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Items: | Guidance from above |
| Ruth Mitchell |
| Lyrically and Reverently Blessing the Stage Manager |
| USITT Stage Management Award |
| BC/EFA Flea Market |
| Balancing act: Making the scenery dance |
Guidance from above
The Times 12/24/00
© 2000 The Times
By ANNE LEVIN
Staff Writer
It's chilly in the darkened control booth at McCarter
Theatre. But Cheryl Mintz, production stage manager for the theater's elaborate new version of "A Christmas Carol,"
fans her face with a beautifully manicured hand.
The curtain is about to rise on the second performance of the show, a school matinee. The microphone into the
theater, into which Mintz attempts to deliver a hearty pre-curtain welcome to the audience of eager students,
isn't working.
But her intermittent face-fanning is Mintz's only display of nerves this December morning. As McCarter's resident
stage manager for the past seven years, she has weathered much worse than a faulty mike.
"No announcement," she says decisively into her headset, informing the crew backstage of her snap decision to go
without the welcome. "Forget it. Let's start."
Mintz opens her script and smooths it out on the desk in front of her. The headset that connects her to the
backstage crew is in place. Other microphones that connect to other parts of the theater are at her fingertips. A
line of switches to be flicked at various points during the show is in front of her, at the ready.
The control booth feels like a cockpit, with Mintz awaiting takeoff at the controls. In fact, you could call her the pilot
for "A Christmas Carol." As stage manager, she guides the actors and the crew through each production from her quiet
booth high up in the theater, behind the balcony seats.
Her sense of calm is commendable.
"Being a stage manager is about having your systems in place," she says. "If you have your formula and know how
to do things, you're fine. If you don't have your machine running correctly, there's no payoff."
A half hour before curtain, Mintz is backstage conferring with technical staff.
"Do you have your running shoes on?" she asks a visitor who will follow her on her pre-performance rounds. "Let's
go."
Mintz makes her way around the theater with impressive speed. Gliding down the stairs to the dressing rooms
where actors are being made up and crammed into their tight Victorian-era costumes, she stops to greet a few of
the children with a warm hug. Then it's on to the grown-up
actors, who have a few concerns to express.
"What about this new snow?" asks one woman. "Will it evaporate before it hits the floor? I'm worried about it being
slippery when we do the dance."
Another actress has similar concerns. Mintz assures them that the new brand of fake snow that they are trying out at
this performance will indeed evaporate. But at the last minute, she decides to cancel the falling flakes in the first
act; she leaves the final snow scene intact.
"They're freaking out about the snow," she says
matter-of-factly into her headset when she arrives in the control booth. "So let's forget it except for the end."
If Mintz is part pilot, she is also part den mother. She knows what everyone is doing almost all of the time. When
a child in the cast is late arriving at the theater but gets there just in time, Mintz is relieved. But she wants to know
why she was late (the taxi didn't pick her up at school as planned).
"A Christmas Carol," which ends its 20-performance run today, is probably the biggest, most complex show that
McCarter Theatre has ever staged. Designer Ming Cho Lee's new sets are big and elaborate. There are 84
costumes to worry about, and 250 different lighting instruments.
But "A Christmas Carol" is a longtime McCarter tradition. The former version by Scott Ellis was less technically
challenging, but its story and dramatic elements weren't all that different from the current show. Director Michael
Unger, who headed the Ellis production for the past two years, chose to do an adaptation by David Thompson
rather than a total revamping.
"Michael Unger and I have worked together for three years now," says Mintz. "So it doesn't get frantic and crazy,
because we know each other so well. We listen to each other. And we know `A Christmas Carol' so well. People
have been working incredible hours on this, but I have to
say I've been through far more stressful rehearsal
processes on a one-set show with only six actors."
Mintz knew she wanted to make her life in the theater by the time she was 17. She grew up on Long Island and is a
graduate of the State University of New York and Yale University's prestigious School of Drama.
"In 11th grade, I was so paranoid I wouldn't get cast in `The Crucible' that I took the stage manager job," says Mintz,
now 38. "In college, I wasn't quite sure how to make a living in this business. But I figured it out."
