Look at my kit!

So I've been seeing a lot of SM's (mostly students) on tumblr posting pictures of their kits, and I figured I'd do the same thing on my old-school non-tumbling Blog About Stage Management, mostly because as I transition into the life of a free-lancer, knowing I've completed my last internship and have no plans to go back to school in the near future, I'm feeling a little older and a little wiser.  I want to offer a slightly different (OK a whole lot different) version of the SM "Look at my kit!" post.

So, here's a picture of my kit.

Uhhhh, guys? That's it. It all fits in that cute little makeup bag I got in the Target dollar section.

It contains my stopwatch, a tiny notepad, a clicky-sharpie, Frixion erasable hiliters, an AMAZING set of post-its in all different shapes/sizes in one convenient little book, my template for drawing accurate blocking, a pair of scissors, and Frixion erasable pens (1 blue for random notes, 1 red for line notes, 3 black for blocking and props).

That's really it.

Let me explain.

Currently, I'm freelancing as an ASM, and that means two things:

1- I DON'T HAVE TO PERSONALLY PROVIDE EVERYTHING THAT ANYONE COULD EVER POSSIBLY NEED. 

Now your mileage will vary on this, but with my current gig- the theater provides a first aid kit, tape, & hospitality (coffee, hot water, cold water, sugar, mugs, stirrers, plastic forks, etc) and the SM provides everything else in his kit, and by "everything else" I mean basic office supplies.  At my previous internship, the theater provided EVERYTHING- Centerstage literally has a road box filled with nothing but tape and first aid supplies. A full-size, 8'tall, rolling black case full of tape.  We had more office supplies than we knew what to do with. If you needed it, they had it, and if they didn't have it, they'd get it. It was beautiful.  The internship before that provided first aid, tape, and basic office supplies. 

Like I said, mileage may vary, but you notice a common thread here of "the theater provides these things." I realize that there are theaters that do not provide anything (at my current gig, the SM provides about 200% more than the theater does), but so far, I haven't worked for one.  Maybe that's hubris talking, or naivete, or maybe I've just been really lucky with the theaters I've worked for. Take it with a grain of salt, it's my personal experience.

2- PORTABILITY PORTABILITY PORTABILITY

I have approximately an hour-long commute- 10min walk to metro, wait for metro anywhere from 2 to 20 min, 15 min train ride, 20 min walk to the theater. The theater where I currently work is part of a community center, which means our rehearsal space does not belong to us, and our storage space is at a premium- what I bring to rehearsal has to go home from rehearsal with me. In addition to my tiny kit, I'm also bringing with me my laptop (which unfortunately weighs as much as a small child) & it's charger, my planner, my lunchbox, and my dirty little secret- I also have 2 other little makeup bags that transfer from backpack to oversized purse to whatever. One contains a mini hairbrush, travel-size lotion & deodorant, hand sanitizer, hair clip, gum, chapstick, ibuprofen, & allergy meds; the other has my iPhone wall charger, Kindle charging cord that conveniently plugs into the iPhone wall cube, headphones, thumb drive, and screen cleaning cloth.  

Bag o' personal hygiene

Bag o' technology

While I would not deny those items to a colleague in need of a phone charger, ibuprofen, or a hair tie, they are my personal necessities that I bring with me no matter where I'm going (with the exception of fancy parties that require dainty purses that match my shoes). I keep them in bags because I hate digging through piles of things and tangled cords & whatever to the bottom of my backpack. Things get crusty down there. Anyway, long story short, my backpack already needs its own zipcode. I've been known to bowl over elderly women on crowded trains (not really). Can you imagine what would happen if I added a full-size kit?! Holy cow.  My back would not survive the commute.

I still have my full-size kit, full of tape measures and screw drivers and crescent wrenches and hole punches and labelmakers and 584933485 pencils and and and.  When my show goes into tech & performances, what I bring with me will change- I won't need my template and my tiny notepad any more. I'll add my flashlight, multitool, & clipboard to my backpack.  

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I am responsible only for what I need to do my best work.  I know that some SM's view their kits as a redundancy, a "last resort" in dire straits (oh god the lead is allergic to latex and nobody told sound! quick, grab the non-latex condom from my kit!), and I'm sure that when I transition back to the role of SM, I will probably do the same thing, but right now? I am LOVING the fact that everything I need fits in a tiny little bag.

