Is It Nap Time Yet?: a Stage/Time Management Ramble

I closed a show yesterday.  After 7 weeks of rehearsals, we had 3 preview shows, then a 5-week, Tues-Sun run. This particular show was unique in that is was actually a three play cycle running in rep with itself, so our last two Sundays were marathons - Part 1 at 2pm, Part 2 at 5 pm, and Part 3 at 8pm. All in all, a fairly standard run for a small but well-attended SF Bay Area theater. It was fun, rewarding, unique (definitely some stories that will get write-ups someday), and as is to be expected, I'm completely exhausted.

Yesterday, halfway through the marathon, a local director I know happened by and chatted with me for a moment, mentioning that he would be emailing me soon. This was, I'm sure, in reference to the fact that we've been email back-and-forth about me stage managing for his company sometime in the upcoming season.

Today, I got a message from the production coordinator of another local theater company who I know through a stage-managing friend, mentioning that some SM slots have opened up in their season.

"That's great!" I hear you say. "In this economy it's fantastic to be wanted for what you do and have possible job offers lining up!"  You're right, it is. It's great that I'm at a point where I'm known for being a good SM, and where people will both A) recommend me for jobs, and B) hire me on the strength of recommendations.   That is, in fact, how I got the gig I just closed: they lost their original SM right before rehearsals started, one of my actors from over the summer recommended me, and as the running joke went, they didn't even ask to see my resume, just my schedule. So yes, I'm thrilled that I'm getting job offers.

Trouble is, I'm really tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally - I am really, really tired. The thing that is the worst for me about working a show is that it leaves me with very little time for the stuff I'd like to do that is not immediately on a deadline or making me money (like writing, sewing, eating chocolate, playing the stupidly addictive Marvel Avengers Facebook game, etc.) So whenever I hit this mini-lull between the close of one show and the start of another, my knee-jerk reaction to people asking me to book up more time with SM gigs is basically "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

And then I get over it and make rational, grown-up decisions, but still.

See, the issue here, as best I can tell, is entirely one of time management. I know lots of stage managers who work full-time day job and run shows, and still have time to go out with friends two or three times a week, enjoy whatever their hobbies are, AND get a functional if not adequate amount of sleep every night (which is the real kicker). Obviously I'm doing something wrong, and I think it's got to do with time.  But is it not managing the time well, or do I actually have too much on my plate? It's a tricky one.

Plus, there's my least favorite consideration: the fiscal one. In my area, at my level, it is not possible to earn a living wage as a stage manager. That's fine, it is what it is. But it means that if I ever want to not live with my parents, I will have to either seriously up the ante as a stage manager (like, get to be top-level AEA and land some sweet rep or touring job), or more likely, I have to be able to get that living wage from somewhere else, like the aforementioned day job. That's possible. Most every stage manager I know has an office or retail job in addition to stage managing. But, the more hours you have to work to make what you need to live on, the less free time you have for anything but work...and we circle back around to my initial problem.

But the weirdest part of any of this ramble is that I constantly have to ask myself "Do I like stage managing?" because obviously if I don't, I should stop. But I think I do. Do I like it as much as I like writing plays or directing - no.  But it's a differently kind of like anyway, it's the kind that fulfills my not-quite-OCD and my type-A personality, rather than serving as my creative outlet.

So, here I sit in the mini-lull between shows. I'll check my email regularly this week and return whatever messages I get. I'm going on vacation, so I should get some time to write and hopefully reregulate my sleep cycle. And while I do all that, I'll ponder the bizarre nature of time and stage management and try to figure out how to tell when I really need a break and when I'm just being a wuss.

I Love the Smell of Office Supplies in the Morning: A Brief Introduction to Stage Management

Whenever I first tell people I’m in theater, the conversation generally starts off like this:

 Random Person: “How cool Are you an actor?”

 Me: “Not anymore. I mostly stage manage now.”

 Random Person: “Oh. Okay. What’s that?”

 Stage management is definitely one of the least glamorous jobs in theater and, if you’re doing it right, also one of the least visible. There is no Tony Award for Stage Management, and even if there was there would be no one to accept it; all the nominees would be off running shows.  So, I’m going to do my best to shed a little light on the mysterious and shadowy world of life behind the stage.

