I’ve added this new catagory to my blog so that I can write things specifically about my digital story project and label them as such. 
That way you’ll all be able to track my fabulous progress!
OK, I just need to vent even though I’m not that frustrated about this anymore. I have officially decided that organizing schedules is a nightmare.
I spent the majority of the day on Wednesday trying to schedule life, and at the end of the day I was completely burnt out. Some people are really good at planning, and some people are really bad at it. Most of the time I consider myself lucky to be a skilled planner, but then during those times when everyone is relying on me to do the planning because I’m the one who’s “good at it”, things begin to get a little bit messy.
First of all, planning techs for the directing shows has me pulling my hair out. I know that I really shouldn’t complain about that process because Tori, Jil and Erin have been working their asses off and my job is way easier than theirs, but planning techs for three shows seems next to impossible when you have to plan around Easter weekend, Love’s Labour’s Lost, class schedules (and p.s., apparently everyone involved in the process loves to take night classes), work schedules (including Andrew’s and Kyle’s Box Office hours, not to mention mine), a show choir concert, a night trip to D.C. for class, and god knows what else. I’m beginning to believe there aren’t enough hours in the day to tech out and have dress rehearsals for three shows. So anyway, all day I stared at the schedule on my computer screen and didn’t really get much accomplished in the way of planning. Every time I would make progress, someone would look over my shoulder at the schedule and say something like “oh, you’re going to schedule a dress rehearsal during strike for Love’s Labour’s?” or something equally irritating. I know I can’t blame anyone; it’s just hard with so many different schedules, especially when, for most of the people involved, these shows are just something they’re doing for fun-class and work comes first.
On top of planning the directing techs, I was also revising the Box Office schedule to allow for Kyle to go home for Easter, which unfortunately traps Andrew and I in the Box Office during times when I’d really like to be holding a level set. Too bad everyone in the department is doing eight things at once…ah, se’la’vie. Of course, Wednesday happened to be the day that I chose to rewrite the “how to create the schedule” section of my manual in the Box Office. It was pretty hilarious, really. The irony gets to me.
So now that I’m done complaining, the bottom line in all of this is- I think I need to better learn to deal with the pressures of schedule planning. I mean, I always thought I was a wiz at scheduling. I even enjoy scheduling actors for level sets, usually (but don’t tell anyone- that’s embarrassing). I guess it’s just because I’m trying to balance so many schedules at once…it’s got my head spinning. I know that this type of thing will probably be a lot less stressful once I’m working in the professional theatre world because I won’t have to be worrying about Box Office stuff in addition to stage management, but I’m beginning to realize how important it is that everyone gets the time they need to work during techs. Lloyd talked to me a little bit about that when I had breakfast in NY. He said it’s really important to keep everyone else happy…I’m glad I’m getting some experience with it, because it’s harder than I thought it would be.
Speaking of scheduling, I’ve managed to work it out so I have time to go home this weekend. Yay! I’m really excited because my aunt is visiting from England and I’ll get the chance to spend some time with her. I’m also planning to go into the city for a little while on Saturday. I’m going to try to take some raw footage of the streets of New York- you can never have too much B roll film. I might try to bring the i-river so I can record myself, too. I’m also going to look through a lot of old photos and video at my house. I want to have some old footage or documentation with which I’ll begin my digital story☺. It will be nice to have a weekend at home. It’s not very often I have the opportunity to leave- I’m usually booked with theatre stuff, and if not I have papers to write, etc. The timing just happened to work out this time. I got in touch with Craig Jacobs in the hopes that I would be able to shadow him on Sunday, but apparently
Sunday is Phantom’s day off- weird! He said to let him know what day I want to reschedule for and he’ll set things up for me. It was really nice of him; I’ll probably try to go back in May. Oh my, so much planning to do.
Something kind of creepy happened to me the other day. I was trying to get all of my New York thank you notes sent out and I needed to track down a bunch of addresses. I was having a particularly hard time finding an address for one of my contacts, so I googled her. Imagine my surprise when the first thing to pop up was one of my blog posts containing her name. I felt so exposed!