Also, something that Auburn did which I absolutely LOVE: they provide kits for their student SMs.  I am SO GLAD we convinced the department that it was unfair for the SM students to pay out of their (tax-deductible) pockets for the actors to have hair ties and pencils in rehearsal.  The department purchased and paid for 6 tackle boxes & supplies, which are checked out by the SM & ASMs at the beginning of each rehearsal process (we're a small department, we never have more than 2 shows running at once).  The SM is responsible for it during the process, and tells the student production stage manager if the supplies need replenishing.  The PSM inventories the supplies at the end of each semester, and restocks the kits as necessary.  It was WONDERFUL, and in my experience so far, closer to the way things actually work in the real world.

Just my two cents as a freelance ASM.  

What is my life?

Today I spent 10 minutes with my arm shoved all the way inside a box covered with glitter, attempting to dislodge a wad of tissue paper with a wooden spoon. Then I swept fake snow, went on an Easter egg hunt for prop food scattered about backstage, and threatened to fire a 7-year-old.

Strangest Patron Ever

So last night, I had the strangest interaction with a patron I think I've ever had- ranked right up there with the guy who didn't seem to understand why I didn't want his 6-year-old daughter to go down the fireman's pole on the set of Alice in Wonderland...

I walk into the theatre at 6:15, a little earlier than usual. The doors were unlocked because of rehearsal in the big banquet room (normally we keep the exterior doors locked for as long as possible due to homeless people). So I walk in and there's this guy standing in the lobby, right inside the door. I gave him the quick Memphis once-over (are you dressed like a hobo? can I smell you from where I'm standing?) and then saw that he was holding a comp ticket voucher, so he was obviously in the right place, just really early.

Man: Is this Black Pearl Sings? Is that here?

Me: Yes sir. There's nobody here from the box office yet, but feel free to wait in the lobby until they open.

Man: Where do I wait?

Me: Right here, in the lobby. There are some benches here, or feel free to look at the art in the gallery through those doors.

Man: I can't go in there yet, though? (ie, into the house)

Me: No, not yet. You need to wait in the lobby.

Man: OK, thanks. What's your name?

Me: Becky.

Man: OK, thanks Becky.

Me: No problem, sir. Enjoy the show.

I went upstairs to the booth. This took me about 30 seconds. When I got to the booth I glanced out the window, and saw the man sitting on the chaise onstage. I leaned out the window and yelled "SIR! GET OFF THE STAGE PLEASE!" And he looked up all startled and saw me, and walked back out to the lobby.

At this point, I'm a little bit freaked out, so while I was eating my dinner in the green room I turned on the monitor for the stage, so I would be able to see if he decided to take another nappy-nap on the set. He didn't come back in, and I thought I'd seen the last of him...

Then, at 7:00, I was standing onstage with one of the actresses, just chatting about the little kids in the audience at the morning matinee, and he opens the doors from the lobby and walks into the house!

Me: Sir, you need to wait in the lobby, please.

Man: Becky!

Me: Please wait in the lobby until we open the doors.

Man: Oh, I thought I heard them say the show was about to start.

Me: No, sir, we've got an hour before the show starts. You need to wait in the lobby.

Man: What time does the show start?

Me: 8:00.

Man: What time is it now, like 7:30?

Me: No sir, it's 7:00. There's an hour before the show starts.

Man: Well what am I supposed to do until then?

Me: Uhhhhh

Actress: You could. Uh. Go get some dinner. Or something?

Man: I already did that!

Me: Well, sir, I'm sorry, but you're just early. The show doesn't start for an hour...

Just then our house manager opened the door and got him to go back into the lobby.

I'm not entirely sure if he had something wrong with him or what, but it was absolutely bizarre.

Walkin in Memphis

So. Since the last time I updated I have finished my summer at The Vane and then opened and closed a show at my new theatre, and started rehearsals for the next one.

