problem with long runs. Namely that I never get them. While my most extensive experience with long runs involves a show that’s soon to celebrate its 25th year on Broadway, I still consider Silence!, which has been running a little over a year, to be a long run in terms of any show that I’ve worked on full-time.

So right now the thing I find most different from the shows I normally do is when I wake up in the morning and one of my actors is sick, and I’m like, “Oh, too bad! Feel better!” and then I send a couple texts and emails and go about my day.

We don’t have the most secure understudy situation in the world (1 male and 1 female swing), and there are definitely scenarios where very bad things could happen if the wrong two people were out, but for most cases we’re covered, and I didn’t even have to teach them their parts!

Taking over a show that’s already been running has been a strange experience for me, and in some ways I’m dealing with new-show issues (like the recent move to a new theatre), but walking into a situation where — first of all, there are swings — and everybody already knows their jobs, definitely eliminates some of the things I normally have to worry about (like that at any moment an actor could lose their voice or get food poisoning, and we’d be screwed). And on top of that, I have a sub! How cool is that?


August 9, 2012

Of Goats and Lambs

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:35 pm

I’m just gonna blog real quick. Maybe you’ve been wondering what the hell happened to me, after the triumphant opening of Triassic Parq. Well, I’ve been busy. And now I’m insanely busy, but I should write a little bit about it, because it’s kind of interesting.

A funny thing happened in the Off-Broadway world this summer. Triassic did not extend after its scheduled run through August 5, and the original PSM of Silence! The Musical was also leaving on August 5. A bunch of dear friends of mine, from many different departments of theatre, all got it in their heads independently that it would be a great idea if I became the PSM of Silence! despite the fact that taking over a show on the day your show closes is crazy. But I said, “No problem, I’ll catch up!” And so here I am.

The good thing about my first week at Silence! is that I’m getting to experience pretty much everything. We’ve had a new actor go in. We have an understudy going on for Lecter for the first time this weekend. On Sunday we’ll have four understudies on in our cast of 10. I’ve done a put-in. We got a new dance captain yesterday. We’re also still working out the kinks in a new theatre. So while it’s insanely busy, I’m getting a lot of things out of the way right off the bat, so there will be relatively little I haven’t experienced by the end of this week.

I wish I could talk more about the experience, but I have very little time, so I will share one observation:

In any case where I’ve come into a show that was already running, I have always had doubts in my ability to get up to speed. When I do a show from the beginning I know it so well that I always feel inadequate replacing someone in an already well-oiled machine.

However, every single time, as soon as I go from following people around training, to actually doing it myself, it feels totally natural, and I’m reminded that in a lot of ways every show is basically the same. People have told me over and over in my career, “Trust your instincts, you’ll know how to handle things.” And it never sounds that simple when I’m learning, but the moment I’m actually given responsibility it suddenly becomes easier.

I’ll probably go through this for the rest of my career, but at least now I’m starting to actually remember that I will calm down when the time comes.


July 6, 2012

My Cave of Ominous Solitude

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:15 pm


This is my booth at the Soho Playhouse. It’s also the closest thing we have to an office, so I’ve tried to make it comfortable.

For a truly immersive you-are-the-stage-manager-in-a-tiny-Off-Broadway-theatre experience, visit this link where you can drag the view around to see things in sort-of-3D.


June 10, 2012

Triassic Tech

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:51 pm

Well tech is basically done! We still have one 10-out-of-12 tomorrow, but it’s a rather unconventional one, as it will consist of both a photo call and our invited dress, which I think is an interesting way of doing it. It should be a fun day.

Here’s my tech table:

Yesterday we finished teching early in the day, then did a stop-and-start run out of costume (which only had like two stops, so it was basically a run), and then in the evening did our first full dress run. We’ve still been making significant changes, which is a struggle to keep up with now that all of us have our own responsibilities, but the changes are great, and well worth it!

The tech process has been going very well. I’ve got like 300 cues in a 90-minute show, so I’m pretty busy. I think there are about 3 pages that don’t have cues. Tomorrow I make the transition from calling the show to the assistant lighting designer, to running the Ion myself. I’m a little scared, because now I have to re-learn all the timing again, but I’m hoping I’ll just instinctively be able to figure it out. I get two (maybe three?) cracks at it before we have a paying audience. If you want to see if this is effective, feel free to go to triassicparq.com and buy tickets to Tuesday’s show!

As usual, I’m having a great time. We had a few people in the house last night who hadn’t seen any significant portion of a run before, which was nice (they appeared very entertained!), but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night when we’ll have people who, although they’re our friends, haven’t seen or read (or written) any of the show.