 A Brief (and Possibly Fictional) History of Stage Management

 In the history of theater, stage management is still relatively new. Since the SMs are usually too busy writing rehearsal reports and filling out building acquisition requests to contribute memoirs to the annals of time, we don’t have an exact date for the beginnings of the position. The concept of a stage manager seems to date back to Shakespeare (hey!) and Molière, although there is no record of what they actually did. (Some suggest their first job may have been as bouncers who kept non-company members from sneaking backstage.) Finally, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, everyone figured out that letting actors and playwrights manage everything as well as write and act was somewhat overcomplicated (especially with the advances in stagecraft and technology that were occurring), and so two distinct positions eventually evolved: the director, in charge of the creative elements of the play, and the stage manager, in charge of logistics, scheduling, and coordinating all the other personnel involved in the production.

 Okay, But What Does a Stage Manager Do?

 Short answer: everything.

The inevitable conclusion
of every stage management
team meeting.

 Well… not really, but some days it feels like it. The stage manager’s job usually starts months before the rehearsal process, attending meetings with the director and designers to take notes and build the schedules that will carry the production through to completion.  Although rehearsals for Hamlet and Merry Wives didn’t begin until June, I began attending production meetings and assisting at auditions in January. Because LSF works in repertory, we have the advantage of having two stage managers (yay!); however we also have the added challenge of having to schedule simultaneous rehearsals in two cities needing the same actors (resulting in many late-night phone calls and early-morning coffee-shop invasions as the SMs played what we started calling “scheduling Tetris”). Throughout rehearsals, the stage manager keeps the room running on schedule, keeps communications open between the director and designers, and of course, keeps notes on the staging, props used, costume changes, and all the other paperwork that will eventually become the master book during the run of the show. (The stage manager also functions as a psychiatrist, pharmacist, shuttle driver, and general handyperson during rehearsals. Unsurprisingly, many of us are also licensed bartenders.) Once performances roll around, the stage manager’s job is still a lot of paperwork – checklists before and after each show, reports on running times, and lists of cues. Traditionally, the stage manager “calls” the show, telling separate light and sound operators when to take cues. However, given the outdoor venue used by LSF, traditional calling is very difficult; the SMs are running their own light boards for these shows, and we’re lucky enough to have fantastic musicians who handle all the sound themselves!

 But Where’s the Fun in Paperwork?

Me, in the "light booth" behind the audience.

 Maybe I’m the exception, not the rule, but for me the fun of stage management is the organization. By taking on the mundane (and yes, occasionally boring) lists and schedules, the stage managers free the directors, actors, and designers to focus much more of their time and energy on letting their creative juices flow. Plus, I get the fun of being the problem solver.  Every night of Hamlet, I sit behind the audience and talk to my fantastic ASM on the radio so we can figure where the letter went (inside the actor’s pants pocket, as we suspected), what to do if one of the fencing gloves ever actually goes missing (conveniently, we have one right-handed actor and one left-handed, so they can share a pair), and of course, how to strike broken, misplaced, or windblown props and set pieces in the middle of a show (very, very carefully). We have a rigged costume, several quick changes, a sword fight (well, two…sort of), live music, a nontraditional playing space, and a half-ton Pageant Wagon that has to get moved just about every other show night.

 If we’re doing our jobs right as stage managers, the audience never sees or thinks about any of those things. They’re too busy being transported with the actors to the Forest of Windsor or the Castle of Elsinore, and we’re there to make sure nothing brings any of them back until the last bow has been taken. So please, pay no attention to the lady or gent behind the roadcase, and enjoy the show.

This piece was originally written for Livermore Shakespeare Festival's 10th Anniversary Blog.
Original Link: http://livermoreshakes.org/2012/07/stage-management/#more-2061

Go check out the rest of the LSF blog posts for some other fun commentary on various aspects of theater from auditions to commedia to baby skunks in an outdoor venue!

Building Your SM Kit: First Aid, Part 1

I've been bleeding a lot lately, as it is winter and my hands have decided to resemble Charlton Heston's lips after he's been dehydrating in the desert for weeks in The 10 Commandments.