I am now the Stage Manager for the Circuit Playhouse at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. What I didn't know when I took the job was that, until February of this year, the theatre that I'm SMing was the mainstage, and the Circuit Playhouse was in another building a few blocks away. They just opened the brand new building across the street, aka POTS, and moved Circuit into the old mainstage, which is awesome for me- I was expecting a dinky little blackbox, but instead I'm in a 250-seat proscenium house (no flies though- boo!) in the historic Memphian Theatre (reportedly Elvis's favorite place to play when he came home to Memphis). How cool is that?!

My first show here was Superior Donuts, by Tracy Letts. I came in for the last few days of rehearsal, and then we started tech! That show was... interesting. All community actors, and I had no crew person backstage. That was a shocker for me- I knew I wouldn't have an ASM, but I was literally the only crewmember on this show. I ran the lights and sound through QLab (I wish so much that Sound Design hadn't been a complete waste of a semester, because it would be really helpful for me to know what the hell I'm doing in QLab), and there was no one backstage. I thought that was a poor decision on the part of everyone running the show before I got here- there were a lot of props in this show, and a few scenic things that needed to happen during Act 1 that the actors had to do. I did the intermission shift by myself, which took 12 minutes- so much for a bathroom break! Donuts ran for 4 weeks (man, it's been a while since I posted anything!), we closed on Sunday.

Now I'm in rehearsals for the next show to go up at Circuit- Black Pearl Sings! It's a relatively new play- it hasn't been published yet, and we're still in contact with the playwright, but it's been performed at a few other theatres (small world, my ASM at OTC saw it at Ford's Theatre when it premiered). It's a 2-woman play with music, and it's posing an interesting challenge with some historical inaccuracies and the utter lack of resources to find this music- the playwright sent us a CD of the songs, but we have been unable to find sheet music for most of it. It's tough going for some of this music, friends.

The work schedule here at POTS is tough- we basically work 10 out of 12's 6 days a week. 10-1, 2-5, 6-10. I work in the office in the morning, with the production manager/PSM, the props designer, and the mainstage ASM (once she arrives!) doing anything from photocopying scripts (which is what I'm doing right now, aka time for blogging!) to production meetings to helping make props. If I have anything I need to do for one of my shows, that's always my priority for the morning shift, and if I finish that then I get a job from the PM or props designer. If neither one of them has anything for me to do (which rarely happens) then I go play with the Master Electrician and the resident Lighting Designer. They like it when I come help- they were shocked to find out I actually know what I'm doing with electrics. The fact that I volunteered to cut their gel also endeared me to them somewhat.

For the afternoon shift, it could be one of two things- more of the same as the morning, or rehearsal. Directors have the option of having rehearsal in the afternoon in addition to the evening, but some (Donuts) don't use it, while others (Black Pearl) do. In the evenings, I'm either in rehearsal or a performance.

I've also run some auditions (A Christmas Story and Grey Gardens, both of which are mine, and Peter Pan, which runs on the mainstage at Christmas).

Also, another small world- a friend of mine from middle school was cast in the ensemble for the tour of Legally Blonde! I was so excited for him, and then a girl who used to work at The Vane was cast as Margot/Elle's understudy as well. I've had at least 3 friends from AU and 1 friend from The Vane that I know of who have seen this show. I wish I could see it so badly, but they aren't coming to Memphis. =/

Theatre is such a small world. Let me see how many times I can say that in this post, but it's true- 2 of the other interns (an acting intern & the master electrician) were on the National Players tour together last year, so I already knew them from OTC. How weird is that??

Hairspray, wow!

We opened Hairspray last week- the last show of the season! It's weird not being in rehearsal at the same time as performance...

Hairspray is a challenge- it's the biggest (also youngest...) cast of the season- 30 actors, 9 of whom are either in high school or just graduated- we have less backstage space than we did for The Producers, and the tent out back that we used for furniture/prop storage is now the dressing room for the male ensemble. The problem was also compounded by the fact that we didn't have a lot of the scenic pieces until final dress and/or opening night, in some cases. Opening night was the first time we had the giant (9 feet tall, 4 foot diameter) hairspray can backstage for Act I, which caused all kinds of traffic problems that actually resulted in the actor playing Edna Turnblad falling backstage during the quick change in Welcome to the 60's. We had to hold the show for about 5 minutes while we bandaged him up, his legs were scraped up pretty badly. His giant beehive wig probably saved him from a concussion, too. We (my SM and I) were complimented by a few people on how well we handled the situation, nobody panicked or anything and it only took us a few minutes to get him ready to go.