May 27, 2012

Triassic Parq – End of Week 2

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:42 pm

Another week of rehearsal comes to an end. Most notably during this week, I discovered the technique of measuring scenic drawings on a computer screen.

Yes it worked, and I didn’t even have to set my zoom level to something like 87.3% to get it to the right scale. There are old-fashioned ways of making theatre, like using a scale ruler to measure large rolled-up drawings that you keep in a corner behind your desk, and there are newfangled technological ways, like Vectorworks. And then there’s holding a ruler up to a PDF. Which also, apparently, works, at least for simple questions like “is the actual bench taller or shorter than the block we’re using in rehearsal?”

Our goal before we started was to have the show staged by the end of Week 2. I’m pleased to say that we made our goal half a day early. And it wasn’t one of those race-to-the-finish-line kind of processes where we just staged the show as fast as possible before going back and making it good. We took a lot of time along the way, and reviewed periodically, so not only does it exist on paper, but people actually know what they’re doing and have retained it.

Now we’re going back and doing what I would normally describe as “table work,” although in this case it’s more “sit in a circle work,” which is one of my favorite parts in the process. It’s sadly one that often gets skipped on a musical, because there’s just so much else to do in a limited amount of time. But it’s great that now that we have a solid sense of the big picture, we can go back and really explore what’s going on in individual moments, and apply that to the existing staging. We only had time to do that with two scenes yesterday, but it made an immediate difference.

I’m really excited to see what else comes out of these discussions. Between this and some improv exercises, a really detailed history has been created for the dinosaur community, to fill in the questions not explained directly in the script. Since most audience members probably aren’t familiar with the tribal structure that arises in the average genetically-engineered dinosaur park, I think this will help give a more complete picture of the world they’re stepping into (and speaking of stepping into, if you really want to step into this world, I recommend the onstage seating).

I’m still having a great time. My stage management team, which still doesn’t have a catchy dinosaur name, is still being amazing. They track the props, they look out for costume issues, they print and distribute the script updates, they ask the studio staff to crank the AC, they fill the water bottles, they get the coffee, and they keep the entire room fed with chocolate-covered small food items (espresso beans being the recent favorite). And a million other things expected and unexpected throughout the process.

From what we’re being told about ticket sales, we’re building an impressive advance, but for an Off-Broadway show to have any kind of advance is impressive. It’s really hard to get the word out before the show is open and people are seeing it. For that reason, I can’t wait till we start previews, because I think it will exceed expectations and I hope that people start to get excited about it.

If you’re in New York this summer, and you want to be like, “I read this cool website about stage management, and I knew this show was going to be amazing before anyone else,” you can buy your tickets now. And because you read this cool website, you now also know that to get 30% off tickets, you should use the discount code TPDINOS.

We ended our week with nearly everyone from the rehearsal room going out for dinner and drinks afterwards. It was a great way to celebrate the end of our second week, and the accomplishment of our staging milestone. On Wednesday we have a small press event during rehearsal. Due to what can only be described as awesome luck, we move into the theatre on Thursday. Tech starts next Tuesday. So excited!


May 20, 2012

Rehearsal Software

I call this: tech,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:36 pm

At the end of our first week of rehearsal, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the technology in use on this production.

DROPBOX

By far the star of the show is Dropbox, which is used both internally by the stage management team, and by the production manager to coordinate paperwork across the entire production (except for the cast, who get things from me by email, which is so late-20th-century, but it’s good practice to keep tentative information and schedules that concern other departments from confusing them).

This is the first production I’ve done where I had my Dropbox, and subscribed to another one for the wider team. It’s a little confusing, but I think the dual Dropbox is necessary to keep stage management documents accessible for us to collaborate on, without becoming public before we’re ready to share them. The system I’ve come up with (so far) is that when a document is shared, the PDF ends up on the production Dropbox, and the files used to make it stay on ours (unless it’s a document meant for others to edit).

We also keep our master script on our Dropbox, but place a copy of it on the production Dropbox at the end of every rehearsal, so if the writers need to edit it, they always have a current copy they can build from, and anyone else can see the current script, while at the same time we have control of our copy and how the changes go into it. As it turns out, so far all the script changes have happened in the rehearsal room, and they’ve been tiny. I had a real industrial-strength policy to handle script changes, which to this point has been total overkill.