It is interesting to me that we are sometimes so oblivious to the world we’re living in. In a time when we rely so heavily on the internet for information and worldwide communication, we sometimes don’t realize that we are also making contributions to the web. The millions of blogs out there, advertised as “online diaries” and the like, ARE NOT PRIVATE. These journals containing our most private thoughts and ideas are accessible with a single click of the mouse. Of course we tell our families and friends to check out our latest blog post, click on that link we posted, etc., but what we may not realize is that strangers can access the information just as easily, and sometimes it’s not even intentional. It just goes to show that you don’t have to be looking for something in order to find it.
Speaking of looking for stuff on the web, I went on a little bit of a real estate rampage yesterday. I thought I’d look at some properties in New York to get an idea of just how pricey apartments can be. While I did see some apartments on the upper west side renting for up to $50,000 a month (who in their right mind has the money to pay $600,000 /year in rent???), I also saw some really cute places in Brooklyn for only about $1,000/month. Now if only I can convince Jil and Tori to live with me, it’ll be affordable. I’m not planning to move to Manhattan anytime soon after graduation, but it would be cool to live in Brooklyn. Also, I find myself thinking about my future plans in ALL of my spare time. I think it’s becoming an obsession…maybe I should chill out. I DO plan to begin getting my letters together this week. I need to collect addresses, draft a letter, etc. Hopefully Gregg will have some time to help me with the letter part. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say yet, but I just want to get it done. It’ll be a weight off my shoulders.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my final project. I was nervous at first, and maybe a little confused about what exactly I was supposed to be doing, but I’m getting pretty excited about it now. The project will be a 10 minute digital presentation; Each of us will compile different types of digital media (such as audio, video, and photos), and organize that media into chapters to create a sort of digital story about our individual journey. My favorite part about the project is that it will be very personal. It won’t just be a cold presentation of the research I’ve collected over the semester. My story will be about me and about how I have arrived at this point; it will tell people about the point I’m at. For the past week or so, we’ve been looking at a lot of examples of digital storytelling. My favorite has to be the radio show called “This American Life”.
If you’ve never heard of “This American Life”, you must visit the website. The show, hosted by Ira Glass, is just a medium for telling people’s stories. It sounds so simple, but it’s mesmerizing. People tell the stories of their lives and there’s something about the passion in their voices that just makes you listen. The show runs an hour and is organized into chapters. Sometimes the stories are only a few minutes and there are several chapters in one program. Generally, there is one unifying theme among all of the stories. Some of the anecdotes are really touching, and some of them are absolutely hilarious. On Tuesday, we listened to one episode in particular that really got to me. It was called Fiasco and the first chapter told the story of a particularly tragic production on the musical Peter Pan. There’s no way to verbally describe the hilarity. If you have 20 extra minutes, you really should listen to it. You need Real Player in order to listen to the episodes for free, but if you don’t have it, it’s really easy to download and it’s totally worth it.
As a part of our assigned reading for class, we read a sort of comic book about “This American Life”. The book explained the process by which one episode is created. It was good for me to read about editing and interviewing and all of the other things that go into making a radio show. Ok, time to go to work…more to come later.
I’ve taken a little rest from blogging over the past week to collect my thoughts…My mind was on sensory overload when we left New York and came back here. I didn’t know what to do or think.
Basically, I spent 4 days at a convention in Florida where I put all of my energy into interviewing with representatives from theatres of all kinds, hailing from all over the nation. I was tired. My back hurt and my feet hurt. My face hurt from having smiled for days on end. I came equipped with dozens of resumes and did my best to say what people wanted to hear. Aside from all that, I was dejected at seeing what heavy competition I had, and I was a little envious to hear that many of the friends I made last summer would be working together again this summer (at the theatre I decided to move on from).
Following my rigorous job interviewing process, I spent a week in New York, where my perspective on the business changed drastically and I decided that I didn’t want to work in regional theatre for any length of time before moving on to NY. A future that I had been so sure of and so confidant about a week earlier was suddenly the last thing I wanted. Suddenly, all I could think about was how I was going to break into the business in NY. Would I be able to get a PA job on Broadway? Would I be a strong enough asset to impress NY stage managers and convince them to keep me on staff? How would I even contact said stage managers? Why could I only find male stage managers in the Theatrical Index? What if I wouldn’t be able to break into Broadway as a female SM?
