28 Books -- Day 19

[bluecastle]

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.

 

And aside from the hideousness of doing that particular show which involved dragging the same dozen sets off and on and back off and back on again (and secretly wondering if I would have to go on and do that pick-a-little number as the woman playing the mayor's wife never bothered to come to rehearsals)... I loved it. I wanted to be super involved in every aspect of the production, and stage managing let me do that. The problem was I had no idea what I was doing. I got by largely on eagerness, and a certain amount of innate talent.

 

So... to the library I went. Large University has a large library with a fairly extensive theater arts collection. So I checked out Stern's bible, and set about teaching myself to be a stage manager. (Thanks Larry!!) The local amateur theater groups ... they love me. And after 20+ years of hanging around, sometimes they even pay me to stage manage.

 

I've got some odd gaps in knowledge, being self taught. I started doing shows in school auditoriums that were state of the art in 1957, but hadn't been upgraded since. So when I'm trying to achieve a blackout in 1987, I need a long stick to flip all the breakers at once on the giant 8x8x3 foot console backstage. Accompanied by a lovely clicky clunking noise.

 

So I just laugh when I see the newbies show up with their thumb drives and load a whole show's lighting cues into a console about the size of my computer keyboard. They certainly know more about Lekos and Fresnels than I do... but they don't have a 'stick of power' ...

 

So I'm a bit wonky on the technical end of things. Anything more complicated than just hitting the go button 45 times is stressful for me. But I am hell on wheels at getting actors to trust me. And that's a skill I see lacking in the college trained SM's I've worked with... the psychology of the stage manager.

 

Actors are scared little children most of the time. And while I don't do well with children, somehow I mesh with actors. They love me. (Of course I always keep them well fed, and well supplied with pencils, so that might just be bribery.) 

 

So anyway... that's me. Wearing black, standing in the shadows, controlling the flow of people around me. And I learned it from a book!!

Comments

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Our bond grows ever closer. *g* Being an SM and ASM is how I paid all my bills all through college.

Someday, when I'm finished with this dissertation, maybe I'll get back to it.

[valancy-joy.livejournal.com]

don't you just hate when real life gets in the way!

I just can't believe that when my friend said to me "come to New Jersey with me for a week and help me with my children's theater" will end up with me standing in front of the Port Authority Friday next, clutching my suitcase and having to possibly get myself to the rehersal space in Long Island City.

very exciting (and slightly terrifying) for this country mouse!