Which brings me to a piece of paper-and-plastic technology I call the “Triassic Parq Post Office.” It’s a box of file folders which function as mailboxes for everyone in the room. When we have new paperwork, it’s put in the mailbox and each person can check their folder to receive new pages, calendars, whatever. This is something I always want on every show ever, and never get to do, for various reasons. But part of my industrial-strength script update policy was, “screw it, we’re doing mailboxes.” So far they’re very popular, and so far we haven’t had a single script update that modified more than four words per day, so the advantages of the mailbox haven’t had a chance to shine.

Near the mailboxes, on a table that is designed to attract actors and creatives like flies to honey, is the food table. On it we have various snacks, and seven labeled water bottles that we provided for the cast, to cut down on the amount of wasted water and containers that results when using cups or unlabeled bottles. There’s a gallon jug that we continually refill and leave on the table, so water is always available without leaving the room (the water fountain is on another floor). My two interns keep the bottles filled at the start of the day, and as the day progresses. It’s kind of like magic. It also encourages me to drink more water, because I really don’t have to do anything to make it appear on my desk.

Here’s the food table.

EVERNOTE

We’re using Evernote more on this show than I have in the past, which is partly a testament to the improvements they’ve made in sharing support in the past year.

A sample of what’s in our notebook:

  • A note where we indicate the page numbers that have changed that day. This makes it easier at the end of the day to quickly make a PDF of the day’s changed pages for printing.
  • A note for each of our production meetings (we’re up to #4, which is our next and last one) where I jot down questions that I want to bring up. During the meeting this is also the note where I take down the meeting minutes, which later get cleaned up and emailed to everyone. This note is pretty much only edited by me, but everyone can reference what I plan to ask about, and what the results of previous meetings were.
  • The rehearsal day checklist, which is kind of obvious, but I like having it just to remind us of the really basic things we need to get done, which I feel is perhaps even more important when you have a lot of people on your team and it’s easier to lose track of what hasn’t been done. The list includes things like lowering the shades on the windows (to keep the temperature down), checking the spike tape on the floor hasn’t been damaged, schedules are printed and distributed, water is refilled, the room is set correctly for the day’s work, etc.
  • A couple of cut-and-pastes from emails that have useful information we might want to reference in the future: our company manager’s summary of ticket policies, the description of a set piece that the designer sent me in response to an inquiry about how it works.
  • Cast checklist. Easy way to take attendance, or track the completion of something in which the names of cast members need to be checked off.
  • Music teaching checklist. Lists all the songs, and we check them off as they’re taught. You can also do the same thing with staging or choreography.
  • List of cast birthdays. One of Ashley’s first tasks during pre-production was to find out everyone’s birthday so we could have spectacular celebrations of the birth of our collaborators… only to find out that only one person has a birthday through the end of our currently-scheduled run in August (which is only one more reason we need to extend).

STAGEWRITE

We considered more extensive use of this app, but the fact that multiple iPads can’t access the same file makes it a $200 waste of money for more than one person to own it. Marshall (our director) bought it, and uses it to plan blocking before we started staging. In rehearsal, he also sometimes uses it to help the cast understand the big picture, by showing them the overhead view of the stage picture, so they can better understand where he’s asking them to be. StageWrite exports to PDF, which the rest of us have access to. Ashley found this very useful when creating breakdowns during pre-production. Of course we expect things to change as we’re staging, but having all of the director’s initial ideas clearly mapped out in a single PDF is a great head start. I have great hopes for this app, but they really need to make it possible to share the file so multiple people can edit it (I wrote to the developers about this when Marshall and I first discussed using it, and this is something they plan to add in the future). Sharing and syncing is becoming such an important part of how software works, that paying $200 for something that keeps your data stuck on a single device seems kind of old-fashioned. I look forward to it becoming more flexible.


May 16, 2012

First Week of Rehearsal

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:20 pm

We’re midway through our first week of rehearsal of Triassic Parq now. And mercifully, I am finally only working on one production, and able to devote all my time to it. Which means occasionally having time for blogging what I hope will be a very interesting process.

To recap, I spent last week in the office. I have an army of assistants on this show: my ASM Ashley, (who you may recall from the time I spent at the Guthrie in 2010, and my recent reading with The Old Globe this spring), and interns Carly and Sarah. At least one of them was always in the office, so I had lots of help printing and organizing paperwork, making Staples runs, attending meetings, trying kneepads on visiting actors, and a bunch of other random things that came up. We also found a few occasions to have lunch or dinner together as a stage management team, to get to know each other and figure out how we’re going to divide up the work.

This past Monday we began rehearsal. Our meet & greet, Equity meeting, and read-through went very smoothly, and with the pressures of putting on a punctual and organized first rehearsal for our assembled guests out of the way, we got down to the business of learning music for the rest of that day, and the following day.