And when they bleed, they look like the scene in Dracula, Dead and Loving It
where Renfield nicks his finger.

So, I thought now would be an ideal time to start my post series on what you should have in your box as a stage manager. (Sorry, kids, this is not the kinky kind of SM kit...well, I guess it could be, but that's a different blog.)

The Setup: Basically, every stage manager I know has their own version of the SM Kit, which is essentially their personal Mary Poppins bag out of which they will produce every/any thing that might possibly be asked for in the course of a show. Obviously the contents will vary from show to show and venue to venue, but there are a lot of basics that pretty much all SMs will have.

First Aid

When I was first building my kit, I just went to the store and bought this 140-piece sucker you see on the left here. (Confession: I just had to process stage vs house directions to remember if this photo was on the right or the left.) Anyway, something like this makes a great starter, because it comes with most of the basics. However, it also comes with a bunch of stuff you will hardly ever use, like a glowstick (not kidding), and stuff that you will need to use allthe time but should replace, like those flimsy plastic tweezers (more on those later).

But, as many years and several boo-boo prone actors have taught me, there are certain items that you will need all the darn time and should stock in bulk. Here's a few of the items that I've found are indispensable parts of my kit.

Band-Aids

We're starting here because of my blood-gushing hands. I am of the opinion that everyone should have Band-Aids on their person all the time, but especially if you are in charge of a room full of actors. Actors are a unique species of human, as they are so dedicated to whatever they're pretending to do that they will frequently forget about the real-world consequences of that action. (Strangely, this is also a common problem among internet trolls. Huh.) There is one gal I've worked with several times who is notorious for this: she will crawl on the floor, jump onto furniture, do pretty-much anything the director asks her to do, and then when I call break she'll come over to me and say "Umm...by the way I'm bleeding." Every single show we've worked on. Even the one where Iwas the sound crew, not the SM. So needless to say, I keep a lot of Band-Aids on hand. here are a few of my favorites:

Clear Water-Block Band-Aids:

There are a gift from heaven. They're completely clear except for the little gauze patch, which is approximately the right flesh-tone of a Cullen vampire, but that's easy to cover. No, the great thing about these is that once you adhere the thin water-block membrane to skin, it will stay on forever if you want it to, which is great when you need to get through a performance. The only down side is that if there is a gap anywhere they will start to peel off, so they're not so great for bendy places like fingers. But that's okay, because we also have...

Flexible Fabric Knuckle & Fingertip Band-Aids:

Those silly butterfly fingertip ones will be the most-used bandages in your box. Not only do they help with "I-stabbed-myself-on-a-wood-staple" ouchies, but they also solve the "I-have-a-hangnail" problem BEFORE blood is shed and, in larger venues, are a great solution to "I-need-neutral-nails-in-scene-one-but-they-have-to-be-painted-in-scene-two." (Or in my case, I was a dude most of Act One and then had one scene to become a chick right before intermission.) Another great problem solver comes in the form of...

Extra-Large Tough Strips:

No one actually uses these to staunch bleeding. If you're bleeding enough to need one of these, you're probably already onto the next item in this list. No, these are used for covering up tattoos under clothing that is light-colored or sheer enough for your ill-advised Tri-Force symbol to show through. Obviously if the tattoo is somewhere not covered by clothes, you'll need concealer (or to stop auditioning for period pieces). But if it's under clothing, the Band-Aid is a nice solution to not wearing a bunch of makeup under your clothes and incurring the costumer's wrath. However, if you are bleeding enough that you need something large...

Gaffer's Tape.

Look, if you're bleeding enough to need a larger Band-Aid than the first one on this list, you're probably going to to have to go to the hospital because there will be some OSHA/Equity/other policy that requires forms to be filled out and such. At that point, we're gonna put a clean dishrag or softgoods scrap over the wound, wrap gaff around it, and dump you in the back of somebody's car to go get stitches.

Drugs

This is not nearly as exciting as it sounds.

But I can sure make it seem like it is.