After earning her Master of Fine Arts degree at Yale with a concentration in stage management, Mintz worked for two
years on Broadway and on national tours. She found a permanent place at the New York City Opera, and stayed
several years.
While stage-managing operas, Mintz did some free-lance work at McCarter. Ten years ago, she joined the staff full
time. She has been resident stage manager for seven years.
"I like to have a commitment to an organization," she says. "And I've been very fortunate in that I've never had to work
in a hokey dinner theater or in `Cats.' I've had artistic satisfaction at McCarter, committing to an organization
and making a living at the same time."
Emily Mann's production of "Meshugah" in 1998 was one of Mintz's most rewarding experiences at the theater.
"Not only was it a huge stage management challenge, but I was involved in the play from the beginning," she says.
"And I happen to be Jewish, so it was especially meaningful." (The show is about Jewish themes.)
Mintz usually stage-manages about four out of six
productions a season. For the two she doesn't do herself, she hires the stage managers. And she knows what to
look for.
"You have to have calm," she says. "I don't know if that's something you can develop. When I hire an intern, it's
about refining intuition. You have to have the intuition, tact and finesse to ultimately do this job."
What Mintz does in the control booth is known as "calling the show." A stage manager does that at every
performance in the theater.
"Calling the show is the final product of the whole
stage-management process," she says. "And it does get hairy at times. Things happen. We've stopped shows
because light bulbs crashed, things like that. You have to have in your head what you're going to say to the audience
at a moment like that."
Mintz enjoys working with children, an opportunity she gets each year with "A Christmas Carol."
"I can go into cruise control with kid management," she says. "Having them around makes it a really happy place
to be. It's invigorating. It makes us all think and realize why we're doing this."
Putting together the new production of "Christmas Carol" was a puzzle, but not as difficult as it could have been
because the same script from the old production was used.
"The Odyssey," on the other hand, produced earlier this season, was "a
humongous technical puzzle," says Mintz. "So was `Greensboro.' For me as a stage manager,
`Greensboro" and `Meshugah' are up there as far more complicated for me to put together, even though they had
smaller casts."
Mintz is a strict professional with a firm sense of order. But she is human, after all. At the last scene of `A Christmas
Carol,' when Scrooge sweeps Tiny Tim into his arms, even she is moved to tears -- sometimes.
"When I'm in the audience," Mintz says. "But never in the booth."
Ruth Mitchell, 81, Producer Who Energized Broadway
New York Times - Nov 8, 2000 (JESSE McKINLEY)
Copyright © New York Times Company Nov 8, 2000
Ruth Mitchell, one of Broadway's best-known backstage bosses who parlayed her professional prowess and personal flair into a successful producing career, died on Friday in Manhattan. She was 81.
Ms. Mitchell hailed from the tough streets of Newark, and it showed in her decision to work as a stage manager, a thankless profession whose duties include everything from making sure that the actors' coffee is hot to untangling chorus girls involved in a dressing room brawl. In her own words, the only things Ms. Mitchell didn't have to worry about were singing the hit song or selling orange drink in the lobby. Everything else was in her bailiwick.
By all accounts, she was up to the job, acting as both strict taskmaster for her producers and an advocate for the actors in her shows, which included landmark American musicals like West Side Story, "Gypsy", "The King and I" and "Bells Are Ringing." Later, working with her longtime mentor, the director and producer Hal Prince, Ms. Mitchell also helped produce "Cabaret," "Company" and "A Little Night Music," each of which won the Tony Award for best musical.
A theater fan from early childhood, Ms. Mitchell attended dance classes and subsequently spent several summers hoofing on the summer theater circuit. Her stage managing career began in 1943 while she was a chorus girl in a Shubert musical entitled "Cocktails at 5." But the show was lousy, she said in a 1958 interview, so she took refuge as the second assistant stage manager.
Stage management quickly became her primary profession, and she soon found herself in charge of shows with stars like Tallulah Bankhead, who once said that Ms. Mitchell would have been the most perfect person in the world if she could only play bridge.
Although no longer a professional actress, Ms. Mitchell never lost her flair for the dramatic. A small brunette, she had a fondness for capes and mink and often wore them on her opening nights.
