#stage managing

[ciaradowling]

todd anderson as the stage manager for welton's production of romeo and juliet and his confidence slowly growing. being volunteered to take the job by neil. his script full of elaborate notes, color coded to an absurd degree. dealing with cameron as his assistant and trying his best to stay cordial. finally doubling down on charlie's antics as mercutio and putting him in his place. treating everything like a puzzle and solving issues no one else sees. making sure the ensemble cast feels included. consoling knox's annoyance after he forgets benvolio's lines. reassuring everyone during run throughs. running lines with neil and comforting his fear around kissing juliet. validating meeks and pitts' ideas for sound and lights. sweeping the stage after every rehearsal. and becoming the grounding force that everyone in the cast needs.

[allfishswim]

Literally every time I try to quit stage managing, the universe laughs in my face.

[lightningbugqueen]

Having your major be production design and stage management is all fun and games until you say “I’m in PDSM” out loud and people get really confused

[overly-distressed-mouse]

It's officially Hell (tech) week my friends. Spent about 2.5-3 hours assembling our props table and still have most of our act 2 props to set up BUT WE'RE GETTING THERE

[squydworm]

Hi welcome to stage managing

[idontknowiwasntlistening]

Stage managing is just: "alright so rehearsal starts at 4 so I need to be there at 3:30 to set up but I have to copy scripts today so I'll need to be there at 3 but parking on campus sucks so I'll have to leave my apartment at 2:30 to have enough time to find a spot and walk over there"

[lostdreamlanddancer]

I Adore Helping People

Once I dreamed I was at a random school helping them clean up their stage and backstage.

The stage was HUGE. It was like half a football field.

And I was running around enjoying all the space and all the resources and telling people what to do.

I went over into the left wing and there was this giant river running through it because the school was underground and there had been so much rain recently an underground river had formed. 

And Joshua was like K what’re you going to do about it?

And I was like uuuh nothing? This is cool. If we follow the river down we have a back escape route. It leads straight to a town.

Then all of the people were playing in the river and the surrounding area and Sean showed up and I wanted to go talk to him but Matlak and Sean’s mom started talking to me and I had to help them find this girl.

I found the girl and she asked me to help her with this thing and I was like of course why wouldn’t I help!

Then I was cleaning up the backyard of my cousins house and I was talking to her dad.

I walked into their living room and her and her mom were trying on their wedding dresses and for some reason the dresses were nearly identical. It was weird.

Then I was backstage at the theater from the beginning looking for my best friend.

I decided to follow the river to this grocery store and he was inside looking at bleach.

And I ran up and gave him a big hug and he told me about how he was going to bleach his hair so that it was white/platinum.

Then he asked me to walk him to where he was getting it bleached.

Afterwards I almost got hit by a car on the road and then I ran home and listened to this girl belt Defying Gravity on the sidelines of the flag football tournament taking place in my grandparents backyard.

[thankyoufive]

In a continued effort to keep up with actual literal SM/techblr on the platform from whence we came... behold: paperwork!

This is a document I’ve had rattling around in my brain for a while but (to be completely honest) most of the musicals I work on move a bit too quickly for me to bother to get this detailed. Working on a Jr. script was the perfect way to actually put this together for the first time. 

I’d say about 98% of the shows (I’m not a mathematician) I work on use tracks in both show and rehearsal. And even if we’re working with a live pit for the show, I don’t always have a rehearsal pianist. That’s where a document like this comes in handy. Yes things are notated in my script but, like with all good paperwork, this is meant to be handed off to someone for a quick reference if me or my script aren’t available. Dance captain needs to work on a number in the other room? Here ya go don’t waste time scrubbing through tracks. 

Where this can get tricky is when major edits are done to tracks within Qlab (say we build a vamp into a song... or add several repeats that play straight through instead of playing out of a vamp... or splice a song into several pieces)... obviously that is not something I have run into with this particular document quite yet but I know it’s comin’.  

I miss tumblr a lot, but full disclosure: I am becoming more and more active on Instagram... including with the stage management/theatre/production management-type work I’ve shifted into over the last few months so feel free to follow me there! @thankyoufive​ . Obv.