Where did I put that &*^%$ suitcase???

Time to dig out my travelling shoes.

A friend has offered me a week-long, out of state, stage managing gig, and my day job boss just gave me the OK to take the week off. So in a couple of weeks I will be spending a week in New Jersey stage managing children's theater.

So am excited about getting out of town (heck, out of state) and working with "real" "working" actors. And, you know, the cash. :)

The down side is a week's worth of squealing kiddies... but balanced against the opportunity to do theater for a week, get paid for it (and use paid vacation days for the RL job...) there was no hesitation.

Of course being the obsesessive type now I will spend the next two weeks making lists and gathering a wardrobe and packing and re-packing a bazillion times. But would you want a stage manager who didn't do those things???

28 Books -- Day 19

Stage Management by Lawrence Stern (1st edition -- 1974)

 

"Now there are all sorts of virtues a stage manager must have. You will find them listed and profusely described in the pages of this book. But the supreme virtue among many is this: The stage manager must arrive before everyone and leave long after everyone else is gone." (from the forward by Ray Bradbury, page ix)

 

Back when I was a theater mad kid in high school I had no idea about what stage managers do. (Nobody does really). Shows had them... but I was so painfully shy that if I did get involved with a show, it was usually run crew or costuming or props. We had a new drama guy come in my junior year, and he blew us all away with his creativity. He might have had stage managers... but what I remember them being called were assistant directors, and that's not really the same thing at all.

 

I ended up doing community theater with my theater teacher, and serving on boards of directors with him and his wife.

 

But while I wanted to throw myself into some theater program at college, my parents said no way on that one.

 

So... after a false start in restaurant management, I ended up in the school of education and worked on community theater in the evenings. I had my in with the theater groups in the props department, and eventually they saw I was bright and eager and all those things that get you kicked around if you're not careful. So they asked me to stage manage The Music Man.

 

( pick a little, talk a little ... )