P/OP : SL/SR : Other

[gareth]

I'm not arguing with any of the above, but I do know of one venue - not a theatre, but it does have a stage - where the client asked for some sockets to be installed "on the left-hand-side of the stage". It was a verbal instruction, given by phone, and of course there was a 50-50 chance that the electricians got it wrong. Which they did.

 

There's no ambiguity to your ears, but there may be to others :)

Well, that's entirely the client's fault, then! If they were daft enough to let the contractor get on with installing the sockets without giving them a drawing indicating the desired location, or at the very least taking them onto the stage, pointing at the required spot on the wall and saying "There!", then they really can't complain that the sockets ended up in the wrong place.

 

Drawings, even if they're only sketches, usually remove any ambiguity of this kind. A picture really does paint a thousand words ...

[bruce]

Agree totally. But it's an ambiguity. In the end it actually wasn't too bad, cos additional sockets at the "wrong" side came in useful later.

 

PS - my comments about "port" and "starboard", and ships. I certainly didn't intend to suggest using "port" and "starboard" in a backwards-facing theatre in a ship!

 

What I was pointing out is that on a ship the terms "port" and "starboard" are completely unambiguous. "left" and "right" depend on an arbitrary frane of reference - the direction you're facing. (Note I didn't say "stage left" and "stage right")

 

Do you ever get the feeling that a discussion is turning into a lot of people violently and vehemently agreeing with each other!

 

Bruce.

[sam.henderson]

I'm with Gareth all the way on this.

 

I haven't had a lot to do with amateur practitioners in the last few years, but when I did regularly have dealings with them, I found that they took great pride in being "as professional as the professionals" when it came to using the appropriate terminology. Similarly, in 20 odd years of working professionally (by which I mean making my living at this job), I have difficulty in recalling any specific incident where the professional dancers, actors, opera singers, stage managers have failed to grasp the concept of "Stage Left" and Stage Right". It's pretty basic, after all. Frankly, I find the suggestion that some of my colleagues, amateur or professional, may be too thick to take this on board pretty patronising.

 

And if that sounds like a rant, it's meant to.

 

I am not implying that you or your colleagues are too 'thick' to understand the concept however I know that I for one has once or twice been sat at the prompt desk and said something like "Actor in Green Opposite Prompt has told me that his radio mic has become unattached" because she was opposite me and then suddenly realised and said "sh*t sorry meant Prompt side". Not much I know but as personal preference I use Stage Left and Stage Right!

 

Sorry if you find my generalization of am-dram actors and dancers offensive but all I am saying is that I have worked with plenty and most of them, from my experience, have been completely thrown when I have used the terminology O/P etc. They just tend to prefer SL/SR!!

 

Sam

[Brixton]

SL/SR, OP/PS, camera left/camera right, audience right/audience left

I'm right you're wrong

This is in my humble opinion a very dangerous area to stray into.

It's too easy to be right here in the comfort of the living room armed with a cuppa and yet make a simple error when "On the green luvvie"

None of us are perfect

Some amateurs get it wrong

Some get it right

Professionals get it right more often than wrong because they do the gig more often.

However even the best of us get it wrong on occasion.

I have had personal experience of a early 80's production sparc on a number one touring show announcing at lunch "Oh Bugger I've read the plan upside down" and having to re-rig the entire show. Simply because we had all had no sleep since 7.00a.m. the day before.

I have put all the colour in a nice neat pile on the stage at the Bristol Hippo, to keep it safe, and realised it was still there when loading-in in Manchester and had to call the main turn up and ask him to collect it

Maybe that's off topic but the fact is it's easy to make a mistake.

After saying how others get it wrong it's almost a certainty

[V.A.]

Like most people here by the looks of things, I go with SL/SR... it's the one which has the least potential for confusion.

[Bryson]

In fact Starboard and Port are pretty much the same concept as OP/PS, as they're entirely arbitrary words with a standardised designation. At least you can go back and re - work out which is SL/SR from a simple rule, rather than having to just "know".

 

Just a thought.

[mac.calder]

My reasons for liking P and OP (btw, I know it means Opposite Prompt, but my LD friend always called it off prompt, it stuck I guess), are entirely selfish - looking onto the stage from the bio box when calling the show, or when writting blocking from infront of the actors, P is always right (and being a right hander) it always makes sense to my mind that the opposite side, is my opposite hand. If for some reason I am stuck in a prompt corner (which hardly ever happens, as I am usually in a black box theatre or in a theatre with no prompt desk, leaving me no choice but the prefered bio box) I have never been on the OP side.

 

mc

[TeeJay]

Where's the poll option for:

 

all of them?

 

In our receiving house, we get a fair number of international companies so whats stage right one week is O.P. the next, then 'Kumi Te' (points for guessing the language - bonus if you can tell me if I've got it wrong :) ) the week after and then just 'left' in week four and so on ad infinitum

 

Personally I've always felt the usage depends on where you are. If you are onstage it's Stage L/R, if you are in the wings it's PS or OP, if you are facing the stage it's House L/R

 

Has also the advantage that the people working with you know which location you are in :)

[Spuddy]

I'm not arguing with any of the above, but I do know of one venue - not a theatre, but it does have a stage - where the client asked for some sockets to be installed "on the left-hand-side of the stage". It was a verbal instruction, given by phone, and of course there was a 50-50 chance that the electricians got it wrong. Which they did.

 

There's no ambiguity to your ears, but there may be to others :unsure:

 

Bruce.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I always used to "Assume" that right is Stage right and Left is Stage Left,"

but have been told by a mate who works west-end sound that they have great difficulty in explaining where THEY mean in Left & Right terms as they take it from the House point of view, to the point that on installation of a recent show large labels were attached to the speakers saying things like Right in front of the (x-piece of Set)

 

Back in 2000 I was inspecting a certain Large Black fronted Cinema in the west end for quality/performace to discover they had the cinema speakers wired the wrong way round with Left being right and Right being left. As in Cinema sound terms its left and Right are from the Front of House view but the installing engineers worked on the Stage view.

 

I know double check with who I am talking to

[mac.calder]

That's another reason I don't use SL and SR, especially when I am sound opping for the show - EVERY sound designer I have worked with works on left being the speaker on the left hand side of the theatre FROM THE AUDIENCES PERSPECTIVE - which means that my cables which used to be labled L and R from a stage perspective (now P and OP) went in the opposite jack - not a problem when you remember that they need to be, but chances are that one day I am too tired (working in non union theatre means 2am techs followed by 'coffee' till 4am) and will plug that speaker in the port with the same label, and that SPLASH that was meant to come from SL, ends up comming from SR, something fairly small, but something that really irks me.

 

With P and OP, I just plug in using the conversion that comes so easily to my mind - P = Audience Right, rather than R=L and L=R.

 

I suppose it really is each to his/her own.

[Just Some Bloke]

Apologies if this is ever so slightly :) , but as well as always using SL and SR I also prefer to use Left, Centre, Right and Upstage, Midstage, Downstage - i.e. the very centre of the stage would be midstage centre rather than the confusing (and quite difficult to say) centrestage centre. Anyone else with me on this one?

 

JSB.

[gareth]

Anyone else with me on this one?

Completely. The centre of the stage is usually referred to as 'centre' in left/right terms, and 'midstage' in up/down terms.