I keep all my entirely legal drugs in their original bubble-packs, or I repack them into dime-bags, which has made more than one actor comment ask what I actually do on my weekdays. I just find that Sammy the Sketch-Head who hangs out across the street from the theater has much more effective ways to consolidate pills into small, easy to transport containers, okay?

Anyway, my stash generally includes the following:

- Tylenol/ some acetaminophen-based painkiller

- Advil/some ibuprofin-based painkiller

I carry both kinds because I've had different actors who could only take one of the other. One of them couldn't take ibuprofin because of another medication they were on, another just reacted badly to acetaminophen. Also, I try to carry them in both regular and liquid-gel form, because I know many people who can't swallow large pills easily. (One gal resolved this by biting off the end of the gel-cap and swallowing the liquid. I cannot speak to the safety of that method, but that's what she did.) Children's chewables are also a great option, but make sure you know the difference in the doses.

Yes I'm sure they're children's pills, see the bright colors?
Just take them already so we can get back to blocking.

The rest of my pill selection is also pretty straightforward.

- Mucinex/generic equivalent

- DayQuill/generic eqivalent

- EmergenC/vitamin C tablets

- dark chocolate (the more women you have in your cast, the more of this you'll need)

Now, there's plenty more that I keep in my First Aid box (not to mention the rest of my SM Kit) but as this post has already gotten insanely longer than I originally intended, I'm going to end this post for now and save everything else for another time. For now, I'm gonna go slather my hands in lotion and watch a movie...maybe Lawrence of Arabia. Seems appropriate.

New Year, New Post, New Plan

So, first things first. I've given the blog a rename, because I want to be able to talk about more than just Stage Management, and as I frequently joke "The Internet is ten blocks away from everything!" So you'll (hopefully) be getting thoughts and updates on pretty much anything theater, be it mine or others'. I may add in reviews of shows I see, because why the hell not, and of course I reserve the right to plug my own projects and/or talk about things completely unrelated if I damn well feel like it.

And now, a quick recap of 2011 and the current 2012 lineup:

2011

* Directed 3 One-Acts, 2 at LPC and 1 at SFSU

* Stage Managed Jump: A Love Story (June-Oct) and Bad Hamlet (Nov-Dec)

* Asst. Directed Jump (and threw in my 2-cents on Bad Hamlet when asked)

* PA'ed a short film, something I hope I get to do again

* and a One-Act that I wrote (woo-hoo!) got a staged reading

For 2012

* SFSU One-Act Fringe - I'm helping produce, directing a set of short pieces in one round, and the One-Act that got a reading last year is getting staged in another round

* Livermore Shakespeare Festival - I'm stage managing one of their summer shows. I won't know which one until we get the second SM, so right now I'm helping with both.

* ...who knows? Hopefully I'll get some writing and such to a point that I can get some theater/film projects rolling. We'll see.

Horrifying Conclusions

The other day on my way home from rehearsal in SF, I was struck by a horrifying thought: what if stage management is God's way of preparing me to have children. And it's not like I had a terrible rehearsal or anything; actually, it was great, and everybody was really on top of their game. But as I was typing the rehearsal report I started thinking about all the things I've been doing on my last two SM gigs:

-- Coordinating eight separate schedules to make sure everyone shows up where they need to be on time.
-- Emailing the office to make sure we have a space to play in.
-- Putting everything away when we're done using it at the end of the night.
-- Mediating heated discussions about insignificant details and facilitating mutually beneficial compromises (though this was definitely the last gig I was on, not the current one).
-- Making sure that everyone eats, gets potty breaks, and takes their vitamins, except myself of course.

And of course when we get into the actual performance space I'll be keeping track of everybody's stuff and seeing that everything gets done the way we need it to happen. There's even a good dose of sleep deprivation and kissing boo-boos…it's all the tropes of parenting, but minus having to rent out my uterus for nine months.

And then I realize that I keep doing this voluntarily, and know that I may, in fact, be doomed to procreate. At least I can rest secure in knowing that I will always be able to blame theater for why my kids got so screwed up. My mom does it all the time.

Two New Projects, and a Headset in a Pear Tree

Because when I return, I return with a vengance...