Of course, I realize that some of these fears were a little paranoid, but I also believe that the fact that I am about to become jobless does justify some fear. In the week since I have returned to Fredericksburg, I have turned down three job offers from regional theatres. If someone had walked up to me at SETC and said “You know, I have a feeling you’re going to turn down a lot of job offers as a result of this convention”, I probably would have thought I was talking to a crazy person. Even the day I left New York, I may still have accepted a job in Connecticut, or New Jersey, or even Ohio (those are the three offers I turned down). It took a week of reflection away from NY to realize that I will avoid working outside of the city if at all possible. I don’t think it really hit me until Saturday afternoon. I was discussing a job offer I had received with Gregg and Brandon. With their support, I decided I would give the NY thing a shot for real. I had to say it out loud a couple of times to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.
My hands were shaking today when I called North Shore Music Theatre and told the Production Manager that I was very flattered by her offer but I would have to turn her down. My insides were a mess. Was I doing this? Was I actually taking this risk and turning down this paying job? I kept trying to sort out the logic in my head. I will be happy in New York. I have confidence in myself and my ability and I have just forged a whole lot of connections in the city. Why would I walk away from that? Wouldn’t I be a fool to work in regional theatre for a year after I have just met all of these people? Yes, I may have turned down a paying job today and risked being jobless, but if I don’t shoot for the top now, what if I regret it in the future? I would rather take the risk than forever wonder if I could have made it in New York right now.
So, here goes…wish me luck.
I can’t believe it’s time to go home. The past two days have probably been my most hectic yet; the time has flown by in a whirlwind and now the trip is over! I remember the time when Tori and I were begging Gregg to offer this class. We wanted to do research in NY so badly, and now it has actually happened. My two most recent interviews were a great cap to the week, and so were the shows we saw over the past few days.
On Friday afternoon I met with Martha Donaldson, the PSM for [title of show]. She was probably the most down to earth, cut-through-the-bullshit person I met all week. She talked really candidly about the business and gave me a ton of good advice (I
i-rivered it, so stay tuned for some technological additions to this blog entry) It seemed like she really wanted to help me out; she wasn’t just telling me a bunch of crap. Of course, I don’t think ANYONE I talked to was just telling me a bunch of crap, everyone was absolutely awesome, but she had a very laidback, natural quality that I really admired. She talked a lot about the differences between working in regional theatre and NY, which is something I’ve been wondering about for a while now. She says that now that she’s done the NY thing, she’ll never go back to regional, but some people I talked to love regional and always go back to it. I guess it just depends on what kind of person you are. We saw Martha’s show on Friday and it was so clever. It was about two guys who write a musical. Sounds simple but it was a really interesting idea and it was nice to see something so new and refreshing. I’ve had the songs stuck in my head ever since we saw the show. I laughed a lot and Martha came outside afterwards to say hi, which was really nice of her. I sent her an email yesterday just to say how much I liked the show.
Yesterday was a really great way to close out our trip. We saw Red Light Winter at the Barrow St. Theatre during the day. The show was absolutely amazing. I LOVED it. It was so raw and real and well written and well performed. It blew me away and it really touched me. I felt for the characters and I was invested in their stories. There was full nudity in the show and there were some really sexual scenes, but the approach was so tasteful. I wasn’t shocked or uncomfortable in any way, even though I expected to be. I highly recommend the show to anyone who has the opportunity to see it.
Before we saw The Seven at NYTW in the evening, I met Amy McCraney for coffee. She was a cool girl, and I felt as though she was the closest to my situation out of anyone I’ve spoken with. She’s only 28 and she’s still trying to network in NY. She hasn’t done anything on Broadway yet but she’s still trying, and she does still do some work in regional theatre. I liked what she had to say about trying to start a career, because she’s kind of still in that place herself. I took her advice to heart. She basically told me that when you first come to NY and you become a PA or an assistant or whatever, you’re there to learn, not to talk. What you have to do is listen, stay respectful, and take everything you can away from that experience. She ALSO told me (and this was pretty helpful to know) that if a theatre does offer you your union card, you should take it if you ever want to work in NY. Yeah, you’ll lose some jobs to people who are more experienced than you, but if you don’t have your card you won’t get any jobs at all. PAs who don’t have their cards can’t do anything in a performance setting; they’re useless after rehearsals end. I do NOT want to be useless. Amy and I walked over to The Seven at NYTW together after we talked (she was seeing the show as well). The show was written by Will Power, who’s work I’ve seen and enjoyed in the past. I thought the show was good…not great. The story was compelling but the performances weren’t superb.
