#stage managers

And one thing about my degree journey, is that my parents have never been really all that supportive of my theatre career and pursuit. They saw no money in it, and as long as I was studying theatre. I was on my own. Getting to come to anything that I was doing was a challenge. Family gatherings or events, we didn’t talk about what I was studying or about my career at all.

But, my parents came to my final theatre performance at my university. A show I was stage managing, not even on stage. And, after my graduation, my parents sat me down and said “We don’t really know what it was, but something after the show made us start thinking. So, talk to us about theatre. Why do you want to do it, what’s your plan, etc”

They also said “there’s a light that we saw in you at the theater, that we haven’t seen in a long time.” And they recognized that theatre is an industry that they know absolutely nothing about. And so, they’ve decided to be fully supportive of my career going forward. I don’t know what that’s going to look like necessarily? But, it felt really good to hear them say that and to hear them say that they’re proud.

BEHOLD

Trevor the stage manager from the Goes Wrong Show.

Will anyone get this? No.

Is this utterly self indulgent? Absolutely.

Love yalllll🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

Me: (obsessed with stickers) *somehow making the sound of 🤩*

ASM: *reaching for a sticker* No, you deserve a sparkly sticker

I say this as a performer. I've done so much. I love writing, directing, acting, singing, dancing, drag, costuming, makeup, hair, set design, prop making. I don't have experience in stage management, light or sound tech, but i respect them deeply.

Then there's actors. I mean actors who have never done anything else. Actors who think we are all there to serve them. Not there for the show, there for them specifically. I probably would've gone into doing costume professionally, if it werent for the fact i was treated like dirt. Not by all of them. But just the worst ones. The rest of them just kinda forgot i existed. i wasnt important.

I love directing, i'm good at leadership, i love team building and having fun as a group and making scenes together and building one everyones ideas and trying things out. i like scheduling. An availability spreadsheet is a problem to be solved. finding the solution where the most people are available for the most necessary rehearsals. but then they complain. I cant do this rehearsal. Thats fine. Thats why we have catch ups. Theres too many, theres not enough. Why are we wasting time with games, i didnt have fun cause we didnt play games. No pleasing everyone, i always knew that, then i was the bad guy because i didnt please everyone.

I like writing, i dont have to deal with the actors. In fact i delight in coming up with scenes that feel impossible to stage. "The moon turns into a man" do that actor. Suffer.

When i'm Queen of the universe, all actors will be required to do at least one full scale show in crew. All the actors who are patient during tech and nice to the crew, are involved in some aspect of crew themselves.