This is a document I’ve had rattling around in my brain for a while but (to be completely honest) most of the musicals I work on move a bit too quickly for me to bother to get this detailed. Working on a Jr. script was the perfect way to actually put this together for the first time. 

I’d say about 98% of the shows (I’m not a mathematician) I work on use tracks in both show and rehearsal. And even if we’re working with a live pit for the show, I don’t always have a rehearsal pianist. That’s where a document like this comes in handy. Yes things are notated in my script but, like with all good paperwork, this is meant to be handed off to someone for a quick reference if me or my script aren’t available. Dance captain needs to work on a number in the other room? Here ya go don’t waste time scrubbing through tracks. 

Where this can get tricky is when major edits are done to tracks within Qlab (say we build a vamp into a song... or add several repeats that play straight through instead of playing out of a vamp... or splice a song into several pieces)... obviously that is not something I have run into with this particular document quite yet but I know it’s comin’.  

NBLQ Flag

NBLQ (queerenboric or nonbinary-loving queer): Queeries attracted to enbies; An unifying term for queer folk whose love of nonbinaries is stigmatized and discouraged. Interchangeable with NLQ, XLQ, QLNB, QLN & QLX.

ABLQ Flag

ABLQ (abinary-loving queer): Queer individuals attracted to abinary folks; An unifying term for queer folk whose love of abinaries is stigmatized and discouraged. Interchangeable with ALQ, QLA & QLAB.

GQLQ Flag

GQLQ (genderqueer-loving queer): Queer pals attracted to genderqueer people; An unifying term for queer folk whose love of genderqueeries is stigmatized and discouraged. Interchangeable with QLGQ.

I never mind questions!! It may take a minute to get to them, but I absolutely never mind them. 

If you’re providing your own equipment, get what’s going to work for you. If you don’t think you’ll like a Mac/don’t want to shell out the money for one (I don’t blame you) then stick with the Surface! No learning curve, you know you like it… why make an already stressful job more stressful with trying to learn new programs and software and stuff, ya know?

As an SM, there isn’t really anything that I have truly *needed* my mac for. WIth the exception of running Qlab (a personal preference – the theater I primarily work at has a computer in the rehearsal hall that SMs can access for Qlab use, I’ve just got a workflow going and haven’t switched over to using the rehearsal hall compuer), I could do all of the document-building, emailing, etc. I need on any machine. Hell, you don’t even need word or excel as far as I’m concerned – Google docs/sheets are great FREE tools. There are workarounds for anything and everything, they just take a little brain power the first time around. 

Also, any company that expects you to run Qlab *should* have a machine that runs Qlab there for you. Even if you don’t have access to it for rehearsals, it’ll be there for tech and show. Also, all of the sound cues in your Qlab show file have to come from somewhere. It’s tedious, but if there is something you *really* need that your director can’t live without in rehearsal and there is *no way* to get a Qlab-running-machine in the room until tech, you can always put the source file on your Surface and play it like you would any other sound file.

Go forth! Graduate! Buy tech that you enjoy and makes your life easier without breaking the bank!