Tag Archive | Stage management
The Logic of Props
This quarter, I’m one of the assistant stage manager’s on the Opera Institute’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, or in English, The Marriage of Figaro. Even if you don’t know opera, you’ve heard of Figaro. Please note, that one song that goes “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro” is not from The Marriage of Figaro, it’s actually from Rossini’s The […]
I did the work!
I had high hopes of writing a post a week about Emmeline, the opera I just closed, but those hopes fell away as tech and opening came and went. Now that we’ve closed, in addition to the usual reflecting on the process itself that I do on my own and with my advisor, I want to […]
A Visit at Emmeline
This past Tuesday we were fortunate enough to have the composer of Emmeline, Tobias Picker, join us in rehearsal. We ran Act I twice, once with each cast. Following the second run, Picker spoke up. “You made me very sad. Which makes me very happy,” he said. I could feel the room exhale. Performing an opera […]
The Privilege of Silence
I was having a conversation with a friend recently who was telling me that she’d heard that a theatre of renown in New York was specifically seeking black stage managers. At first I was a bit thrown off by this idea. “It sounds like casting,” I thought aloud. As backstage theatre-makers, we are generally not […]
What I Learned From…
As I slowly began my ascent out of tech week for a Femina Shakes production of Henry IV, Part One (shameless plug) an article entitled “What I Learned from Not Rehearsing Shakespeare Plays” began to circulate through my newsfeed on various social media platforms. Of course I had to read it… what kind of SM doesn’t read […]
What It’s All About
Pacific Overtures has so far been one of the most challenging shows I’ve ever run. Second only, I think, to the Shakespeare in the woods I SMed this summer. I’ve stated several times throughout the process that this show makes me feel dumb at stage management. There are so many things going on sometimes that […]
Why My Arts Training is Making Me the Person I Need to Be
I guess you could say I applied as a Stage Management major on a whim. I was labelled as the “stage manager” of my high school technical theatre group, but since we were primarily the school’s event production service I did not get much experience with theatrical productions, and only dabbled in the actual duties […]
The Easy Choice
Previously on this blog I have advocated for the consideration of stage managers as theatre artists, citing our creative sensibilities in communicating notes from the rehearsal room, and the influence we can have on the execution of the design elements in a production. I truly believe this, and recognize in myself my own capacity for […]
Interdisciplinary Theatre, Within the Theatre
It has long been established in my mind that Stage Managers are interdisciplinary artists. (This is the reason why it’s so difficult to explain in a sentence what we do.) The Boston University curriculum for Stage Management (at least from 2011 onward, since I have been a student) encompasses very few technical Stage Management classes. […]
Looking Forward to the Challenges
This week in Stage Management Types and Styles class, we were visited by a guest lecturer, Tareena Wimbish. Our introduction to Tareena was that she was a stage manager who had recently moved to Boston from San Diego, and had an interesting background in event work – including “Zombie Runs.” We met Tareena, and she […]
The Art of Stage Management (Yep, I said it)
In the stage management community there are repeated cycles of discussion around the same topic: We are managers in the arts. But are we also artists? In the past, I have heard arguments in favor of stage management artistry mostly focused on the “how does s/he do it” element of our jobs. The way stage […]
Theatre Against Actors, or When Did Our Art Become Craft?
In my post on the blog last week, Cheap Theatremaking, I discussed the tendency of some individuals on the performance or non-technical side of theatre to advocate minimal designs, and the negative reaction that can ensue from designers and production staff who feel their work may be undervalued. This week I would like to look […]
Make Yourself Replaceable
We all want to believe that we are the only ones capable of doing our jobs. We all want to believe that we, as individuals, are the ultimate resource. We all want to believe that we add something so intangibly special to a production that without us, it would never be the same. But in […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 