So far thats all we have really done apart from gettin a few temporary props for rehersals and I think that me and Dave have been working well together. Jane has been a great SM so far and we havent had any problems with her or Francesa. All I can really say is that im looking forward to the challenges ahead and I’m going to take as much out of the experience as possible.

Out

So the end of my first week as an Assistant Stage Manager. What did I do and learn?

So far i have managed to  ring around scottish opera, the Citz theatre and the Tron and organise visits to their prop stores. We had a look at the tron props store already with David Sneddon but everything they had was a bit too modern, but they did have 3 coffins and a steel frame bed. None of which seemed to please the director or the designer. I have also spent most of the week in our own prop store tryiong to make a dent in our 9 page props list, but no matter what I do, it never seems to get any smaller. I have managed to get alot of furniture and props, but then the director told me that none of them are any good and can only be used in rehersals. I honestly didn’t think that stage management would be this stressful. The only way I can describe this week is Chaos. It seems that everyone else has had an extra week off, and ive been working my ass off trying to please a fussy director and an even fussier designer. Don’t think I can win this.

I did manage to get in contact with a funeral services today tho, and they have kindly agreed to supply me with a selection of coffins and we are going to have a look at them on monday. I just hope they have the one we need. Monday should be a bit less stressful as we are getting out of the building to go and look at prop stores and pick up some stuff for the play and then we may actually start making progress with our list.

As for my other half in this production David Macmorris, I think we have been working well together. He has done well filling in for francesca on thursday and he has also helped with trying to source some of our props. So im quite happy about that. Jane has also been great this week, she is clearly feeling the strain aswell, I dont think she expected to have such a hectick first week.

One other thing Im not to happy about is the Tuba. We managed to get a £7000 tuba from the music school, and now the director thinks its too big and wants a smaller one with less valves. I’ve been in contact with the head of brass in the music school and he says its gona be near impossible to find a 3 valve tuba these days. Should be fun.

#Anyway- I’m off to enjoy my weekend and forget all about this week and try to relax.

Out

So this week has been alot like last week. A whole lot of disappointment. I managed to source a Coffin from the funeral place on monday. It was the perfect size for the actor which was really lucky, and they told us that we could have it for free. It was also slightly damaged so we could afford to knock it about a bit. So we organised transportation and went and got our coffin. It took most of the morning to find the place and then to get it back to the academy. Then I thought it was all sorted and we started looking for all the rest of our props…… But then the director and the designer decided that it was the worng colour and wasn’t good enough…… My question is wat do they expect? We aren’t going to be able to source a brand new coffin that we can be damaged and has to be a certain size and a certain colour. I’m fed up looking for it. And I doubt we are going to find another one.

Another thing was the Tuba. Tony swainson from the music school managed to find the 3 valve tuba that our director asked for. So I spend a few days e-mailing him and organising to bring it in. I thought this was great and another job done. But no. Of course the director wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t ‘funny’ enough. Fantastic. Another waste of time.

Then we went to get a bed in the Citz, which was the bed they wanted. Spent half a day away from the academy pulling it out of a prop store and getting it back to the academy. And guess what. Wasn’t any good. Typical. She decides to use a bed we has in the prop store the whole time.

I think the only thing I did manage to get this week was a few candles from the tron. I honestly don’t think i’m cut out for stage management. I’m just gona do what I can and hope I pass.

Out

  As for the opera- It’s rubbish. Honestly, A completly white stage that looks like the designer hasnt bothered to paint her model box, random props, four tons of sand and men in corsets and nipple tassels?! Now thats what i call random. The fact that it is in german and I have no idea what they are singing about just makes it worse. I can’t really judge it until I see the entire thing but I don’t think im the only person that thinks this. I also have zero cues throughout the show, which is rubbish, i’ll be bored senseless during the run, but the upside is that there is only 3-4 performances. I’m also looking forward to our beach party.