We've had a lot of problems with the set, actually. Casters coming off of rolling units, and most importantly- the turntables not working. We have two small turntables that rotate A LOT through the course of the show (the Turnblad house, Penny's house, Detention, etc). Apparently it was someone's bright idea that they didn't want to see people turning them, so the shop staff rigged up a pulley & caster system. Unfortunately, one of them has the casters done up poorly, which makes it extremely difficult to turn and really susceptible to malfunctions.

I'm also starting to get rehearsal reports for Superior Donuts, which is my first show at Playhouse! I start work there in 2 weeks! My first day of rehearsal is one of the final run-throughs before we go into tech. The current SM sent me a copy of the cast list and the rehearsal schedule, but I don't have a copy of the script yet, which unfortunately makes the rehearsal reports pretty useless. They're supposed to be mailing me a copy of it, so here's hoping I'll have a chance to read it before the first day of work!

when it rains...

I am perpetually amazed at the things we have to deal with in theatre...

Yesterday I missed most of the day of Hairspray rehearsals (yeah, we're halfway through rehearsal for that already!) to go rebuild the sound cues for Alice with our resident sound designer. Our sound intern has left the company, and we were running the show from his personal computer. That worked out fine, it just took forever and a day. So that was fun.

Our resident sound designer has this thing where he doesn't like to take cues from stage managers. At all. I don't know why, but when he is running a show that he has designed, he takes his own cues, so having to run Alice now is going to make him INSANE. Well, he did not design this show, the intern did. There are 45 sound cues, many of which go off of light cues. He is not familiar with this show at all. Also, we don't have headset communication between the booth and the board (we lost 2 packs in tech, so I'm also talking to my ASM via walkie), so we had cue lights set up for me to call the cues for the intern. He kept bitching about having to take cues from me, and all I wanted to do was say TOUGH SHIT. SUCK IT UP. The show went fine, we didn't have any problems, but I had to listen to that all afternoon. Sound designers are a strange bunch.

Our Mad Tea Party scene is insane- the audience loves it, but it's a stage management nightmare. Last night our March Hare spat a piece of half-chewed bread onto on of the tables. I told my ASM that he had to clean it up himself- it's not in his blocking to spit chewed food on the table! That is disgusting! I was going to give him stage management dollars for picking up a tea cup that got kicked halfway across the stage, but he got sassy with me about cleaning it up himself, so NO SOUP FOR YOU, CRAZY RABBIT! Not that stage management dollars actually amount to anything, it's like Who's Line- the score's made up and the points don't matter! But that's disgusting. He can spit whatever he wants wherever he wants as long as he cleans it up himself.

Alice in Wonderland is a trip and a half.

meanwhile, back at the ranch...

SO it's been almost a month since my last post... I'm going to recap some stuff in bullet points.

-We survived The Miracle Worker. It was an excellent run of an excellent show. The set turned out gorgeous, and although I never actually saw them, I've been told that the lights were gorgeous too.

-We survived The Producers too! The actor who stepped in to play Max did a fantastic job, and the reviews of the show were fantastic. We struck that show last night...

-So about The Producers... the set for that show was so intense/had so many moving parts that we ended up getting the lighting designer, the ATD, the sound intern, and the carpentry intern to be our run crew, in addition to the 3 run crew members we already had. We tried at first to get by with crew and actors moving the set, but the scene changes took forever and were just dangerous, so we ended up with shop staff doing it. It worked out so well, though- it took 2 of the guys to move each wagon, where it took 4 actors to do it, and they did it in half the time.

-Another fun thing about The Producers is that there was not enough room backstage to store all of the set pieces, furniture, and props, so we set up a big pavilion tent outside and at intermission, we rolled up the elephant door and switched out stuff that was only used in Act I for stuff that was only used in Act II. It was ridiculous. There were also times (like the Accountant scene in Act I that required 5 rolling desks with chairs attached) that furniture came offstage and literally just kept going straight out the back door. We were scared about what would happen if it rained, but we got super lucky- there was only one night that it rained, and it held off till right after Intermission. We knew it was coming and did the shift in 7 minutes, literally running back and forth between the backstage and the scene shop, where we were keeping all of the props that could be damaged in the rain. It was really windy and the clouds were just black, and almost as soon as the Entr'acte was done, the bottom fell out. We group-hugged and said a prayer of thanks to Thespis and Dionysus for holding off the rain for us.

