dance dance revolution

My first weekend working the Fringe Festival is over. And let me just tell you, it was everything I thought it was going to be-- and more.


Friday was our load-in/first tech/opening night. All in a manner of hours. Normally this occurs over a week, but hey, this is the Fringe, so things are little faster and a little looser.


I guess I didn't fully realize just how fast and how loose things would be. At 1:30pm on Friday, we walked into the Tai Chi studio that would soon become our performance space. And it was basically an empty room. We had two hours to hang all of the lights, load in (and construct) all of the scenery, focus the lights, cover the skylights with black cloth, get sound set up and start to put the show together before the dancers showed up. Not to mention that the ceiling of the space was astonishingly high, and the only way we had to reach it was with a metal extension ladder that was heavy as a motherfucker and twice as cumbersome. Oh, and did I mention there were only three of us doing all of this?


Of course we were nowhere near close to accomplishing all of this by the time the dancers rolled in. And they needed to get on our new stage as soon as possible, since it was quite a different space than the studio they'd been rehearsing in. Since the dance had some intricate choreography that relied on exact spacing, they needed to carefully space themselves on our stage.


I will spare you the nitty-gritty of those hectic hours, but let me just state that I have never worked so hard and so fast in my entire life. I just never stopped. The sweat was poring out of me. I pretty much worked at a dead run the whole day. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, I didn't pee, I didn't do anything but run from one extremely vital task to another.


We were supposed to open our house to the audience at 6:30pm for a 7pm performance. By 6:15pm we hadn't even gotten through rehearsing the whole show. The dancers hadn't danced the last 15 minutes of the piece, and the lighting and sound people hadn't added any lights or sound to the end of the piece either. Oh, and we still had to set up about 100 folding chairs and get the dancers in costume.


We frantically did so until about 6:50pm, and I'm proud to report that the show started promptly at 7pm. We had a few lighting glitches, but this was only to be expected. All in all, the time tested theory of "the show must go on" held true again.


The next day, we had two shows, and sauntered in feeling pretty good about ourselves. All that was to be done before the show was to sweep the stage and set up the chairs, we thought. Piece of cake, compared to yesterday.


Well, apparently nothing in the Fringe Festival can be too easy. Although we were told by the people who owned the Tai Chi studio that we could leave all of our scenery up, no problem, those people had quite a freak-out. All of our hanging scenery was ripped down in some sort of tantrum, damaging some of it. All of the black cloth we'd used to cover the skylights was ripped away. Not very Zen of them, if you ask me.


So we had to haul out the heaviest ladder in the world again and set up all of the scenery.... again. In an hour. I think I've lost 10 pounds this weekend, just running and sweating. It's a great new exercise routine.


Even though the process was incredibly hectic, the show itself was wonderful and very, very thoughtful. The dancers were a sweet bunch, and I really enjoyed the director.


The Fringe Festival: I've never worked harder for longer for such little pay and loved it so much. Sign me up for next year!

Fringe Benefits

I do apologize for my absence, dear readers, but I have been on vacation. Glorious, glorious vacation. Or as some people call it: "unemployment", but I'm not concentrating on that. The point is, I haven't stage managed in months. And it's been a nice break.


But, being the consummate work-a-holic that I am, I'm suddenly itching to get back in the game. Since my season at Big Theater doesn't start for a little while, I have decided to do my first ever Fringe show.


For those of you unfamiliar with Fringe Festivals, Wikipedia defines it here. Most major cities now have a festival, and although I've flirted with the idea of doing a Fringe show before, this will be my first time ever participating.


The thing about Fringe shows is that they're often wild and innovative and a bit avaunt guard. Coming from a small theater background, I'm used to all of that, plus the fact that they don't often have large budgets. So it should be a perfect fit for me, right? Well, we'll see.


I went to my first production meeting the other night, and it was... informative. Held in a loft apartment in an up and coming part of town (meaning that it was somewhat scary to get to but all of the hipsters are now living there), we ate Indian food and discussed turning a Tai Chi studio into a theater space. We discussed practicalities like bathrooms (the audience and the actors will share one unisex bathroom) seating (we have to somehow scrounge up 30 more seats-- maybe we'll use couches?) and my job description.