In 1949, she even took over a small role in the play "Mister Roberts," with Henry Fonda, for a week when the actress playing the part went on vacation. And while Mr. Prince called her "the chic-est stage manager on Broadway," Ms. Mitchell was also known to be able to out-curse the coarsest of stagehands.
Her dedication and care for detail quickly became legendary on Broadway. She kept, for example, a complete list of the best doctors in every major city on the East Coast in case actors got sick on the road, as well as a list of popular bars and restaurants.
On the opening night of "She Loves Me" in 1963, the curtain got stuck while rising during the overture. Ms. Mitchell, who was sitting in the audience in formal wear, climbed onstage to unhitch the curtain. She did, and the show, as they say, went on.
She is survived by her companion, Florence Klotz, and a sister, Juliette Fleischer, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Lyrically and Reverently Blessing the Stage Manager
New York Times - Sep 20, 2000 (Jennifer Dunning)
Copyright © New York Times Company Sep 20, 2000
Those who labor backstage are seldom acknowledged in the theater. But colleagues of Maxine Glorsky, the longtime dance stage manager, paid tribute to her last Wednesday night at the Joyce Theater in an impressively produced program of witty reminiscences and good dance by seasoned performers and choreographers who worked with her. And she made a gesture of her own.
The evening, organized by the dancers Richard Daniels, Rebecca Rigert and Vernon Scott and the lighting designer Clifton Taylor, opened with just the right lyrical benediction from Lori Belilove in Isadora Duncan's ''Blue Danube.'' Next came a flamelike excerpt from Nancy Turano's ''Carmen,'' its three Carmens danced with stylized passion by Benedetta Capanna, I-Fang Huang and Ms. Turano. Scott Rink contributed a duet, which he danced with Lenna Parr, that was an earthy yet mysterious embrace.
Janie Brendel claimed the stage with formidable delicacy in an excerpt from Peggy Baker's ''Her Heart.'' As strong were the presences of Dirk Platzek and Christine Wright, a performer of exquisite acuity, in a clinging duet from Zvi Gotheiner's ''Amber Room.''
Four members of the Joyce Trisler Danscompany injected a dose of revivifying old-time modern-dance force and grandeur in an excerpt from Trisler's ''Four Against the Gods,'' performed by Cathleen Sweeney, Jocelyn Soulet, Dana Parrott and Regina Larkin. And Elisa Monte and David Brown came out of retirement for an excerpt, danced with affecting power and simplicity, from Ms. Monte's ''Treading.''
Ms. Rigert and Mr. Platzek were iconic figures, tethered yet airborne, in a duet from Lar Lubovitch's ''Meadow.'' Ms. Glorsky took the stage on video in Nuria Olive-Belles's ''Voice Amidst the Wings,'' an affectionate, revealing look at the woman, her profession and the dance history she has witnessed firsthand in her 40 years on the job.
Ms. Baker, big, bold and invincible in her solo ''Words Fail,'' was followed amusingly by three offhand, flighty temptresses in Amy O'Brien's ''Vessel,'' performed by Raquel Aedo, Emily Coates and Emmanuele Phuon of the White Oak Dance Project. Richard Daniels allowed every moment to breathe in his ''Ghazi.'' And eight members of Buglisi/Foreman Dance ended the evening with a ballroom dance from Donlin Foreman's ''Last Call'' that was like a gentle wave goodbye.
The musicians who performed live were the singer Jack Donohue and the instrumentalists Jono Mainelli, John Gavalchin, Shauna Rolston and Pedja Muzijevic. The speakers included an impassioned Mr. Lubovitch and an urbane Glen Tetley, with Ms. Rigert reading a message from Carmen de Lavallade. Ms. Glorsky also spoke briefly, calling an obviously surprised Marguerite Mehler, the evening's young stage manager, out for a bow of her own.
Stage Management Award
Added to Young Designers Roster
Young stage managers at the start of their professional lives are now eligible
for recognition thanks to generous donations which will make the new USITT
Stage Management Award possible.
