stage manager

[godd2]

I had been taught in college that a stage manager is pretty much the right hand of the director. they take down blocking, relate notes to cast and crew, give out lines as needed, and finally calls the ques in the show.

 

the high school I am at, the director seems to always have "student directors" that take down the blocking, do lines, etc...but in the end the stage manager we assign spends their time in the shop area with the crew building sets and such.

 

in the end though, that stage manager calls the show but doesnt know blocking well enough to always understand what the director is thinking.

 

do I have a misconception about the stage managers duties? is our stage manager really more of a technical director?

[Ynot]

Roles in professional theatre can differ greatly from company to company and show style, and certainly differ to am-dram and school/college productions.

[paulears]

..... and to make it worse, you're in America, and do everything a little different to us here. Some of our members have moved away to NZ, Canada and other far flung places and report similar changes.

 

Stage Management as a discipline covers a really wide area, but more and more frequently the SM role is pulled into artistic or technical or production management - depending on the needs of the production. Here, it's traditional that the DSM calls the show, and does many of the things you talk about. In practice, it doesn't really matter, as if you need a stage manager, you get one who has the correct skill set for what you want. In a small production, the SM may do everything. In a bigger one, there will be tiers of stage management, with very different duties and responsibilities.

[k.gen04]

I live in NZ, and all our stage managers do is sit on their asses and swear at people/call cues Occasionally, if you're lucky, they'll rise and actually do something, but this rarely happens. The only time they are actively involved is pack in/pack out, where potential employers are watching.

[GridGirl]

I live in NZ, and all our stage managers do is sit on their asses and swear at people/call cues Occasionally, if you're lucky, they'll rise and actually do something, but this rarely happens. The only time they are actively involved is pack in/pack out, where potential employers are watching.

 

Oi! I'm a New Zealand stage manager and I resent that! Not sure where you're working but maybe you'd like to come and spend a couple of shows finding out that there are those of us who do actually work rather hard!

[WiLL]

I live in NZ, and all our stage managers do is sit on their asses and swear at people/call cues Occasionally, if you're lucky, they'll rise and actually do something, but this rarely happens. The only time they are actively involved is pack in/pack out, where potential employers are watching.

 

 

Wow, did you ever pick the wrong forum to badmouth stage managers in.

I work as Stage Manager a lot and the most common question I hear from cast and very occassionally crew is "What is that guy actually doing?" and the answer is: hundreds of things that you weren't even aware needed doing, but if they didn't get done then NOTHING would happen.

[DrummerJonny]

I live in NZ, and all our stage managers do is sit on their asses and swear at people/call cues Occasionally, if you're lucky, they'll rise and actually do something, but this rarely happens. The only time they are actively involved is pack in/pack out, where potential employers are watching.

 

 

Oi! I'm a New Zealand stage manager and I resent that! Not sure where you're working but maybe you'd like to come and spend a couple of shows finding out that there are those of us who do actually work rather hard!

 

oh, the irony...

[GridGirl]

And also, pack-in and pack-out are totally not the times when I'm most involved. I'm not usually even in the theatre during pack-in and out - I leave that to the set and technical departments and only come in to spike the floor for focus and then for plotting. Packing props in, yes, if we've had the real thing in the rehearsal room, but that's it...

[godd2]

interesting replys...sorry to start a civil war in new zealand.....I have heard though that NZ is an awesome country to visit. I will just avoid backstages

[GridGirl]

Sorry to have dragged this thread off-topic! I do pretty much everything that you have been taught an SM does, with the exception of giving notes to the cast - I give line notes, but the director gives their own acting notes. The whole "assistant director" thing does strike me as something a high school would do in order to involve more people, and the SM job description does inevitably vary from job to job, but I do most of what your assistant director does.