Today was our first day of staging, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve probably said it a million times, but I hate taking blocking. However, I actually had a pretty good time with it today. By the end of the day I was feeling a little fried, as I’m sure the actors also were by having to retain so much new choreography, as well as lyrics and notes, but I really enjoyed seeing the show take shape, and tried to put all of my concentration into learning the show (even the choreography, which I usually leave to the dance captain, and don’t try to memorize or document down to every count). You may know that I don’t have a great track record of successful open runs or transfers. I have a strong feeling that this is the show that has a serious shot at being a hit, and I’m putting my all into treating it as such from a stage management perspective.

As always, I was dreading taking blocking, up until the point where I had to put pencil to paper to scrawl down the starting positions of the cast for their first entrance. It’s amazing how much more important and engaging it can feel when there’s at least a possibility that the blocking you take might need to be passed on to a successor, or used in staging a future production. There’s a lot that would need to happen before that becomes a reality, but then it would be a little late to decide to take good blocking, so I’m just going to assume that I’ll want all my notes to be as detailed as possible.

After rehearsal we had our third production meeting. We have been meeting regularly on Wednesdays since two weeks before rehearsal began, which I think is rather dedicated of us. We also have a meeting next Wednesday, and that will probably be our last one, as we move into the theatre a little more than a week after that, at which point we’ll be meeting daily. Our previous meetings have been well over an hour. This one was much shorter, more of a check-in, and as usual filled with people in good spirits, displaying a lot of enthusiasm for putting this show together.

I’m very excited to share more about the process as it progresses!

I leave you with a photo of our rehearsal room, which is actually within a couple inches of the width of the stage at Soho Playhouse (lazy stage managers, rejoice!). Also, that may be the most obnoxiously-placed rehearsal room column I’ve ever seen. It has, however, justified the presence of four stage managers in the room, as we all have a slightly different angle to report to each other what’s going on on the other side of the column.


April 29, 2012

Triassic Parq

I call this: theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:37 pm

I’ve had some big news recently — in the midst of stage managing three shows at once, I got promoted to PSM of the third show: a new Off-Broadway musical called Triassic Parq. The show won Best Musical at the Fringe in 2010, and will be running at the Soho Playhouse this summer, with hopes of a longer commercial run.

In brief, it’s a musical based on Jurassic Park, as the name implies, but it’s not a straight musicalization of the movie. It’s actually the story of what the dinosaurs are doing when they’re not eating people. It’s very funny and surprising. I started reading it on my commute and actually had to be careful not to bust out laughing in public a few times. It’s also a script where the stage directions are really funny and sarcastic, which I always love, as it gives insight into the minds of the writers. I haven’t met most of the creative team yet, but I can tell this will be a fun room to work in.

Since my promotion, I’m just starting to get caught up with the basic things I need to do. We almost have a calendar. I have successfully scheduled a production meeting that almost everyone can make (a miracle!). I’m planning to put contact information into the database tonight, which sets me up to start getting actor conflicts. And I’ve got the rehearsal script ready to be turned into our master stage management script whenever I can get to it (currently planned for tomorrow).

I don’t have much to say (and I’m insanely busy because I overbooked myself not knowing I was doing Triassic, and failed to back out of any of the jobs in time, not knowing I would be PSM of Triassic!) But this has the makings of a show I will write about a lot. Not to put the cart before the horse, but I’m approaching this as if it’s a show I will have to maintain. At any rate I’ll have to maintain it for over two months. I have penciled in the first day I want to have understudy rehearsal for July 2. The important thing is that if the show isn’t well-documented from the start, it becomes much harder to work with it later, so I want to be very meticulous about everything, for my own sake.

The other great thing is that the director shares my love of new technology (and iPads!), and we are considering using the new Stage Write software to document our blocking. I’ve never felt comfortable with any method of digital blocking I’ve seen, and my main gripe with this app is that you can only export as PDF, not share the actual app data so that multiple people can edit it (I have emailed the developer, and this is planned for a future version). The exciting thing about this process is that being surrounded by a bunch of young, technology-friendly creatives, I’m much less afraid to try to reinvent theatrical paperwork, knowing we might have some growing pains along the way. This is going to be a show for imaginative problem-solving (and I’m thrilled to have already been able to contribute some ideas for staging), so I think I can dream big when it comes to how we use technology to create and maintain the show. I just wish I wasn’t so damn busy with other shows right now, so I could sit in my apartment and just meditate about software and paperwork all day!

We start rehearsal in two weeks! Stay tuned!


« Newer Posts — Older Posts »