You must be an active member and logged in to view this page.
My recent interviews with candidates for the ASM positions at my theatre yielded so many bits of wisdom, reminders of what not to do, what energies not to let in; the power that theatre has to transform & set us down a new path. Often these conversations felt like mini-Master Classes & I wanted to share some of what my younger colleagues had to say. ~Margie Price (Lansdowne, PA)
You don’t need a Philosophy Degree to cultivate a degree in thinking.
Take the work seriously but don’t take yourself seriously.
Take your own advice.
It can be hard to motivate someone if they don’t understand the task.
Be a collaborative leader.
Create a United Front within the Stage Management team.
Being five minutes early is ON TIME; being “on time” is late.
Be firm but also listen.
Bake cookies!
Practice Tough Love: show respect and don’t sugar coat.
Care about the Work, the People & the Production.
The work is not easy but it should be fun.
Remember that you are working with People. Build personal bonds.
In your script, document any character notes that you hear between Director & Actor during rehearsal.
Find creative solutions.
Seek to understand how much hands-on guidance an assistant or crew member actually needs.
When you witness negative energy in the workplace find a way to confront the people involved and help to improve the workplace environment
“Never yell” ~ Tom Kelly
Always have paper & pencil handy. Post blank paper & pencil in wings of rehearsal hall & stage for actors to write down notes during run-throughs that they need to address.
Ask questions.
Be a strategic planner.
Know the strengths of the individuals you are working with.
Understand when a situation is out of your control and ride it out until the situation can be reassessed.
Remember that you are in control of your senses. Remember to breathe.
Do the job to the best of your ability.
Don’t try to do everything.
Remember to take your day off. Go for a hike.
To Emulate:
- Mediator – able to discuss delicate situation, remain neutral & seek compromise that is best for production
- Poise during tech
- Having confidence in knowing the goals and the path to those goals
- Trouble shooting calmly
- Being able to connect with each person you work with
- Having a knack for remembering details without having to look back in notes
- Foresight
To Avoid:
- Being easy to panic
- Not finding a way to balance a laid-back director’s style & time management of the room
- Being forgetful
- Not sending out schedules in a timely manner
- Talking to adults like they were children
- Meanness; Drama; Controlling & Bossy
- Letting issues pile up until circumstances come crashing down & burn out sets in
- Micro-managing
- Being two-faced
- Coming across as scattered or frayed
You must be an active member and logged in to view this page.
You must be an active member and logged in to view this page.
You must be an active member and logged in to view this page.
Can you please switch channels?
In the middle of calling an aerial act during a show I got a radio call to ask if I could switch to channel 4. Channel 4 is the spare open channel needed for emergency situations.
After switching to channel 4. I am informed that our generator is on fire. I ask if it is the generator running our show currently or the back up. It’s of course the one running our show. I ask if we are switching over to our back up and I am told that it is the control panel that is on fire and they cannot manually switch the generator over to the back up or switch the generator off.
I look back at my darkish set with the full company performing, several flying through the air.
Got on come told all stage managers to be on deck in the wings with flashlights. All crew to standby for a black out and that we would stop the show and all would exit stage. Just as I reached for the cue light signal to stop the show and also inform the band. The radio call came through, “ALL CLEAR- The transformer switch over on its own, we are now extinguishing the fire, you are set running power on the back up generator.” Then the show continued as normal.
Beating the stereotype in Texas
As a person from the south I am used to being one of a few Jews in my neighborhood or in school, but it was never a big deal.
While on tour with a dance company in Texas, a member of the stage crew came up to me after he noticed my Star of David necklace and he exclaimed “ You’re Jewish?!” I replied yes. He gave me a puzzled look. I asked if he was okay. And he told me that he had never met a Jew before. I told him to look across stage at our company manager. He did. I congratulated him as he just doubled the Jewish population that he knew!!!
Later that night, the light board at this theatre crashed and we lost all our cues. During intermission the lighting supervisor, company manager and I are all in the booth. I start calling out channels numbers and the lighting supervisor is programming sub masters and we are making a plan to call the 2nd act via sub masters and I notice a different crew member (the former board op for the evening) looking very perplexed.
I ask if he’s okay and he responds that we were all women and in charge and he was just really impressed.
I took a deep breath and thanked him and informed him that world is a changing!
Here lies Fluffy…
In another stop in an “up-and-coming market” and all was pretty normal in our load in, when our electricians went with the venue to do the power tie in. The power tie in was located in the floor in the middle of what would become our backstage warm up area.
The venue electrician slid the metal plate covering the cables out of the way to reveal, Fluffy; a furry cat frozen in a socked position. Apparently Fluffy had snuck in and then decided to chew on a nice live cable and that is where Fluffy remained.
The venue electrician said not to worry, tied-in our feeder cable and put the metal plate back over the cables. Leaving Fluffy untouched. Only when I arrived and threw a fit backstage did the venue consider removing the remains.
Perspective
Whenever I am faced with a difficult or challenging situation in the theater, I am reminded of a particular venue in Morocco that we were playing for two weeks.
This was the first time this venue was presenting a large live theatrical performance.
As we unloaded the 5th (of 14) truck of gear the venue and several official agencies became very concerned about why we needed so much equipment and proceeded to chain lock the fences around the perimeter of the venue. So here we are, halfway into unloading our trucks, with hundreds of road cases on the street, the entire crew just hanging out for a few hours before the air could be cleared and the chains unlocked to allow us to continue our load in.
Upon getting settled in this venue and figuring out where/what the dressing rooms would be (which were old locker rooms) on our tour of the venue we find that all of the bathrooms have squat toilets and in some of the locker rooms these squat toilets are nice versions of troughs with out any stalls. It was also apparent that they had been used, recently and not just for liquid waste.
The cleaners that were hired to clean this several hundred square foot venue were no where to be found…
This venue taught me patience, humility and how to suck it up and get the job done to prepare for the artists/cast to come in the next day.