Stage Manager Musings

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So for my show last night the director decided to add a curtain speech with the music director. We got a sub fader for them to give the speech on the apron and a mic for them. Talked about it beforehand and thought we were all totally clear about how that was going to happen.

Top of show comes, the safety speech happens as planned… And no one comes to the stage for the curtain speech. So I tell the ASM on headset to send the director & music director on. Conversation goes like this:

ASM: They’re waiting for you to fly the main drape out.

Me: We’re not flying the main drape out. That is after the speech.

ASM: Okay, they’re on stage and ready for you to fly the main drape out.

Me: We are not flying the main drape out.

ASM: When are we flying the main drape out?

Me: After the speech. We do not have lights programed for before the speech.

ASM: Oh. How are they getting on?

Me:  They can walk out through the curtain or through the backstage right entrance to the apron.

ASM: They don’t know how to do that.

So the ASM shows them where to go and the speech happens.

Exiting from the stage, they could not find the exits and fumbled around backstage for like three minutes cursing. After they found out where they were, they remembered the mic and started freaking out because they didn’t know that it was muted.


Lesson: Rehearse everything. Even if you think you got it.

Hi! I'm a junior in high school, and I plan on majoring in tech theatre in college. I'm currently the AD/SM for the school musical. Do you have any other tips for gaining experience and learning about stage managing before getting to college? This will be my first time calling a show, and I'm super nervous. Is that normal? Do you have any tips to prepare for calling a show, and how to get over the nerves?

pretriichor

Hi! 

It is perfectly normal to feel nervous for your first time calling a show! Some tips I have for calling shows (some of these may seem basic, but I would rather over-inform than under-inform):

  • Keep your voice steady and calm. You can still end up saying, “Well fucking tits that was fucked that up”, so long as you are calm about it. The tone of your voice will guide the rest of the crew.
  • NEVER NEVER NEVER say GO unless you are GOing a cue. If you are referring to the GO at any other point, call it the G-O. This is to prevent when a scenario where the board op has zoned out and suddenly picks up on a key word. “What did she say? Was it GO? Shit, did she say lights or sound before that? I’m gonna take the cue anyway.” It also helps to carefully articulate any word that sounds like GO.
  • When I usually call cues: Warning - 2 pages out from the cue, only called if that particular board op hasn’t had a cue in a while. Standby - 2-3 lines (depending upon the length of the lines) before the GO. GO - About a breath before the cue (this allows to time for the board op processing that you said GO and them pressing the button).

As for calming your nerves, that will vary dependent on what is best for you. Some recommendations I have are:

  • Before calling the show, take 10 minutes to not do anything related to the show. Do not work on something else. It is sometimes extremely necessary to remove yourself from the situation so you can rejoin everyone focused and in control.
  • Practice calling your cues! Just like everyone else in that theatre, you need to practice, too.
  • Fake it until you make it. I do this often, where I see myself as playing the role of Bad Ass Stage Manager. Putting this face on makes others interact with me as Bad Ass Stage Manager, which eventually changes the way I feel about myself as a stage manager.

And last of all – gaining knowledge/experience about stage management prior to college. Here are a few things that may be helpful:

  • Volunteer/intern at a local theatre. Many places will be glad to have the extra hand.
  • Look into purchasing / borrowing from a library Stage Management by Lawrence Stern (link provided to the 9th edition because it’s not much different than the 10th edition and significantly cheaper). This is an excellent resource for an early stage manager. It is not meant to be read back to front, but to be flipped open when you need a response to scenario.
  • Read up on the Actor’s Equity Association rules.

Stage Manager Coping Strategies

  • do some paperwork (even if you’re behind! you’ll feel better to even just fill in one bit of information!)
  • make a spreadsheet of your other coping strategies 
  • make a to do list full of things you already did just to be able to check it off
  • listen to music from your favorite show
  • look at some old paperwork that you did really well
  • check out some paperwork samples on smnetwork
  • practice calling cues

things that happened at final dress:

  • there were about 10 new light cues in difficult sequences that the lighting designer forgot to give me
  • the cues for several more lighting cues had changed without my knowledge and the designer would GO these cues since I wasn’t, so I kept looking up after calling something else and being like, “I guess we’re in Lights 183 now”.

  • there were 3 new projection cues the projection designer forgot to give me

  • the fire alarm went off and we lost 20 minutes of preshow. We only started 7 minutes late and 2 of those minutes were because someone locked us out of an entry way and we had to wait to be let in.

  • the monitors in the booth picked up sound cues incredibly well, but not actors speaking, so I couldn’t hear about 45% of my cue lines.

What is your process for taking blocking notes? How do you lay out a script? What is your basic shorthand? If the director tends to change blocking how do you handle that? Thanks!!

rocky-horror-shit-show

Hi there!


For taking blocking notes, it varies from show to show. For example, when I worked on Stuart Little with a cast aged 7-16, I literally wrote everything down. For opera, I tend to only make note of entrances/exits, the general placement on the stage, and track props. For musicals and plays, I tend to have a mixture of the two.


As for script layout, I generally have a non-scale copy of the ground plan on the blank side of the page. If I can, I write blocking under the ground plan and diagram basic placement. I number these so I can place them on the text side of the page. Currently my ground plan side is usually the left page, but I’m thinking about switching it to the right to make it easier to write blocking quickly.


My shorthand is usually:

One initial per person/character

x - cross

cc - counter cross

-> - to

Δ - quick change

and I normally do some quick drawings of stairs and chairs if they are used


If a director changes the blocking often, I normally just have to do a lot of erasing. It means I have to be more diligent with blocking, because everyone will forget which version of the blocking we’re on. This means my script usually becomes a giant mess and I haven’t found a good way to remedy this yet. I usually will print a new copy for my call script, though.

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