-A perk of having half of the tech staff on the run crew instead of high school apprentices was that things got fixed really fast, sometimes within minutes of it breaking onstage. That was super helpful when it came to things like the gun that kept misfiring or facing coming off of platforms as we move them on and off stage.

-Also, while all of this Producers craziness was happening, I was in rehearsal for Alice in Wonderland. I have neither the time nor the inclination to open the can of worms that is the recap of the rehearsal process for Alice at this moment, so that will wait for another time.

Kansas! Also, blind kids!

So tech at Weathervane is NUTS. We have 3 days of tech- one day of spacing, scene changes, etc. (it's the first rehearsal on the actual stage) and then 2 days of dress rehearsal.

The thing about My Fair Lady that made this whole process even more intense is that because of the renovation, our second dress rehearsal was also the grand-opening-ribbon-cutting-gala-ceremony-extravaganza with like 250 donors, season ticket holders, etc. Too bad we didn't make it all the way through the end of the show in the first dress! Wahoo!

So for the gala, they got everything ready and all fancy and made a bunch of speeches that we didn't hear because we were rehearsing, and we start the show, and halfway through the Overture we hear a siren outside, and then the Artistic Director yelling "HOLD! HOLD! HOLD!" There was a tornado warning (watch? warning? whichever one is the one where there's actually a tornado). So the actors are all in the dressing rooms, and the audience is chillin in the seats for about 10 minutes. One of our donors is the county fire marshall, so he had his radio and was getting all of the updates on the situation, which quickly progressed to a tornado moving in our general direction, so we evacuated everyone into the Children's Theatre, which is the safer building- no windows, lower ceiling, etc. So then we had about 300 people in the Children's Theatre, which isn't completely finished being constructed yet, so the crew was frantically carrying in chairs for the old people (most of the audience was old) and flashlights in case we lost power and it was a MADHOUSE. At one point the Artistic Director started serving cake from the gala, and then the cast was singing to try and keep people from panicking. All of the crew and the theatre staff were remarkably calm and composed during the whole ordeal, thank God.

My SM & I decided that if the theatre is actually hit by a tornado, at any point in the summer, really, we will be getting matching tornado tattoos. We thought we were all going to get blown away, the weather was absolutely terrifying outside! Also, wouldn't it just be beautiful irony for the brand-new building to get blown away by a tornado during the ribbon-cutting ceremony?

Anyway, we finally got to resume the show, we got started around 9:15. A lot of the audience left, understandably, but we had a fairly large number who stayed all the way through. And when I say all the way through, I mean we skipped large sections of the show that we had run in the first dress so that we could make it through the end of the show before midnight, which we barely achieved. The result of all of this was that we opened the show without ever running it from start to finish on the stage in one sitting.

We opened last night, and it actually went very well, considering. The other crazy thing is that the first day of performance for one show is simultaneously the first day of rehearsal for the next one, so we rehearsed Miracle Worker from 10:00-5:00 and then went to open My Fair Lady.

Miracle Worker is one of my favorite plays, I really like it. I wish I could see it performed in Tuscumbia, they do it every summer in Helen Keller's actual house. The character of James is such a great part, the actor who's playing it is doing a fantastic job. I really just think James is so funny, poor guy.

We have two girls playing Helen- the main Helen and then her understudy. Her understudy is one of those obnoxious Broadway babies. Also a very bossy child. Helen is fantastic, though. We played a lot of blindfolded games with the kids and the girl playing Annie, which of course resulted in us being groped by blindfolded 10-year-old girls, because they put their arms straight out and up, which is right at boob height. Classy.

We're rehearsing at a Lutheran church in downtown Newark right now- no more rehearsal in the abandoned elementary school/architectural firm gym! The irony of this situation is that the church also houses the Licking County Center for the Visually Impaired. We share a wall with them, and can hear them on the phone all the time. It's a little uncomfortable, actually.