So, now I’m sitting in the atrium of the hotel waiting to walk over to Dodger Stages, where I will shadow the PSM of Altar Boys for the 3:00 matinee. This blog post probably won’t end up being posted until I’m safe in my bedroom in Fredericksburg, but right now I couldn’t be happier in the city that never sleeps. This has been one of the best weeks I’ve ever had. I think if there is one thing I’ve taken away from this experience, it’s that I don’t WANT to work in regional theatre anymore. I want to work here, and I want to work here now. I don’t want to spend a year at some theatre in Connecticut or Florida or Virginia or wherever. I want to write letters to every single stage manager working on and off Broadway in NY and say PLEASE let me be your PA. I think it will happen for me. I’m a pretty persistent person and I’m not going to let go of something I really want. I’d also like to touch base with a lot of the people I met when I come back to NY in two weeks for Straw Hats. I will not let them forget about me. I don’t know how I’m going to afford life for the next year or so, but I’ll do it somehow. I will I will I will. Even if I have to take the train into the city from Hoboken or Nutley or whatever, I’ll make it happen.
So, FYI, Craig Jacobs is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. I suppose I should explain myself. Peter and I had the opportunity to meet with Craig, the PSM for Phantom of the Opera, on Thursday afternoon. I called him to set up an appointment and he had us come to the stage door at 3:00pm. We got buzzed in and were ushered into a cluttered backstage/office area where about 6 people were running around doing all kinds of work. We waited for a little while then Craig came out to meet us. He brought us into the theatre, where we sat in the house and began to talk. We barely even needed to ask questions; he immediately started talking to us about the show and the process. I had to interrupt him to ask if we could record- It was so interesting, I really wanted to have it on the I-river. He was fine with it and we recorded the whole interview, so I’ll add the recording to this post as soon as it’s uploaded.
Craig told us the unique story about his start in the business. He told us of how he used to walk his grandmother to work every day when he was a teenager and then he would sneak off to work (for free) at this tent theatre near his home, but he told his family he was gardening. Talk about a love of the art. He’s pretty much a living legend at this point. He’s PSMed Chicago, Showboat, Cabaret, Grease, and tons of other famous Broadway musicals.
After he talked to us for awhile, he gave us a tour of the entire backstage area. We walked past rows and rows of costumes and the wig room (which apparently contains 2,000 wigs). We walked all over the stage, which was described to us in detail, from the trap doors to the fly space to the 18 year-old technologies in lighting. He brought us underneath the stage to show us exactly how all of the traps and lifts worked, and he showed us all of the binders containing SM info, including his ten year old calling script which was WAY tattered but totally brilliant. He admitted that he’s having an assistant type up a new calling script for him, color-coded and organized in a new way. Of course, Craig doesn’t even call the show anymore. He sits and watched every night to take notes while one of his assistants calls it. He always trains new people to call the show, and oversees the training of new cast members. In order to prevent the show from getting “tired”, new cast members are allowed to do what they wish with their roles instead of sticking exactly to the mold, as long as they follow the blocking and do something that works for the show. I think it makes more sense in a long run like Phantom to train actors that way…The show would never be able to keep its energy with the actors playing the roles in carbon copies of one another.
Anyway, the best part of our interview was that Craig offered to let me shadow the SM backstage (they call the show from backstage, not from the booth) next time I’m in the city!!!!! I’m very very psyched and I plan to call Craig to let him know the exact dates I’ll be here, since I’m coming back in about two or three weeks. I feel like this is an amazing opportunity for me. I cannot WAIT to see Phantom from backstage. AHH!
After we talked to Craig and took a little trip uptown to stare at the Bethesda Fountain, Peter and I headed back to the hotel and met my mom for drinks. She’s fabulous and she drove into the city to see a show with us and have dinner ☺. I was SO glad I got to see my mom while I was up here; I would have felt weird being so close to home and not seeing my fam. We went out to John’s Pizzaria which was delicious, then we went to see Rabbit Hole, which, in my opinion, was one of the best shows we had seen thus far. The show was so well written and so flawlessly performed. I thought the cast was incredible and the story really touched me. I also got to hang out with Roy Harris, the stage manager, after the performance. He was a really great guy; he took me out for a drink so we could chat and he talked about his experiences in the business.