After a semester sadly bereft of stage management, I am now diving headfirst into, not one, but TWO new projects, and both are entirely different than anything I've done before. It's both exciting and terrifying, and will probably give me a lot of fodder with this dusty old thing.

The first project, which I've been aware of for a while but we've just started to really work on, is a piece called Jump: A Love Story, which will go up this coming October. It's actually the MA thesis project of one of SFSU students who wrote for the One-Act Fringe which I stage managed back in October of '10. It's not so much a play as what we're calling a "multimedia expressionist theatre investigation", incorporating movement, film, animation, theater, found and original text, and whatever else we decide to incorporate. The...well, maybe story isn't the proper word...the premise incorporates a young man who is preparing to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, and a chorus of seagulls associated to Shakespeare's Juliet, Ophelia, and Cleopatra. It's very difficult to describe, but it's going to be a unique and interesting experience. In addition to stage managing, I'm also semi-assisstant directing, and I'm quite looking forward to the very collaborative nature of the project.

The second project is much more short term: I'm stage-managing-behind-the-camera, or as we call it, "producing," a short film written and directed by one of my friends who goes to the Academy of Art. The filsm is called Amelioration and deals with the repercussions of child abuse and the hope that love can heal. It's a pretty deep subject, and to boot it's my first real foray into film (the true first doesn't count). Still, I'm thrilled to be a part of it, and my job is mostly emails and paperwork, so there's not much change from my stage work.

Both projects are all over Facebook and Twitter (go social networking!), so I'm going to do a link-dump here to get it out in the open now, and you can expect jucier updates to come soon!

Links for Jump: A Love Story:
Production Blog: http://jumplovestory.wordpress.com/about/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Jump-A-Love-Story/191452540890869
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jumpalovestory

Links for Amelioration:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Amelioration/209654252384320
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Amelioration11

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Headset

Last semester, I took two classes in conjunction with stage managing one of the mainstage shows at my university. One of these classes was a class everyone is required to take in order to get their theater degree, and is essentially a crafty way for the faculty to staff all the productions under the guise of teaching you "Leadership" and "Organization". This year the class was taught by our fantastic new Production Manager. He was fantastic for three major reasons

1. He's a damn good Production Manager with a great deal of experience as not only a PM, but also a lighting designer, a director, a musician, a stage manager, and a dad of two youngish kids.

2. He was only teaching the Stage Management/Production Management type classes, unlike the few semesters when we had no PM and so the Lighting Design instructor and the Playwrighting instructor tag-teamed on the class. Don't get me wrong, they're both good PMs too, but they were each teaching a dozen classes, while our new PM was teaching two.

3. He used to be in a punk band in the 80s and would let us diatribe about all kinds of silly things.

So one day we're in class discussing tech week: what it is, how it works, and specifically how the stage manager fits into the whole thing. The Stage Manager is the calm in the center of the storm. The Stage Manager answers all the questions, calls all the shots, and keeps the train on the tracks. The Stage Manager is God, pulling together the universe on a tiny theatrical scale in just six days (and probably passing out with a bottle of Two-Buck-Chuck on the seventh).

It sounds kind of awesome when you talk about it, but being the prime deity in your own private universe isn't all it's cracked up to be. Everybody is running around like crazy. Things are breaking, malfunctioning, and disappearing, and everyone wants your undivided attention to fix their specific area of the production and they want that attention right-fucking-now. And you who are responsible for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that is about to implode must look each person squarely in the eye, smile, and in the soothing voice reserved for babies and puppies tell them exactly what they are going to do next to fix the problem and move forward.

Shockingly, it is incredibly difficult to be the only calm one in the room when everything you are in charge of is in chaos.

It sucks a little bit too, because theater is kind of incestuous. So, 95% of the time you're surrounded by friends, or people you were at school with, or relatives, or that company you hate because their sell-outs but they were the only paying gig you could get, or people who have 10+ years experience on you because you're fulfilling their EOE requirements, and you're trying to make it known that despite all of these facts, from the moment they enter to the moment they exit the building you are in charge. It is scary. It can be difficult. It is probably the one element of stage management that I personally am the least comfortable with, because I never want to step on anyone's toes, but sometimes you have to…and then you politely explain to them why their toes shouldn't have been there in the first place, because you are the stage manager, and you are doing your job, and they need to do theirs. And it's fucking terrifying when you have to do that. But everyone has to listen to and respect the stage manager in order for things to get done, whether they like you or not. (This is assuming that you're good at your job - stage managers who suck at their jobs will be another post or twelve.)