USITT will now give eight different Awards for Young Designers & Technicians to
individuals who have demonstrated excellence or 
outstanding potential in specific
areas
ranging from technical production to makeup design. Creating an award for stage managers has long been a goal
of the Institute, to
recognize young professionals in this special area of production. It can be
seen as an extension of the Stage Management Mentoring Program which takes place
each year as part of the Conference & Stage Expo.
Robert Scales, a long-time member of USITT, and Charlie Richmond of Richmond
Sound Design were instrumental in creating the Stage Management Award by making the
cornerstone financial contributions to launch the award. Their continuing support is much appreciated. Bob also helped
establish the criteria which will be used for applications and spearheaded the drive to have other stage managers
contribute to enlarge the scope of participation.
One unique aspect of the Stage Management Award is that each year it will honor one experienced stage manager as well
as a young practitioner of the craft. Our hope is that the experienced stage manager will, each year, be on hand to
present the award.
Winner of the Stage Management Award will be invited to the Annual Conference &
Stage Expo and will receive a $1,000 check as well as the recognition the award
carries. The award will also include a ShowMan Show Control software license with free maintenance for one year from Richmond Sound
Design, Ltd. The Stage Management Award will be given annually to a person who is no more
than 10 years from her or is high school graduation, and has completed or will
soon complete a bachelors or masters program.
Award candidates must be nominated by a USITT member and submissions for the award will include two letters or
recommendation, resume, a prompt book, and actual examples of all tools of the trade used in a recent production.
A complete nomination form and rules for all Awards for Young Designers &
Technicians is available from the USITT web site at www.usitt.org.
Deadline is December 7, 2000 for this year.
Elynmarie Kazle [SMA member]
USITT
Vice-President for Membership & Development
BC/EFA Flea Market
The Flea Market will take place this Sunday, September 24, 2000 in New York City's
Shubert Alley.
If you have items (theater-related only, please) you'd like to contribute, please contact
James D'Asaro .
Items can be dropped off at the beginning of the day on Sunday (8:00 am), during set-up,
OR before then at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center. Again, contact James
for directions and instructions.
All items must be "pre-priced" -- a sticker or tag or whatever indicating the flea market
sale price must be on each item.
Volunteers are still needed. If you can spare ANY time on Sunday, please e-mail James.
People are needed especially for set-up and break-down, but also during the course of
the flea market all day. Volunteers will receive free SMA t-shirts for their generous
donation of time to this worthy cause (pending availability of t-shirts on that day).
Let's all hope it's a sunny, cool day with big crowds, to help make this the most successful
BC/EFA Flea Market ever.
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Balancing act Making the scenery dance By Daniel Shearer Princeton Packet Staff Writer Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2000
All of these elements — even the actors' entrances — are guided from the glass booth in the balcony at the back of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. During shows, Millburn resident Cheryl Mintz wears a headset and microphone, linking her to the entire crew. On this night, however, she's explaining the subtle art of "calling" a show to a class of more than a dozen college-age and adult students who have come to learn about the nuances of work as a production stage manager (PSM). "Warning on light cue 27," says Ms. Mintz, reading from a cryptically annotated script which helps her keep track of hundreds of directions she must issue during an average show. "Light cue 27, sound cue J — go. Whenever I say 'go,' something's happening." The complexity of her job varies with the production. Two years ago, calling McCarter's production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline provided Ms. Mintz with two-hours of relative boredom, followed by 10 minutes of frantic action during a closely choreographed fight scene that took place near several very heavy, fast-moving walls. The theater's elaborate annual production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a different story. With ghosts popping up everywhere, complicated sound cues and lighting changes in virtually every scene, along with dozens of extras moving around, the pressure comes on strong from beginning to end. "You have to make quick decisions," she says. "Timing is imperative. Is everyone where they're supposed to be? I have to make the scenery dance. I have to make it come alive for the director." Ms. Mintz's nine years of experience as a resident manager at McCarter make her quite exceptional. Most stage managers find employment at professional theaters for only a few weeks at a time, moving to different shows every few months. Regional theaters like McCarter often employ in-house managers, but the majority of professional stage managers work on a freelance basis. "The director has an artistic vision," she says. "I have to make that happen. The stage manager is the nucleus. You're the link between all the different elements in the theater." Typically, Ms. Mintz manages four or five out of seven main-stage productions at McCarter each year. She is a veteran of more than 25 productions at the theater, and also spent five seasons with the New York City Opera, where she stage-managed 40 operas and musicals, three tours and three Public Broadcasting Service telecasts.