I can't be called a "stage manager" in this production-- the company is not Equity. Since I'm a union member, of course I wouldn't dream of working on a non-union contract. Ever. I swear, Equity.


Besides, I won't be stage managing per se-- I'm not attending any rehearsals (yesssss!) and I'm doing stuff like running the light and sound boards and taking tickets from people. Those are totally not stage manager things. So I'll be making sure that the performers keep to a schedule. That's not truly stage managing, right? Right?


There was much discussion of my title-- obviously "stage manager", "performance manager" and "stage coordinator" were out. The director suggested "performance dominatrix", which I thought had a nice ring to it after I made her assure me that I would not be required to wear any latex.

The piece itself, in true Fringe fashion, is a combo dance/spoken word/singing performance that will only be 45 minutes long. The dancers... singers... actors.... erm, performers aren't union either, so that should be interesting. Nothing to hold over their heads, you know?


I'm sure I'll have lots of stories about my first ever Fringe show, and I will most definitely keep you updated. It feels a little old school to be setting up chairs and ripping tickets again, but maybe that's just what I need to stay sharp and ready for next season at Big Theater.

My Worst Stage Management Experience (part 1)

You asked for it, folks, so here it is. I've titled this thread "My Worst Stage Management Experience", but really, it's hard to quantify them. So let's just say this is my worst (to date) stage management experience that deals with an audience member.


I was working at a Summer Stock theater as the Assistant Stage Manager. We were doing a production of Arsenic and Old Lace and it was opening night. Stage Manager and I were cleaning up after the show, already dressed up for the afterparty. As I came onstage to clear the props, I noticed that the theater wasn't entirely empty as we'd thought. Sitting in the front row of the theater was a little old lady, not moving.


"Oh, god" said Stage Manager "She's had a heart attack. She's dying. Oh, god."


Stage Manager and I gingerly approached. Fortunately the woman was still breathing, but she didn't look happy. Or comfortable.


"Ma'am? Are you okay?" Stage Manager asked.
"No, I'm afraid I'm not," the woman replied "I have to go to the bathroom, and I can't make it downstairs."


Now I should explain the layout of the theater. The stage was at ground level, with the audience sitting on risers looking down at the action. This meant that the people in the front row were essentially resting their feet on the stage floor-- it was not elevated in any way. This was a historic building, so the audience's bathrooms were on the floor below the theater space. There were no elevators.


"That's no problem, ma'am," Stage Manager replied"We have bathrooms right backstage for the actors. You won't have to walk downstairs. Can you make it about 10 feet or so?"

"No, I can't," the lady said "If I stand up, I'm afraid I will soil myself. I've been sitting here for the whole second act, afraid to get up"


Hmmmm. What could we do? Thankfully Stage Manager was smart, resourceful and eminently compassionate. She rustled up a bucket from backstage. We placed it in front of the woman, onstage. And we helped the woman get up from her seat, pull down her underwear and balance gingerly on the bucket. She had terrible diarrhea.


After she was done, we helped her get herself together and made sure she was able to get home. And Stage Manager cleaned out the bucket herself, in her beautiful party dress, crying the whole time. Crying for the woman who came to the theater alone and had no one to help her with a medical emergency. Crying for this woman's embarrasment. Crying because she had to rely on strangers to help her through a terrible situation.


This was a terrible situation, but I actually feel honored to have been there. Because I was a new stage manager, just starting out, and Stage Manger taught me such a valuable lesson about going waaay above and beyond the call of duty to reach out and help someone in need. Her compassion, empathy and respect were such an inspiration to me. So as much as I joke about it ("I've seen an audience member take a shit onstage!") I have taken these lessons from Stage Manager and tried very hard to apply them in my own career.


So thank you, Stage Manager-- for knowing what to do in a totally extreme and random situation, and for doing it with such care. You are my hero.


