Notation...

Well, I finally got my lazy ass in gear and started the notation for the music. And by that I mean I have done the first song- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee- which will probably be the easiest one of them all. It wasn't too difficult, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to get them all done before rehearsals start.

I'm having some formatting issues, a lot of which are caused by the fact that I'm using Office 2003 instead of 2007.

I don't even know how helpful this is going to be in the long run, I just wanted to make my senior project somehow different than every other show I've SM'ed here. I may have shot myself in the foot though, and bitten off more than I can chew. Nobody else (ie, the faculty) seems to care about what I do with my senior project, but I have set this goal for myself and as much as I don't think any of them would even notice if I didn't actually use the notation, I will be disappointed in myself if I don't finish it. I'm afraid that won't be enough motivation, though- I have gotten super lazy (maybe just complacent?) and I don't think that self-motivation is going to be enough to force me to work on it. Woof.

First Company Meeting

Our first company meeting was on Monday, after the BFA Performance Outcome. I think it went very well.

I got everything organized, albeit somewhat last-minute, with all of the forms and things. I also made all of the extra copies of the script- they only ordered 11 bound copies, and the Director double-cast Rona, cast 2 understudies, and cast the 2 Dads as separate actors (plus ASMs & the Assistant to the Director) so we obviously had more than 11 people who needed scripts. The tricky part was that the cast members needed copies of the score as well- I had a photocopy of the script and one of the conductor's score, but not one of the libretto (and not knowing till the last minute that there weren't enough scripts meant I didn't have time to copy the libretto out of the book), so 2 cast members ended up with the full score. They seemed pretty ok with it though, so I don't think it will be a problem except the sheer size of it.

I passed out all of the forms (Class Schedule, Actor Agreement, Emergency Health Info, Bio Form, & add slip for Applied Acting), and then passed out the scripts, the CDs from the MD, and their assignments from the Director & Dramaturg. It was a lot of paperwork for them all to keep track of, I feel like I should have put them in a folder or something, but I didn't want to have to buy them myself, and there was no one in the office when I was working on it.

I wanted to elect a cast deputy then, but I forgot to talk to the Director & MD about it beforehand so we will just do it at the first rehearsal. I know that Panch & Olive were both cast deputies once already this semester, so I think I'm going to tell them that they have to elect someone else. Also, should the Wranglers be included in the vote? I'm inclined to say no, but I feel like Daydrie is 100% about inclusion, so she might overrule me.

Speaking of the Wranglers, FTP has very graciously agreed to work around their schedule so that they can still audition for Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing. That's good, because I think that 3/4 of them would have opted out of Wrangling in favor of auditioning for Tales.

After the meeting, the Director and I realized that Rocky Horror was having auditions that night, and wanted to use the Smart Classroom to put the video on the big screen. The director had not heard anything about this, and was very concerned about leaving the Smart Classroom open. I also did not know about it- no one in charge of Rocky has keys to the building. Granted, it was only about 8:45 when this was happening, but I was not about to stay in the building to babysit while they had auditions, and there is a reason why no students have keys to the Smart Classroom. She left me in charge of the situation, and I ended up just locking the door. I told their director what I had done, and I apologized for putting them in a tough place, and then went to lock the building. While I was doing that, I realized that there were about 20 people in the green room and I knew 4 of them, plus a couple of non-majors that I knew. I was super uncomfortable leaving them alone in the building, so I called the TD & let him know what was going on. He ended up coming up to the theatre to deal with it, so I left. I felt really bad because I love Rocky, I wish Rocky could be in the theatre every Halloween, but I was not about to leave that building unlocked with that many non-majors in there. Epic communication fail, in my opinion- they had signed out the space, but the sign-out sheet goes to 10:00 because that's when rehearsal is over and the SM kicks people out. Without rehearsal going on, the building gets locked up whenever the last person with keys leaves. I technically could have told them that they had to leave, but I didn't want to do that. Also, I am one small and unimposing person, and they were a lot of sketchy-ass people in fishnets. I almost got in a fight with someone about it, because he saw me locking the doors and asked what I was doing. I told him I was locking the building cause I was leaving, and he said "Well, I guess that's ok..." He guesses that's ok? Is he serious? Having keys to the theatre is a responsibility that I take pretty seriously, and I was not about to leave them alone in there. I don't care if they're having a performance- they didn't get permission from a faculty member and none of them have keys to the building, so I'm in charge. /rant.

Call-backs

I don't really have much to say about call-backs- They went very smoothly, but again, that was mostly thanks to The Director & Music Director. Even though MD took longer in the singing portion than he originally planned, we were still done before 9:00.

