Lighting or Stage management Advice

[madmonkeyholly]

Hi I'm looking for some advice on a situation I'm currently in.

 

I'm 17 and involved heavily in my school/colleges productions. so far I have done 5 musicals, I was a general stage hand for 3 and then Stage manager for the other 2. I am heavily involved with the lighting but I normally only rig the lights and have never really operated them.

 

My problem is this year my teachers want me to do the lighting and operating of the lights for our production, they feel that I should do the lights as for my A level I'm concentrating on lighting and it would be a great opportunity, which in a way I agree with. However I have a different view and want to do the stage management again as this is what I want to focus on in a view to doing this as a professional career. also I feel that if I leave stage management to a young person in a lower year who doesn't have experience the show will be awful and look unprofessional.

 

So I guess my real question is should I take the opportunity of lights or tell them I want to do stage management like normal? and Which would be more useful for me in the future as I want to become a stage manager?

[Brian]

... should I take the opportunity of lights or tell them I want to do stage management like normal? and Which would be more useful for me in the future as I want to become a stage manager?

As a stage manager it'd be very useful for you to understand how other departments work. Take the opportunity.

 

Plus, if you ever end up as SM on a small scale tour you'll end up doing the lighting (and sound) as well so experience under your belt would stand you in good stead.

[MarkPAman]

Which will help you most with the A level? Beyond that it will make little or no difference.

 

It may be that your teachers feel you have shown them what you can do as a stage manager, but they need to see and gather more evidence of what you can do with lights, especially as that's what you say you're concentrating on.

[Fingers]

Beyond that it will make little or no difference.

 

I'm afraid I have to disagree!

 

This time last year I was in the midst of applying for various theatre based courses, granted, this was for sound over lighting, but still in the realm of technical theatre.

 

I know that the university I eventually chose (Guildhall School of Music and Drama) are highly keen on technicians having experience on all walks of theatre. Be that stage management, costume or set design. (aside from an interest in technology) This of course applies vice versa, and was something I could bring up at interview.

 

The question I would ask is what will better your immediate future more, doing what you want to do (SM) or doing what your teachers want you to do (lighting). Can you achieve a higher grade in your A level by doing one over the other. There's no point doing something which will give you more experience to use in later life if you end up missing the next step as you needed a better grade!

 

All things to think about!

 

(BTW, if you haven't looked at the GSMD course, do so! It's non UCAS and applications are still open!)

 

(Edit: SPAG)

[CallumP93]

One of the things you say is that the show will look unprofessional if a younger student is SM for the show, isnt this the same for lighting, where the lighting may not be up to standard with a inexperienced student, unless you do have a student that can already do the lighting well. I know I may get shot down for this, but in my time doing school productions, or productions including large groups of young persons, a majority of the people coming to watch are the casts parents, who are only there to see there child, which would mean that lighting would probably be more important than some aspects of stage managing. The majority of complaints I recived during that style of show was such and such wasnt bright enough and they couldnt see "x" properly not really anything related to the stage managing aspect. The other issue you find especially in schools, is that you need to give other students a chance or they dont stay at it meaning when you leave you will have a very inexperienced crew to run future shows - I know in my last year as a student technician I tried to step back, in order to let other students take the main role, to which I then provided feedback to help them improve there skills to ensure we had a good crew for years to come. If you dont do this you can find when you leave you have no one that can SM what use is that?

 

Coming to what you said about wanting to mainly take a career as a stage manager, I always said I wanted to do lighting and it was what I mainly concentrated on whilst doing the odd bit of sound etc. Since then I have been to the Edinburgh Fringe as a technician,started the Sound, Light and Live Event Technology course at the University of Derby and done work experience at LS-Live, and could no longer say I want to do just lighting. My experience at LS-Live opened up a whole new part of the industry to me which I had never thought of before - what im trying to say is keep your options open, I would think the university / college would rather have students with knowledge in various areas, then just the one. You may also find that there is a big difference between school level stage managing and professional stage managing, depending on the equipment you have use etc, and may not enjoy stage managing in future.

 

Callum

[Bobbsy]

Have a read around the forum and you'll see that even many of the more senior (cough, cough, looking at Paul) members still do a mix of everything from lighting, through sound to stage management.

 

Frankly, the more disciplines you can do a decent job of, the off you are.

[madmonkeyholly]

Thanks everyone for your really helpful reply has opened my mind up and gave me a different persective, luckly I dont really have to decided for another month or so. But im starting to think that maybe I should just take a backseat role on it all and just float around sound, lighting and stage management and train up and offer support to younger students as I will be leaving in a year time.

[paulears]

As people mention frequently, most of my current work (and the better paid stuff) I get because I'm ok at lots of things and excellent at none! For a freelancer, or for me, probably best described as a self-employed person, the key is eating and paying the mortgage. The phone rings, and I say yes or no. So many jobs offered me now have a great deal of organisation, management and even equipment provision as the key feature. My jobs frequently just have the requirement to make it happen. I 'do' pantomime each year for ten weeks - so that's a fifth of my year - and it's perhaps a good example of using 'collected' skills.