And the little old lady? Well, she was a season subscriber. She came to every opening night after that and sat in the same seat, with her head held high.

My bosses and me

So it being the end of our season and all, it's evaluation time. In the past two days I've had meetings with both my big boss, the Artistic Director of our theater, and my more immediate boss, the Production Manager.



Both meetings had the same purpose-- to discuss my first season here at the Theater and to talk about our goals for next season. Now I think I had a great season and I've been asked back for next year, so I expected the meetings to be mostly positive with a side of "work on ____ for next season." But that didn't make them any less nerve-wracking. Perhaps I'm just two much of a perfectionist, but this whole year I have been working my tail off to not only stage manage my shows well but to be a team player here at Big Theater. So I was quite nervous to hear their feedback.



My first meeting was yesterday, with Artistic Director. His office is a grand affair, with plush velvet sofas and wood panelling and playbills from a hundred years ago framed on the walls. I expected to see the skull of John Barrymore on a shelf somewhere.



For as intimidating as Artistic Director could be, he's amazingly easy to talk to. He's one of those people who really listens when you talk, which can be a great thing or a scary thing. I have a feeling that not much gets by that man. He put me right at ease and immediately asked me what I thought of this past season. And then he asked me to go through each director of each show and tell him what I thought of them. He stressed that while the end result (a good show that audiences love) was important, more important to him was the process. The fact that the director should treat the staff of Big Theater with respect.



Wow. I gotta tell you, I've worked a bunch of small theaters and this level of respect from Management towards their production staff is quite rare. The politics of theater are such that the artistic types like directors and designers and actors often get the most consideration from Management. (I like to say because they bitch the loudest.) But stage managers are often put in the difficult position of trying to maintain dignity and discipline while catering to the politics of who is in favor with Management, who is important enough to Management that they can get away with treating you like shit... etc. It's exhausting and it makes it very tough to actually do my job as a stage manager.


After my meeting with Artistic Director, nerves still jangling a bit from being face to face with the Big Cheese for so long, I went to my office to pick up my last paycheck. I was expecting to be depressed by the four months of unemployment that stretch out after this check, but instead another check fluttered out. It was labelled "vacation pay" and was an additional two weeks of my salary. Apparently, under this type of Equity contract, I'm entitled to vacation pay. Holy crap. Now I can stop worrying about that pesky July rent that's been hanging over my head.


Today I had my meeting with my more immediate supervisor, Production Manager. I speak with Production Manager on almost a daily basis so it wasn't so nerve-wracking to sit in his office. We chatted for a while, and he was very complimentary, which was awesome. His only critique was for me not to get anxious during our tech rehearsals about our prop and scenery notes. Big Theater has the resources that things will always be there.


This may sound basic, but it's quite a novel concept for me. In Small Theater, I'm so used to scrimping and scrounging and praying that things will be there and happen on time. Never have I been so supported.


So now that my evaluations are over, I can look forward to a nice break. I think I'm going to need it, too-- I've seen the shows we're doing next season and I know some of the directors they've chosen. Time for me to rest up and get recharged.


In the mean time, I can be extraordinarily grateful to work in a place with not one, but two extremely supportive bosses. How often does that happen? I feel like I'm in the theatrical Twilight Zone. And you know what? I think I like it here. I think I'll stay a while.

Closing time

It's about that time.... our season is closing.

For those of you not involved in the theater world, I should explain. There are generally two types of (outside of New York City) theater. Regional theater, which operates generally from September to June-ish and summer stock, which operates generally from June to September-ish. Of course depending on the theater, these dates might change. Some summer stocks begin in May, and some regional theaters begin in August. But you get my drift. The main point is that regional theaters like the one that I stage manage at close down for a few months during the summer. This means nothing is happening at all-- the administrative staff comes in and works on the next season, but there are no shows, no rehearsals and more importantly, no work for me.

Now I wrote a long love letter to summer stock a few posts back, so I'll try to refrain from wistfully rhapsodizing about it here. For all of it's wonderful moments, summer stock is freakin' hard, dirty, low-paying work. So I'm skipping it this year.

