The income from a career in theater has been, well, much as I expected. Unfortunately, that isn’t high. I’ve been struggling lately between bills and income and the balance between the two, quite frankly, has not been what it should be. Two months in a row, I’m running in the red, and finally I decided [...]
I just got home from a rehearsal with the BSF, where they’ve just hired me as running crew on Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was a last minute placement: I had sent in my resume last week and they had already filled the position, but the person they initially hired had a conflict for the entire [...]
kritha: Fashion and other concerns.
I really couldn’t sum up what happened closing night of Fashion. Fortunately, Lei did it for me. Since she plotted it all out, her version sums things up pretty well.
One of the trickier things to explain among the list of what a stage manager does is blocking notation. First of all, blocking is how we refer to the movements of the actors as choreographed by the director. Whenever the director says, “You, go over there”, or “Pick up that book and examine it when [...]
The first rehearsal is usually used for general business, a read through and table work. The read through is exactly what it sounds like—the cast reads through the script with the director and begins to get a feel for the flow and timing of the show. Table work involves going through the script scene by [...]
This semester will prove to be a complex one. We’re in the second week of rehearsals for Waiting for Lefty, which opens March 1. However, I am also stage managing Fashion, which opens April 12. I have a very good ASM for Lefty, Karin, who is being referred to among the department here as “heir [...]
Tonight was closing night of The Examined Life, otherwise known as the collaborative project (collaborative being a word used very liberally in this case). It was interesting, but not in the good way.
At the top of the show, the wrong button activated for some reason, and the house lights didn’t go out properly, instead turning [...]
So, on Monday I had the first of my interviews of professional stage managers. I met Whitney, currently Artistic Administrator for one of the smaller theater companies in Philly, in a corner café near South Street and talked for about an hour. I was supposed to go tomorrow to observe that company’s stage manager during [...]
This semester, I’m working on a three part project. Part one is a history of stage management, which is what I was researching tonight. It’s really amazing how little is known about the history of stage management. It’s a fairly modern job; it appears to have its roots around the turn of the century (1900s). [...]
It’s kind of scary, in a way. This is the first show I’ve worked on that my Dad hasn’t come to see. And now, Mom won’t be coming either. No one from my family will, and that’s kind of strange. None of my friends are working on it, and none of them have even seen [...]