Some of the things he said that really stuck were that it’s sometimes difficult to work with big name actors who are used to having their own trailer, but for the most part he loves working with actors and all they really want is to do a good job and learn. They want you to be honest with them and give them feedback. He talked about training understudies and how much hard work it is, especially getting the understudies to mesh with the rest of the cast and having everyone get used to the idea that things WILL change daily, especially when new actors are moving in and out of the picture. He told me that I should really try to write everyone in NY to get a PA job when I graduate (so now that everyone has told me that, it seems like that really is my only option), and he told me that once he made a name for himself in the straight plays of Broadway. It was hard for him to switch and begin stage managing musicals. He’s now well known as someone who works mostly on straight plays (which is basically the opposite of Craig), and he’s really happy with that. He does like to switch things up pretty frequently, which is another huge difference between him and Craig. He doesn’t want to stay with one show forever; he’s happier if he can stay with a show that will only run a few months. It keeps things fresher in his mind. I think he’s someone who I would absolutely LOVE to work with in the future. It would be great to PA for him; I really believe that he would be a great teacher…maybe one day it will happen. I could learn a lot from him, and it would be really cool to work with someone who has soooo much experience.
Continuing the blogtastic narrative of my week…I had the pleasure of meeting Spook Testani, the PSM of Spelling Bee, on Tuesday evening. She was so warm and kind, and she was a total whirlwind of activity. We walked down Broadway while we talked so she could grab a bite to eat (she’d been working all day even though daytime Tuesday is supposed to be a day off), then we went back to the theatre and she showed me the booth. Her book was quite large-there are hundreds of electrics cues in the show, mostly due to the fact that there are no follow spots, only moving lights. The moving lights are programmed during (hellishly long) techs to follow the actors, stopping and going according to the choreography and blocking. Each time a light stops and starts again, Spook is calling a cue. Certain songs stretch out for pages in her book; there are so many moving light cues. She also has four monitors in the booth so that she can get a clear view of everything she needs to see on the stage. She has a camera on the conductor to call cues in sync with the music, a camera of the full stage in case of standing ovations, a camera showing a problem spot of the stage not visible from the booth, and a moving camera that can zoom in anywhere she wants it too.
You might be wondering why Spook is called Spook. Well, of course I asked her, and she told me that it’s because she used to hide and jump out at people when she was a little kid. Her mom always told her she was spooky and soon her entire family was calling her Spook. I guess the name stuck. She’s had a really great career so far, and she’s still pretty young. She PSMed “I Am My Own Wife”, which is one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen. She accidentally went to grad school for directing- thought she was applying to an SM grad program and got accepted to a directing program, which she decided to attend because they paid her to do so- and now aims to be a director in the future. She says her favorite part of a show is running rehearsals and bringing in new cast members. Basically she loves maintaining the integrity of the show. For Spelling Bee, there is a resident director, but that is, apparently, very unusual. On every other show she’s worked on, it has been her job to maintain integrity.
Spook talked a little bit about how hard it is to work on one show for a long time. She personally gets bored with shows very easily and the only reason she’s still with Spelling Bee is because there is heavy audience participation and the show changes daily. She is currently making arrangements for the show to go up in Chicago and maybe go on tour, so she’s crazy busy at the moment. She does loads of paperwork daily in addition to the loads of paperwork that come along with being an SM in the first place. She talked about the huge responsibility of generating payroll documents every week, keeping track of who is in and who is out and who is where when…That gets passed on the GM. She did say that her ASM is the one who does pretty much all of the daily paperwork, and Spook just looks it over and touches it up at the end of the day. I can never decide which part of the job I like better…I definitely like doing all of the paperwork (I know I’m a loser) but I love the job of an SM, too. The jobs are definitely very different. In the Spelling Bee company, there is also a swing ASM who fills in for her ASM sometimes and, if she is out, fills in for her ASM while her ASM calls the show.