What does this mean? This means I'll be unemployed in a few weeks until our season starts up again in... drumroll please.... October. Yep, it's about four months. And while our schedule may look like a teacher's schedule, unlike those in the education business, we don't get paid during the summer months.

But instead of looking at this as a bad thing, I'm going to make the most of it. I'm going to get my house in order, visit family and friends, and generally have a wonderful, relaxing summer. Maybe I'll even go to the beach. I haven't been to the beach in.... I can't remember how long.

In the mean time, we're closing things up. This means cleaning out all of the rehearsal halls that we've been neglecting all year. Assistant and I are ordering new supplies for our first aide cabinet, cleaning dressing rooms and straightening up my booth. I'm turning in petty cash receipts (finally-- I've been putting this off all year) and getting scripts ready for next season.

The whole theater is slowing grinding to a halt around us-- most of our shop personale are already "off contract", which is the theater's term for "unemployed for the summer". It's getting pretty empty around here-- just the administrative people and the casts and crews of the current shows. Everything already feels a little sleepy, like it's the last week of school before summer vacation and no one wants to do their homework. The weather has been so beautiful outside that it's getting harder and harder to spend a whole day in a darkened theater that's so heavily air conditioned that you need a sweater and your long underwear. The cast and crew gathers outside in the park as often as they can. Everyone is saying goodbye, exchanging numbers and making plans for the summer-- barbeques and beach trips and the general kind of fun that we don't usually get to have because, well, we're working.

I'm not going to take a four month break from this blog, though, don't you worry. I may write less frequently, but don't think I've forgotten about you. I have plenty of stories about my crazy life in the theater that should keep everyone happy this summer.

I will certainly be itching to get back to work after such a vacation, but right now I'm really looking forward to some time off. This job is wonderful and I'm supremely grateful that I work here. But I haven't had a day off that wasn't a Monday for almost a year now. And I have been working so hard that my home is a mess and my family barely knows I exist. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some quality time on my personal life this summer so I will come back relaxed and rejuvinated, ready to tackle next season.

Costume Drama

Things were running smoothly with Small Musical for three whole weeks, in which the only problems I've had were with our patrons. God love you, old cranky people.


But suddenly we have a very (overly dramatic) situation with our Leading Lady. I'll attempt to give a timeline of events here.


Before the show opens, during tech week, Leading Lady says this to me: "My dress isn't fitting quite right, can you talk to the Costume Designer about this for me?"


Sure, absolutely. And I did. But Costume Designer was swamped with our show and the other show she was doing, so Leading Lady's dress never got looked at.


The week after opening, I went up to Leading Lady and said: "How's your dress doing? I know that Costume Designer didn't look at it before opening, but Costume Shop Manager is in her office for this week only, so if we want something done with it, it can easily happen. You just let me know what day is good for you."
Leading Lady: "Oh, you know what, don't worry about it. It's a little loose, but totally fine. I can totally work with it, no problem. And besides, it seems to shrink up a bit when it's dry cleaned every week, so that should do the trick."
Me: "Okay, but if you want anything done in the future, just let me know".


Last week, Leading Lady says: "Don't worry about dry cleaning my dress this week, it's not very dirty."


And then.... yesterday..... the shit hit the fan. Now keep in mind that Leading Lady has been wearing this dress for two weeks of shows without it being dry cleaned. So it was pretty loose. Not to mention stinky, but I’m trying to be polite here. She came storming into my office at intermission, ranting and raving about "this fucking dress".

Her rant went something like this: "I hate this fucking dress I'm totally going to expose myself this was never right from the beginning it totally shows off all my fat parts this top is way too loose the boning needs to come out my boobs aren't this big I can't believe she put me in this dress onstage next to Ingénue I think I'm going to call Equity I can't believe that this is happening I hate the way it makes me look it's too big can we just pin the front here so I don't look so bad??"
Obviously there are bigger issues than the dress being slightly too large. But since I'm a stage manager, not a psychologist (ha!) I don't have time to get into Leading Lady's body and aging issues. Let me just state for the record that I think she looks absolutely stunning in this dress, and that's she's a gorgeous woman who is incredibly talented. Now is she older than Ingénue? Absolutely. But is she utterly fantastic? You bet. Try telling that to her, though.