 

I started out doing lighting.

 

This year was a little unusual, but I needed to cover for a number of 'problems'.

Director had to leave after 3 days of rehearsal - I covered and got the show up.

Lighting designer taken ill - I had to cover to get in the broad strokes until we got a new one just before we opened.

Musician - one of the musos was ill at short notice, no dep available, so I was in the pit

Two examples of giving first aid - one non emergency, one serious, following instructions from the 999 people

Sound Op - for a show going over the top of ours, where somebody from the company needed to op the equipment, not a stranger.

Tour guide and company rep - I do the visits, manage special needs requirements like signing, captions and audio description

 

 

On top of this I had to organise video shoots, manage a budget, and discipline members of the company. I'm also the person who solves very difficult problems like cleaning the pit. Contractually, nobody considers it their job, so that means for simplicity and good relations, it's me.

I'm able to cover for anyone who is missing - doesn't matter what, I just need to make sure the show goes on.

 

I have two bits of conflicting advice for the OP.

 

For yourself and your usefulness career wise - do the new job that gets you the extra skill.

Education wise - which will get you the better grade? THAT in an A Level MUST be the aim. Your qualification grade it really important.

Practically, neither role will be that important, because school stage management or lighting has very little to do with career lighting or stage management.

 

Go for the grades - if you want to do SM, but it will impact on your grades, don't do it. Once you get to uni, you will get a chance to try different things. Your school show is a school show. It doesn't matter if it's embarrassingly cringeworthy or brilliant.It doesn't need to be professional - and frankly can't be because for every A* person, there will be an E person. So do the thing that allows you to get the best grade. Keep in mind your teachers may wish you to do something that without you, will be a problem, so don't automatically think they're suggesting it for 'you', they could be thinking of 'the whole'!

Paul - Absolutely average in every department, brilliant at nothing whatsoever!

[IRW]

As people mention frequently, most of my current work (and the better paid stuff) I get because I'm ok at lots of things and excellent at none! For a freelancer, or for me, probably best described as a self-employed person, the key is eating and paying the mortgage. The phone rings, and I say yes or no. So many jobs offered me now have a great deal of organisation, management and even equipment provision as the key feature. My jobs frequently just have the requirement to make it happen. I 'do' pantomime each year for ten weeks - so that's a fifth of my year - and it's perhaps a good example of using 'collected' skills.

 

I started out doing lighting.

 

This year was a little unusual, but I needed to cover for a number of 'problems'.

Director had to leave after 3 days of rehearsal - I covered and got the show up.

Lighting designer taken ill - I had to cover to get in the broad strokes until we got a new one just before we opened.

Musician - one of the musos was ill at short notice, no dep available, so I was in the pit

Two examples of giving first aid - one non emergency, one serious, following instructions from the 999 people

Sound Op - for a show going over the top of ours, where somebody from the company needed to op the equipment, not a stranger.

Tour guide and company rep - I do the visits, manage special needs requirements like signing, captions and audio description

 

 

On top of this I had to organise video shoots, manage a budget, and discipline members of the company. I'm also the person who solves very difficult problems like cleaning the pit. Contractually, nobody considers it their job, so that means for simplicity and good relations, it's me.

I'm able to cover for anyone who is missing - doesn't matter what, I just need to make sure the show goes on.

 

I have two bits of conflicting advice for the OP.

 

For yourself and your usefulness career wise - do the new job that gets you the extra skill.

Education wise - which will get you the better grade? THAT in an A Level MUST be the aim. Your qualification grade it really important.

Practically, neither role will be that important, because school stage management or lighting has very little to do with career lighting or stage management.

 

Go for the grades - if you want to do SM, but it will impact on your grades, don't do it. Once you get to uni, you will get a chance to try different things. Your school show is a school show. It doesn't matter if it's embarrassingly cringeworthy or brilliant.It doesn't need to be professional - and frankly can't be because for every A* person, there will be an E person. So do the thing that allows you to get the best grade. Keep in mind your teachers may wish you to do something that without you, will be a problem, so don't automatically think they're suggesting it for 'you', they could be thinking of 'the whole'!

Paul - Absolutely average in every department, brilliant at nothing whatsoever!

 

Hear Hear!

(How come as a theatre forum we don't have a clapping smiley?!)

[kerry davies]

This is the "Generalists Vs Specialists" argument and in any technological field the risk to specialists is greater than normal. What happens is that when specialising in any area the strength lies in individual expertise. The weakness lies in that specialist field being replaced through technological innovation and disappearing altogether.

 

Will we even have stage managers when everything becomes automated? What happened to all those plumbers we needed when we had gas flares in theatre?

 

SM's on small scale tours, the majority of them earning anything, have to load in/out, drive the truck/bus/van, rig and focus, op the sound/LX/video/pyro, sell the programmes and count the cash. Generalists.

 

When the question is SM or LX then in my mind the answer must be electrician or accountant or engineer or programmer. My link