Almost every scheduling decision during production goes through the stage manager at one time. Good PSMs have an uncanny ability to anticipate problems, motivate large numbers of people, prioritize tasks and gracefully handle pressure. Ms. Mintz' job starts during a production's early stages, overseeing the initial meetings between set and lighting designers, and the theater's artistic director, Emily Mann. It continues through the entire show run. Ms. Mintz must also be knowledgeable in all aspects of production, including casting, costuming and contract rules to deal with actors, most of whom are union workers. "The tone that you set and the atmosphere you create is really important to the collaborative process between the director and the actors," she says. "Any time we bring in a new director, there has to be a design presentation to the artistic director. While this is going on, the lighting designer starts getting involved, because they need to make sure they're not shut out. There are some set designs that could be impossible to light if the lighting designer does not get her two cents in." Meanwhile, little problems often creep up, demanding immediate attention. Last season, with one of the lead actors several weeks pregnant, Ms. Mintz had to oversee costume alterations that would successfully hide the pregnancy on stage during performances. She is also present during rehearsal, taking detailed notes on script changes and timing — often in seconds — for every entry and action on stage. "Trust me — it's the hardest part of my job," she says. "Taking down 'blocking' notes. It's the bane of my existence: 'Actor rises, knocks cane on a table.' The next day in rehearsal, it could be something different, so I have to make a different note. The director may want to try something and then go back to the old way, so I have to be able to say what that was. "When we did the Sam Shepard play Fool for Love last year, I had to keep track of every hit, every scrape. It was a nightmare. We put microphones on all the walls, so we had to be very specific about where the actors made contact with the walls, and those portions of the walls had to be reinforced. There was a chair that was thrown in the play, and we had to be very careful about where it went, otherwise it could damage the set." During rehearsals for last season's production of Nilo Cruz's Two Sisters and a Piano, Ms. Mintz sent a cryptic request to the prop department for "quieter paper." "I can't begin to tell you, the paper was so noisy at this quiet moment, and I actually sent a production note to our prop department requesting quieter paper," she says. "They flipped out, in hysterics, and it's actually blown up on their door as one of the funniest production notes they got. "Seriously, different textures of paper make different noises, and those are things that a stage manager has to deal with. Now, if I worded that request incorrectly, they would think I was the biggest jerk in the world." Although the work day often changes, Ms. Mintz regularly spends 50 to 60 hours — or more — on the job each week. Two years ago, she even scheduled her wedding to accommodate McCarter's production schedule. "I never really sat down to add up the hours," she says. "I don't really want to know. I'd probably get depressed if I knew." Throughout the three-hour class, Princeton resident Todd Reichart listened intently. A software designer by trade, he signed up for the class, along with two other lectures in the series, to enhance his appreciation of theater. "I had no idea of the scope of the responsibilities of a professional stage manager," Mr. Reichart says. "I would see this job as overwhelming, but it sounds like a profession where there's an apprenticeship and a journeyman stage. It's all very sobering. The set of skills to do what a stage manager does is something that really must be acquired over years. "I've also been taking acting classes at night, and I intend to take that to the stage in community theater in the near future, but it's a balancing act of time." Presented by the McCarter Theatre Education Department, the next lecture in the three-class series will present an improv comedy lesson from Dan Diggles, co-founder of the FreeStyle Repertory Theatre in New York City and a faculty member at Marymount Manhattan College. "I'm here for the entire series," Mr. Reichart says. "It certainly seems that Ms. Mintz is an amazingly competent person. I'm looking forward to the next lecture." Another student in the class, Vernon resident Grace O'Brien, a junior studying production design at Montclair State University, heard about Ms. Mintz's class from the head of her theater department. "I've been a PSM ever since high school, so a lot of what she said I could relate to," Ms. O'Brien says. "She's a very powerful speaker. This is the reason I want to be a stage manager. She was completely invigorating. I want to go and call a show right now." Send comments to
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