Since it's intermission and I only have 15 minutes to try and pick up the fallen pieces of her self esteem and ensure that her boobies don't pop out onstage, I opted to safety pin it a little tighter while assuring her in a soothing voice that we would get someone who can sew to fix it permanently for tomorrow.


But of course when she got onstage I noticed that she'd taken the safety pins out. I asked Assistant about this.


"Oh, yeah," said Assistant "I wasn't going to mention that to you. She was worried that the pins would pop open."


So she was worried that her boobs would pop out of the dress so she made me pin it. And then she was worried that the pins would pop so she unpinned it. No wonder Assistant didn't want to tell me. I feel like I am beating my head against a brick wall here.


I should mention that during her rant she threatened to call Equity, which is the union that represents actors and stage managers. That's pretty nutty, and after the show when she'd calmed down a bit, I told her so.


"Leading Lady," I said "you know that we are here for you and will do anything to help you. There is no need to threaten to call the union. What will they do? Send someone down here to sew?"

She of, course, apologized for that threat and blamed it on the heat of the moment. Uh-huh.

So being the awesome stage manager that I am (thank you, thank you) I set up a fitting with our resident Costumer for the next day to figure out this dress business once and for all. Leading Lady came in and chatted with Costumer about the dress. He's super great and listened to her whole rant very patiently, in the end suggesting that they add small spaghetti straps to the dress to help keep it from slipping down. He only had a few minutes to make and attach these straps, but he's a whiz and we had the dress on her in no time.

Since the straps were done in a hurry, they were a bit long. "No problem," I said "I will pin them for tonight and Costumer will shorten them for tomorrow's show."

Well of course as soon as she got onstage I could see that she had taken the straps down and was again wearing the dress strapless. This woman has a thing against safety pins, I swear. My whole wardrobe, on the other hand, is held together with safety pins and duct tape, so I don't get it.

But the real ass-kicker of the evening? Leading Lady got a bloody nose during the performance. And surprise, surprise-- she got blood on her dress!

I think she seriously thought we would break down and get her a new dress because of the blood. But instead I made her do the age-old blood removal technique: spit on it.

Seriously, folks, nothing gets your own blood out of fabric better than your own spit.

Take that lesson to the bank, along with this: try as you might to blame your low self esteem on a dress, I'm not buying it. You're beautiful, you're talented-- so get out there and wow them and stop bothering me about a silly dress.

And that's the stage manager's word.

A View From the Booth: A tribute to House Management

Yes, it's ridiculous how much time has elapsed since I last posted. So sorry, but I've been... working? Yep, that's true. Ironically, I've been too busy working at the theater to blog about working at the theater.


Anyway, I thought I would take this oportunity to continue my View From the Booth series and talk about the funny stuff that people do when they're in a darkened room watching a piece of theater.


First of all, I would like to say that I've done most every job there is to do in the theater-- stage manager, director, actor, lights, sound, costumes, props, ticket taker, usher... you name it, I've done it in some capacity. And I love, love, LOVE working in theater so much that I would do any of these jobs just for the priviledge of working in theater. (I know, it's weird. But everyone's got to have a passion, right?) However, there is one job in theater that you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to do: House Manager.


Oooh, I'm shuddering right now even thinking about it. Hats off to my House Manager friends, because I consider them the bravest people in this business. Whereas I may have to deal with a couple of difficult actors or a persnickey director or a douchebag designer once and a while, they have to deal with the hordes of cranky, demanding, ignorant, late, incontinent people that invade our theater every day. God bless you, ladies and gentlemen of House Management-- you are stronger souls than I.


