#stagemanagerprobs

I want to start recording what I'm doing at my internship at American Theater Company because even though it's not exactly challenging, we've been given the opportunity to do some amazing stuff and meet some fascinating people. I'd love to go into more detail at a later date but I'm about to pass out and I finally remembered at a time when I can do this so here's as quick of a list as I can do:

Wednesday June 10th- Second day, saw Hair. It was fabulous, first time I understood the plot really. Post-mortem, we roll the fake joints during staff meeting on Wednesdays.

Friday June 11th- Met with the production manager Markie Gray, she's so cool but not at all what I expected. She majored in acting and then jumped into production managing without any training... Hmmph. Well she does a great job apparently but it's also her first month as not being an apprentice but I'm just surprised she's only been out of UIC for 2 years. Go her and her awesome fashion sense.

Thursday June 19th- Helped with auditions for next season's play The Royale and got to read it, all plays next season are unpublished world premieres so that's pretty cool :D

Friday June 20th- Met with Mary Zimmerman's operatic dramaturge Derek Matson. He was so fun to talk to and had great insight about always learning and being a cultured person and stuff and he also has like 10 other jobs besides being a dramaturge.

Tuesday June 24th- FINALLY got to meet with the director of the play we're working on, which helped a ton so all 7 of us can start getting more into depth in our areas.

Thursday June 26th- this was an extremely special day. We got to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Brown from Littleton, Colorado. They are the parents of the Columbine survivors, their sons Brooks and Aaron. They had a story no one else from that day could tell, about how one of the shooters, Eric, had previously threatened their son Brooks and Eric had a police record because of that and that record was suppressed for over 6 months and how the first responding county sheriffs present at the scene would not enter the school while hearing the students scream and get shot down. It moved many of us to tears and Judy Brown is one of the funniest, strongest women I have ever ever met. She and her husband worked against their community to uncover the truth about the hidden information for years. And now I've rambled on.

Friday June 27th- We met with Gabe the interim administrative assistant and he filled us in on some of the business-y side of running a theatre and we learned how confusing and kind of fucked up theatre organizations are managed from the business side.

Monday is strike for Hair and I'm technically the leader for the week to turn over the space to what they call "back to black" which is exactly what that sounds like. It'll be fun and I want to learn the space and I miss actual hard labor.

a hot glue gun

a bag of glue sticks

a sharpening steel for knives

two pieces of a 2x4

an apple

laptop

promptbook

a sheet of sandpaper

2 textbooks

a notebook

the New Testament

a bunch of pens that never work when I need them to 

In all matters of redemption, this show was absolutely flawless.

All of the props and electric units were fixed.  

Every cue was properly linked.

Except for one itsy bitsy thing.

I called the cue for curtain call lights a few seconds too early, bringing them up on an actor exiting the stage.

...

It was a beautiful, seamless run...

...and then I tripped at the finish line.

The power strip blows, so the fogger shuts off.  We finally get it turned on.  However it does not respond to the cues, so we go without.  Post show, we mess with it and figure out a manual way to use it.  The light designer, who was working with us post show, leaves it on over night and the fogger starts to clog in the morning.

We have a headboard that snaps in half right before it is supposed to go on stage.

Seating in the house gets sloppy when the house manager realizes that there are severe sight line issues and moves people around.  We are now working with the ticket booths to ensure that that section is not sold unless absolutely necessary.  

Part of the trim on the set breaks off during the final scene and sits at the front of the stage, exposed.

Two sound cues switch from manual to automatic and mess up a scene and a transition, as well as a climactic death cue.

...

And this night, this chaotic night, is the show that the director brings his partner to see.

I am a throbbing, shameful lump of a human.

...

On the plus side, the show went on, and everyone in the audience who was not part of the production team thought the show went very smoothly and couldn't tell that anything was wrong.

So there's that.