Stage Managers Do It Off the Cuff

Today was one of the interesting days.

• Cough drops distributed: 7 (bonus points for the 3 during a quick change)


• Actors sent home: 1 (though she was already done with everything but curtain call, and I couldn't bear to feed her more TheraFlu so we sent her home)


• Techies sent home: 1 (she had strep, for God's sake; couldn't she have just called us?!)


• Techies trained on flies to replace sick techie: 1 (plus me, stage right ASM, so that no one else would get sick)


• Set pieces damaged: 1 (the trees is coming! the trees is coming!)


• Props still damaged: 1 (I've found someone who writes even harder than me!)


• Actors damaged: 1 (the poor guy's going to have some terrible bruises on his ass)

But the best part of the day isn't even listable. You see, Miller understands the power of what doesn't happen onstage, and starts II.2 with offstage action (the trial of Martha Corey) that then moves onstage. For our purposes, it must be highlighted that Martha Corey, one of the two characters who speaks from offstage, never appears onstage, and so is voiced in our production by an actress who appears as another character later in the show. But, since it's so few lines, with no blocking or anything, she wasn't required to come to the blocking rehearsals for that scene. Someone needed to read the lines, though, and it often fell to me. I have most of the show memorised at this point, but I can definitely do that set in my sleep.

The transition into II.2 is one of the ones that requires the flies, so all of the techies were on ropes. Usually, one techie pages the blackout curtain (holds it open so the actors can sneak through and onto the stage), but she was on flies, leaving the paging for me to do. We get to the last five minutes before the end of II.1 and the offstage speech, and I realise Martha Corey isn't in her place. Now, I can't go running backstage to find her, and I have no techie to either page the curtain or run backstage, and I can't spare an actor to go find her, so we're sans one Martha. The actors who actually appear in the scene are frantically debating cutting that bit, but the lines are cues for lighting and sound, so I stop them, saying that I can do the lines. And I do. Better, according to the SM, than everyone else on the stage (the energy was low tonight because we'd just come off a break).

And so Melayne spoke her first lines in a Mainstage production, and saved the show. Ah, problem solving under pressuer, the essence of live theatre.

In moderately related news, the official cough drop of the Crucible cast is cherry-honey Ricola. They don't use menthol, so the actors can use as many as they like and not get tipsy. So amusing.

In totally unrelated news, it totally figures that the Incon (our in-convenience store) carries some three dozen kinds of condoms...and no lube. *hums "Ironic"*

Stage Managers Do It Off the Cuff

Today was one of the interesting days.

• Cough drops distributed: 7 (bonus points for the 3 during a quick change)


• Actors sent home: 1 (though she was already done with everything but curtain call, and I couldn't bear to feed her more TheraFlu so we sent her home)


• Techies sent home: 1 (she had strep, for God's sake; couldn't she have just called us?!)


• Techies trained on flies to replace sick techie: 1 (plus me, stage right ASM, so that no one else would get sick)


• Set pieces damaged: 1 (the trees is coming! the trees is coming!)


• Props still damaged: 1 (I've found someone who writes even harder than me!)


• Actors damaged: 1 (the poor guy's going to have some terrible bruises on his ass)

But the best part of the day isn't even listable. You see, Miller understands the power of what doesn't happen onstage, and starts II.2 with offstage action (the trial of Martha Corey) that then moves onstage. For our purposes, it must be highlighted that Martha Corey, one of the two characters who speaks from offstage, never appears onstage, and so is voiced in our production by an actress who appears as another character later in the show. But, since it's so few lines, with no blocking or anything, she wasn't required to come to the blocking rehearsals for that scene. Someone needed to read the lines, though, and it often fell to me. I have most of the show memorised at this point, but I can definitely do that set in my sleep.

The transition into II.2 is one of the ones that requires the flies, so all of the techies were on ropes. Usually, one techie pages the blackout curtain (holds it open so the actors can sneak through and onto the stage), but she was on flies, leaving the paging for me to do. We get to the last five minutes before the end of II.1 and the offstage speech, and I realise Martha Corey isn't in her place. Now, I can't go running backstage to find her, and I have no techie to either page the curtain or run backstage, and I can't spare an actor to go find her, so we're sans one Martha. The actors who actually appear in the scene are frantically debating cutting that bit, but the lines are cues for lighting and sound, so I stop them, saying that I can do the lines. And I do. Better, according to the SM, than everyone else on the stage (the energy was low tonight because we'd just come off a break).

And so Melayne spoke her first lines in a Mainstage production, and saved the show. Ah, problem solving under pressuer, the essence of live theatre.

In moderately related news, the official cough drop of the Crucible cast is cherry-honey Ricola. They don't use menthol, so the actors can use as many as they like and not get tipsy. So amusing.

In totally unrelated news, it totally figures that the Incon (our in-convenience store) carries some three dozen kinds of condoms...and no lube. *hums "Ironic"*