For those of you unfamilar with the breakdown of our jobs here at the theater, I turned to about.com. This is their definition of a House Manager: "The person who oversees all aspects of the audience. The House Manager oversees the ushers and is in contact with the Stage Manager to to let them know about any audience delays for starting the show or ending intermission." Yep, that about covers it in a basic fashion. But really a House Manager has to cram as many people into a small space as is legally permissable, making sure that they are all relatively happy and informed and safe.


Now before you go accusing me of being anti-audience, please see my prior post about audiences: http://theaterfordummies.blogspot.com/2007/03/audiences.html I love our audiences. They are the reason we're here. The money from their tickets keeps us employed. And they're dying off, as younger generations turn to movies and TV and the Internet to entertain them, everyone in the theater worries that we are a dying industry.


But also, they can be the weirdest, crankiest, most annoying bunch of people ever. And who deals with all of them directly? That's right, the House Manager.
Now my theater has a General Admission policy, meaning that there are no assigned seats. So it's basically first come, first serve. Our theater is also a "black box" meaning that none of the seating is permanent. The configuration of seats changes with every show, allowing a great flexibilty for us to do really cool things with our sets that other, bigger theaters can't do with their permanent rows of fixed seating. Our House Manager puts several "Reserved" signs on the seats closest to the door for latecomers, so they can be sat without disrupting the rest of the audience.


Usually these seats are some of the worst in the theater, because they're so close to the door. But of course people always want the forbidden fruit. I joke that you could put a "Reserved" sign on a chair that faces a wall and people would fight for it, simply because they think that since they can't have it, it's worth having. And it's not just that they want the seat. They get downright bitchy about not having it.


Since the seats are reserved for latecomers only, I've had people sit outside of the theater and refuse to go in until they are officially "late" for the show, just to get those seats. So they would rather miss parts of the show than to sit somewhere else. Amazing.


And then there's the whiners and complainers and bitchers and moaners that feel it their duty to complain about... everything. They complain that it's too hot or too cold or that they can't hear or that the actors are talking too fast or the play isn't good or the lights are too bright or they can't understand what's going or.... whatever.


Then there's the cell phones that ring, the hearing aides that emit that high-pitched buzzing and the talking.... the endless talking. Matinee audiences are notoriously an older crowd and while we love them for coming and supporting us when many of them have trouble even walking, sometimes we wish they would just.... shut.... up and watch the friggin' play. Every time the lights dim, the chorus of chatter increases. It's as if they think since no one can see in the dark, no one can hear either. And when we do a comedy, every punch line gets repeated to infinity... "What did she say?" "She SAID "Beshert", Marge!"


Traditionally the stage manager's booth is behind the audience. But since our seating is flexable, very often I get to watch parts of the audience as they watch the show. I think I could write a novel on how people behave when they are absorbed in something and forget that they are in public. And I'm quite sure that people don't realize that in a small space such as ours, the actors can clearly see the audience. So they know if you're sleeping or making out with your boyfriend or reading the program or.... knitting. Yes, I've had to ask House Management to ask an audience member to stop knitting in the front row. Talk about distracting to actors and fellow audience members alike!


But my favorite example has to be an older couple, who sit in the front row every show that they attend. She's slightly deaf and he's very cranky. She talks non-stop, asking questions about dialogue and plot points. Every time she speaks to him, he elbows her. Pretty hard. She then gets upset about being elbowed and yells at him. He responds by loudly shushing her, and if this doesn't work, elbowing her more. At intermission they switch seats, presumably because her arm is so sore from all the elbowing that she has to give him the other arm during the second act. Every damn time they come I can't tear my eyes away from them, and unfortunately neither can anyone sitting around them either. House Management has to speak to them repeatedly.


With all of these distractions, it's amazing that any theater gets done at all.


I could go on and on about audiences, and maybe I will. Maybe next time I'll talk about the people who come drunk, the people who snore and the people who can't control their bodily functions. But I think I'll end this now with a stage manager's salute to the forgotten heroes of the theater: the House Managers. We couldn't do it without you. We don't want to do it without you. Thank you, House Managers, for dealing with all of this so we don't have to.