According to Spook, there are two ways to get started in the business. You can either begin by SMing or ASMing off off Broadway and work your way up, or you can start as a PA on Broadway and work your way up to SMing that way. I think I’d rather go the PA route, but I’m not picky. I’ll definitely take whatever I can get.
I talked to Spook a little bit more after we saw Spelling Bee on Wednesday, which was hilarious. It’s a really unique show because of all of the audience participation, and the musical itself is so sweet and simple; I really enjoyed it. I also liked that I had talked to Spook about so much of the backstage aspect of the show beforehand. It made me look at things a little differently because I knew about some of the more complicated sequences of cues. The actors spoke to our group after the show, which is why I got to talk to Spook more. I also had a chance to speak with Alex, the SM who has been calling the show for the past few months while Spook gets things organized in other cities. He pulled me aside and told me that the best advice he can give me is to go to Williamstown and get training because it’s better than any grad program you will find and it was the best training he ever had. He said he went there even though he got accepted to Yale Drama and every SM he knows who worked there now works on or off Broadway. It’s definitely something to think about. I would LOVE to work there, but I know it’s a really competitive program. Hmmm…decisions, decisions.
So, basically Radio City Music Hall is the most amazing place ever. Our group was lucky enough to be given a private tour by Joe Onorato, one of the Radio City stage managers (one of nine, to be precise). We got to see everything, and the stage was bigger than any stage I have ever seen. It was 4 times the width of Klein stage, and probably about 5 times the height. It was gorgeous. The main drape was also gorgeous and golden, and it is apparently so heavy that it had to be shipped to the theatre in pieces. There’s also an amazing elevator system in the stage that was installed in 1932 and is still working perfectly. It’s pretty high tech, and it definitely made me think about all of the safety issues that must come into play when actors are working with the system on the stage. Joe talked a little about the INTENSE safety procedures set in place concerning the hydraulics system…what a difficult job it must be to keep track of that protocol.
Joe was very informative and he was clearly passionate about his work as well as the history of the company and the theatre. Their system is just so different from that of a “normal” theatrical production. The main focus is, of course, the Christmas Show. Starting in late October, the Christmas Show runs 5 times a day, 5 days a week, and 6 times on Saturday. UN-believable! Clearly that’s way too much work for one group of people, so there are two entire companies working on the show: the Blue Company and the Gold Company. Each company consists of about 200 people (roughly 40 Rockettes, 40 other performers, 35 dressers-there are too many quick changes to count and hundreds upon hundreds of costumes, lots of carpenters and stage hands, etc.). The SM staff is split into two teams of four, with one PSM overseeing the entire process. One SM on each team is the calling SM (the show is called from backstage), and there are three SMs backstage. The backstage SMs all have their own responsibilities and they run the deck. If the show needs to stop, it’s the deck SM’s call, not the calling SM’s call. Preparing for opening is a huge project and each acting company only gets ten days of rehearsal before moving into techs. Once the show is open, each company gets one day a week off, and does two, three or four shows a day on the days they’re working, depending on what the schedule is like that day.
Something that is really interesting to me is the way scheduling is handled. The show runs about 88 minutes with no problems whatsoever, but if the show runs over ninety minutes for any reason, even by one second, everyone gets one hour overtime. As in, the show MUST begin on time, down to the second every day, whether all of the actors are ready or not. There are 2 exceptions made per run to account for huge screw-ups (like times when the show has to stop because something has gone so horribly wrong, which DOES happen), but after that it’s just too bad. The reason they have this policy is because there are so many really strict union rules. It’s something that’s dealt with at every theatre, though I don’t think every theatre is as crazy about it as Radio City is.
Joe had a lot of great stories to tell us, among which were stories about how he accidentally became a stage manager, how he dealt with the musician strike that occurred at the beginning of the Christmas Show run last year (they performed to recorded music for three weeks), and tales about times he’s had to stop the show. He had some wonderful advice for me; he told me to read the Theatrical Index and write to every stage manager listed (now that I’ve heard this from two people, I think it kinda needs to happen ASAP!). He told me that I should plan to start out as a PA, otherwise no one will hire me-people always want the more experiences SM. He told me that I’ll get to know everyone in the business after a couple of years, and that a job at Radio City pays really well (for a good reason, if what he told me about the job is accurate!).