So we're wrapping up all this discussion, and the PM says "So, how would you summarize the job of the Stage Manager? In tech week, in general, whatever you want. Anybody?"

And, still half-asleep and practically drooling on my binder (because this particular day of class is in the middle of tech week for the show I am stage managing and I had been up until 2am doing paperwork before getting up at 6:30am to catch my train), I raise my hand and say, "Speak softly and carry a big headset?"

Apparently being half-dead makes me more snarky than usual, but he liked it anyway.

Zen and the Art of Binder Maintenance

Backtrack to the middle of October. I've just finished a ten-or-so week long process of stage managing a show. Sunday morning, right before I took off for the final performance, I stood in the doorway of my room and looked around. A quote from someone far wiser than I popped into my head: "phenomenal cosmic power...itty-bitty living space." Allow me to show you what I mean.

I realized three things as I looked at this debacle:
1. Not putting laundry away for over a month could explain why I couldn't find all three of my long-sleeved black shirts.
2. I have too many books (technically I knew that, but still).
3. This could explain why I've been having such trouble sleeping and getting my non-SM homework done.

"But," I hear you all say, "your bed [not pictured] is perfectly clear for sleeping in, and don't you have an hour on the train ride home each night to do your homework?" Technically, yes; in fact all three of the essays I turned in during the course of the rehearsal process were written at least partially on the train, and despite getting home at 1am only to get up again at 6am I did come home and sleep in my own bed every night. However, that's not really what I'm getting at here.

Whenever I'm attempting to write, be it fiction or school assignment, I pace in circles around the dining room table. In high school, my friend Sam said that he saw the pacing as a physical manifestation of my thought process. The act of walking represented the mental progression from some Point A to a Point B, and as soon as my mind reached a logical stopping place, I would stop pacing and be able to sit down and write. The state of my room is also a physical manifestation, this time of my general mental state. I clean my room when I'm really upset. Like, haul everything out of the closet and develop. And usually by the time I'm not upset anymore, my room is in pretty good shape. Again, physical reflection of mental state.

"But what does this have to do with Stage Management?" you all grumble.

Well, folks, it has to do with maintaining your own zen, for lack of a better way to say it. Stage Management is probably 75% paperwork and organization. If your personal space, the place where you escape from your SM duties, is a mess, most likely your brain will be too, and the more scrambled your brain, the more scrambled your paperwork will be. At the point of greatest stress in this last show, the week leading up to and week of tech, my binder was missing all kinds of paperwork and my emails were going out days late. My room also looked like a bomb went off. Once I got over the hump of tech, hung some shirts up in the closet and put all my socks away, my emails were more consistent and my paperwork was better organized again.

It really sucks, because when I'm Stage Managing in The City and living in The Suburbs I spend more time on trains and buses commuting than I really do at home. I think most SMs have this sort of problem; half my cast was utterly convinced that I was living in the building because they would leave the building while I was putting things away, and in the morning they'd arrive and I'd already be sending emails in the office. One of my actors had quite literally not done laundry in over a month and was borrowing clean clothes from a friend; the same actor spent about six night a week crashing somewhere other than her own apartment. Functioning on these less-than-ideal schedules, it's no wonder that one's personal space begins to resemble an archaeological dig site.

Honestly though? It's just as important to go be in that space, organized or not. When you spend all your time around other people, especially the people you're working with, you eventually show up to rehearsal covered in your own feces and screaming gibberish. Not that I've had personal experience with this, yet, but there are stories…

And now, a month after the shell of this diatribe was originally written, I look around and realize that my room looks about the same, though the piles are now more neatly categorized into groupings such as "schoolwork," "random books," "discarded Hallowe'en costume pieces," and "dead kittens." Remember kids, do as I say, not as the things living under my bed tell you to do.