Becca Beaulieu
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Theatre Arts and Management

Theatre Arts and Management

My mission is to educate students interested in expanding to a college and professional setting. In my post, I will be explaining problems and presenting solutions through the experiences I have had. My most recent experience was as a first time assistant stage manager.

Please for the Love of God, Do Not Sit on the Damn Couch

4/29/2016

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​In shows, there are often moving set pieces. These pieces come in and out of scenes as there are needed. These could include tables, chairs, side tables, and in our production, it was a couch.
            Movable set pieces can be difficult. They must smoothly move on and offstage during scene changes. Sometimes this means getting in the way of actors, or actors getting in the way of you. It is important as an assistant stage manager or running crew to talk to your actors. You have to make sure that when you do scene changes, you communicate what you want to happen smoothly.
            In the sketch comedy show, my running crew consisted of myself and one other person. Each of us were on separate sides of the stage. We didn’t always come out at the same time. With this fact, we had to heavily rely on actor’s help.
            One scene change that would have been difficult involved a couch moving offstage at the same movement that a large moving, counter sized cubby cart was moving on in the same direction onstage as well as 7 small stools being set in a semi circle on the other side of the stage. This scene change would have been extremely long had I not had actors.
            The first step was to move the couch as far upstage possible, an actor did that to keep my mind at ease. Next I moved the cubby onstage, and had someone hold the leg to keep out of the way. As the cubby moved on downstage, the couch moved off upstage of the cubby. There was a smooth roll we perfected to keep congestion clear.
            The other side of the stage was also busy, all of the actors who sat in the stools set their own stools. There was probably about 10 people involved in the scene change. This job that took 10 seconds would have taken a full 1 minute 30 seconds if it had just been my run crew.
            Another challenge with moving props are storing them. Backstage you have to block off some of the space to place these things. It involves playing tetris a little bit. Thankfully, we did not have many moving set pieces, but what we did have was taped off in an area that actors were told “Do not touch” the problem is the urge to touch.
            Our most used set piece was a red couch. During rehearsals when we rehearsed scenes multiple times and the long time of a tech rehearsal, actors would lounge on the couch or the chairs to relax instead of standing backstage for their call. This is fine for rehearsals with long down time, but once we got into runs, it became a problem.
            Sometimes scenes were very short. Only about a minute. That meant that no actor could touch the couch (Unless they were lovely enough to help in a scene change). During runs, I had to politely tell people to get off the couch. The first couple of times it was very much “Hey, Name, I love you but please don’t sit on the couch.” I would be looked at with puppy dog eyes, but I had to explain that if I let one sit, I had to let all sit. Eventually, it came down to a look of menace where people would just see me and immediately get up.
            It was comical really, because I reiterated every day to not sit on the couch every day. But every run of the show I would look to at least one actor with a look of:
                        Please for the love of god, do not sit on the damn couch.
Picture
We Think It's Funny at Plymouth State University Photo by Kaleb Hart
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Put That Prop Back Where it Came From, Or So Help Me

4/26/2016

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 The last show I worked on was a student written, partially student directed, sketch comedy show. I was the assistant stage manager of the production, and it was both my first time stage managing, and my stage manager’s first time. The two of us were slowly internally panicking through the whole process, knowing neither of us knew what to do, but the trick that both of us knew was vital: Don’t let anyone know.
            So we got into tech week, and since we only had a week and a half of turn around from our last production, things were messy. I was backstage and organized all the props by sketch, all of the scene changes were carefully thought out and we were ready to go. After our first run through I noticed something:
                                                 ALL OF THE PROPS WERE MISSING  
            Okay, maybe not ALL of the props, but my nicely organized prop table had a massive pile of misplaced props that needed to be reorganized back into their clearly labeled sections.
            Now, this would not have been so much of a problem in a regular college show setting. Just take a breath, curse your actors under that breath, and reset. But this show had two shows during each night. Each run was about 1 hour and 40 minutes long, and they were at 7 and 9. Do you see the problem?
            If there is only 20 minutes, there’s only about 15 minutes to actually reset if we include places. I needed to have as much ready to go as possible the moment the show was finished. We had A LOT of edible props (Cookies, drinks, eggs, etc.) which needed to be replaced, along with a pistol that fired blanks every show. We were crunched for time.
            I had no choice but to sit my actors down and talk to them and explain how crucial it was to put their props back, something that is a first grade skill. If you take it out, put it back. It’s understandable that an actor cannot always put his own props back right away, but also as the assistant stage manager/ run crew, let us know, if you ask nicely, we will try our best to help you. Even if you don’t ask us nicely, we are still obligated to help you.
            But for the first time ASMs out there: It’s going to be chaos. Know ahead of time that actors will not always do what is most smooth for you. Heavy organization helps and guides the entire production. And actors:
            Put that prop back where it came from, or so help me.

Picture
We Think It's Funny at Plymouth State University Photo by Kaleb Hart
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    Becca is a student at Plymouth State University striving to create art that inspires and educates people on the importance of the arts. 

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