So, the bottom line is that I admire him so much for working at Radio City for decades. He is a really really great contact to have and he is a really dedicated person. I feel lucky to have met him.
The past few days have been really intense and really interesting. I feel as though we’ve been in NY forever…but really it’s only been two days. We’ve just packed so much into so little time; it’s hard to believe that we still have five more days to make things happen. So far I’ve talked to four amazing people, all with really different experiences in the business and really different lifestyles, and I’ve been totally riveted by what they’ve had to say.
I officially began my interviewing process on Monday morning when I interviewed Lloyd Davis over breakfast at Veselka (which was a really cute restaurant, by the by. It’s on 2nd and 9th, stop by if you have the chance). I was really happy that my interviewing began with him because he was the one who put me in touch with so many contacts. Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous to meet with him, but the moment we began talking I felt better. He’s just a really amazing guy. He’s had so many experiences and he had a lot of words of wisdom for me. He said things that seemed so very obvious; it was astonishing to me that they were things I’d never even considered! It just goes to show that I have lots to learn, which is why I’m here, so it’s all good. I didn’t get a chance to I-river the conversation because Lloyd felt a little weird about it, but that’s ok, I listened hard and wrote some stuff down afterwards. I’m just going to share with you some of the things we talked about that I found amazingly helpful/interesting…
First off, I think the most important thing Lloyd said to me was that in order to succeed in the business, I have to believe that I actually CAN succeed. I can’t ever say to myself that something isn’t possible, and I have to be persistent. It meant a lot to me to hear that coming from someone with so much experience. It made me feel that if I believe it, anything really can be possible. He also said that I don’t have to start out in NY in order to end up there. I can begin with regional theatre or national tours (which, apparently, are the most work ever, but I’ll go more into that in a moment), and then move to NY theatre. It’s apparently totally doable and most SMs DON’T start out in the city. Lloyd, for example, was working with The Children’s Theatre when Joseph Papp picked up one of their shows and moved it to Broadway. Voila! Lloyd moves to Broadway on a total fluke and, long story short, becomes a stage manger permanently (he used to be an actor before he became a stage manager).
According to Lloyd- and this is something I really strongly agree with- in order to be a good stage manager you have to be really great with actors. It goes without saying that a stage manager has to be organized, but a lot of the paperwork ends up getting done by the ASM. Typically, ASMs are the ones who are good at paperwork and SMs are the ones who work really closely with the actors and design team, providing all of the communication (for example, SMs have to make sure everyone gets the time they need to work during techs, and the time has to be distributed in a fair way). An ASM always has to be one step ahead of the SM, who has to be one step ahead of the director. Cool job? Yes. Tons of pressure? Yessssssss. Apparently PAing is a really good way to get your foot in the door and eventually become an ASM on Broadway, which can lead to SMing.
Lloyd talked a little about tours and how hard they are to manage. He said that it’s a great thing to do when you’re young, but once you’re older and want some more stability, tours aren’t the way to go. He also said I should write to every touring PSM in the Theatrical Index if I want to get a job on a tour. They’re super busy, so I probably won’t hear back form many of them, but some of them will probably respond. That’s something I’m going to have to do as soon as we get back to Fredericksburg. I also need to write thank you notes to everyone and make sure I keep in touch with all of the people I speak to/have spoken to this week. Lloyd stressed the fact that the NY theatre world is small and everyone knows everyone; SMs are always throwing jobs in each other’s direction. If I ask people to keep in touch and call me, chances are they will.
Something I really can’t imagine is working on a show with more than one calling SM. Lloyd talked a little about it and I think it sounds a little disconcerting. This may happen on a show that has a ton of moving scenery along with the electrics cues, or contains a certain component needing so much attention that it’s easier to just add another calling SM to deal with it. I think I might feel weird about being a calling SM and seeing stuff happen on the stage that I had nothing to do with, but it would also be cool to work on a show that big. Artistically, musicals are often easier to call because you can literally call cues directly off the music, whereas straight plays have a lot of cues based on mood changes. I think both are really rewarding in different ways.
Anyway, I’ll stop going on and on about my interview with Lloyd. Stay tuned later today for an account of Radio City and Spook Testani!