I emailed out the call-back list the night before, with the music files and pdf's that MD sent me. That took forever, because I had to keep clearing my sent folder and then logging out and logging back in- the files were so big they were filling my mailbox and then I couldn't send email. The only issue we ran into with sending the auditionees the files like this was that some of the songs were 20 pages long, and if you were called back for more than one part, that was an enormous amount of paper and ink to use, especially when they ended up singing one page of that in the actual call-back.

The Director had put the sides online well in advance, so the actors all brought them to the call-backs. Again, we kept them in a holding pattern in the green room, which worked well. The Director had given me a list in advance of the pairings/groupings she wanted to see for each side, so I posted one copy of the list and gave another copy to my ASM to use in rounding up the groups. Everything really fell into place with a minimal amount of effort on my part, which was surprising- especially considering the call-backs I've done in the past that have taken an enormous amount of time & massive feats of scheduling. I think the Director already had a clear idea of what she wanted, which is what made everything so quick and painless. She didn't need to see endless combinations of people or multiple scenes with the same characters.

Again, there was only one minor issue with the way this worked out- some actors, like Leaf and Chip, who were called back for multiple parts, ended up reading several times in a row with different groups, and did not get a chance to read that scene with those people before going on. No one seemed to really struggle with this onstage, but I know it made a lot of the actors nervous while they were waiting.

Auditions

We tried a lot of new things with auditions this year, and overall they went very well. I've gotten a lot of comments from actors about how smoothly they went and how they were the least stressful auditions they've ever had.

The biggest change with auditions this year was the audition blocks- we put the audition form online and made it available in advance. People could fill it out and turn it in to the basket in the office. Everyone who had turned their form in by Monday afternoon was given a block of time in which their audition would fall (ie, 6-7, 7-8, etc.). If they did not turn in their form by Monday afternoon, I told them to come at 8:00. I also planned for the walk-ups to fill out their form, get their name put on the list, and come back at 8:00.

The other change we made (I say we because I implemented all of these genius ideas, but none of them were actually things that I came up with. Also I had help in the form of the rest of the SM team) was to eliminate the epic trek from the lobby, down the stairs, and around the backstage to get onstage to actually audition. I gave each group my spiel and then took them to the green room. Everyone from the other audition blocks waited in the main lobby. This way, they could relax in the green room until 2 slots away from their time, then go get their picture taken, and wait at the end of the backstage hall when they were "in the hole," and then move to the anteroom when they were "on deck." (I also extended our baseball metaphor- we always just said "on deck" for everything, which was really confusing, but then they all were confused about what "in the hole" meant... Theatre kids need to get out more.)

The Department Chair sent me this email today:

Becky, SM, ASM, ASM, & SM

Your names all came up in the faculty grading session today with high praise indeed for your efforts in helping the massive auditions last week run smoothly and effectively. We would like you all to never graduate and stay forever please.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Great work!

So that was nice.

I ran into two issues with this new system- the first issue was with the website. Putting the form online worked really well, it was just a huge hassle trying to get it up (that's what she said), and then sometimes it would disappear from the website altogether. I know we were right in the thick of updating the website, so hopefully that won't happen again.

The second issue was with people who did not turn their form in before Monday afternoon. I don't know how many different ways I can say "Bring your form at 8:00." I don't understand why every actor thinks that somehow I can alter the audition order because their printer ran out of ink or they left their resume at home when they left this morning. It's not "too late for an audition time," JUST SHOW UP AT 8:00. I also got 3 audition forms out of the basket in the office after I had put a sign in the basket that said "Do not put your form here. Come to the theatre at 8:00 and you will be given an audition time."

Speaking of resumes. That was another issue- I forgot to ask them to include their headshots & resumes with the audition forms, so only the people who did it without being asked had theirs copied & given to the director with their forms. The point of having things turned in ahead of time was to prevent the lag time of having to photocopy the forms and put them in order to give to the directors, so that was my fault. Hopefully in the future, we can include that memo in the audition info.

Also, I picked up an interesting tidbit in this audition- next time we audition for more than one show at a time, and one of them is not a musical, we should if possible put all of the people only auditioning for the non-singing show at the end, so that the department doesn't have to pay the accompanist to sit and listen to 20 people not sing.

I think that the new things we tried this time around definitely were the reason that everything went so smoothly and so quickly.

Intro, post-haste

I am stage managing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as my senior project at Auburn. I have to keep a journal as part of the project, and seeing as how I am a speedy typer and a not-speedy writer, I figured I would start this blog so that I would maybe actually write on a regular basis.

My goal for my project (beyond a successful production, obviously) is to use the counting system I learned in the workshop at SETC last year for the cues.

I started working on it over a week ago, so I'm going to post separate entries on auditions, call-backs, and the company meeting.