So I was having a good week so far, all was good, xbox, munchies, good company. I even got offered some work in glasgow for the first time, which couldnt come at a better time as I have shit loads to pay for in the next few weeks. And ontop of that I’m going to London for the weekend.  Can’t complain. Then I get a phone call from my mother; Basically last year 2 good friends were in a car crash, the driver flipped the car 8 times on a back road and the passanger was thrown through the front window and was killed almost instantly. He was only 17. The driver panicked and fled from the crash and didnt report it. And of course this just made things worse for him. Over the next few days I watched as everybody I knew were brought to breaking point as we watched my friend getting burried. It was pone of the most difficult weeks of my life. And now his courtcase has finally come around its bringing back all these emotions from last year. My friend will be sentenced next month and has the possibilty of getting up to 5 years for his mistake- Death by dangerous driving. All I can say is that I feel sorry for him and his family. I hope they can pull through this and I pray that he gets let off easy.

I’m off to London tommorrow and I hope that I can forget about the whole thing, because I know that this time next month will be a horrible time.

Peace out

Those who did actually hang around, learned quite a bit about the Strand, which i think they’ll find useful when we will have to use it in the future. If the class had have been broken into smaller groups, with small tasks for us to achieve, then we would have learned so much more. I feel bad talking about james this way, but he did spend most of the day on the phone, and not really teaching us much.

Anyway- back to the point- What did I think of John’s Class??

- Well after reading Jonnys blog, I have to totally agree with him. John has the most unique way of teaching i’ve ever seen and many teachers would question it on the basis of how effective it really is, but in this case i find it works really well. He does have a very laid back attitude to teaching, but it is because of this it feels like he treats us as an equal and we listen to him much more. If that makes any sence? I do feel that I soaked up most of what he told us today, and i am glad, oh so glad, that we didnt get death by powerpoint. I feel I would be much more confident dealing with proping now I have done this class. But i’m still raging that I didnt get to hear Jaime doing an impression of my dad- that would have been priceless.

As for this morning, being one of the select few that actually surfaced for the score reading class, even after my awful nights sleep, I found this class extremely informative. Being a former music student of 5 years- and even after 5 years I still couldn’t read music, I honestly did not think a 1 hour class would do much. But I thought i’d give it a shot. Suprisingly after about 15 minutes she ( I can’t remember her name) had us all following a music score almost to the end. Well done Miss Music Teacher Woman.

Stage Management 2

Firstly i’d like to say tanks for all the replys to my last blog, i didn’t realise that many people cared. I myself didnt get a chance to comment on peoples blogs last nite due to the immense amount of work I did elsewhere- Which included drinking 2 pints in about 30 seconds, Good times, but I shall make an effort to comment tonight.

Score reading isn’t as easy as I thought it was yesterday. I think yesterday was a bit of a teaser, maybe to fool us into thinking we were amazing. Today was much harder. All the stuff about following beats and counting in your head seemed to go out the window, and I found myself lost on a page full of lines and dots, with lots of italian words hitting me in the face. But in fairness to Miss Teacher woman ( I still havent learned her name? Anyone wana fill me in?) she did point out a few things throughout the class that were useful for helping us to find our bearings, and eventually I think everyone could follow along. Even if they were just pretending. Good class though.

Did I learn how to mark up?

I kinda regret volunteering to be the first to try marking up, as it made me slightly embarassed and quite sweaty, but I still feel I did a good job; even if it did take 15 minutes to mark one line. John made it very clear on how to do it and Calum was also helpful. As for the rest of my classmates I think they all worked very well together, and my lovely assistants Martin and Lauren made very good ASM’s. Gold stars for them. I am also very proud of Thomas and I’s attempt at a circle-Despite the fact I wasn’t on circle crew, but still ended up on holding the string. Poor show from Circle crew.

Overall it was another good day in the land of stage managment. I doubt these classes are gona swing my decision at the end of the year, but never the less, I’m still learning alot.

Stage Management 3( well 2.5 really for me)

Firstly i’d like to send out an apology to John and the rest of my classmates for being late this morning. I am currently having quite a hard time sleeping and I think it just got the best of me. I didnt really get to sleep til about 3 again last nite, despite going to bed much earlier. I did however wake up to my alarm, but must have slept through the rest of them after I put it on snooze. I am quite annoyed with myself for missing , what looked like to me, one of the best days yet. The games I participated in were fantastic. Well done to the two teams for coming up with the games. I only wish I could have been part of the process.

When John then split the class into the groups into the different departments, I think everyone was pretty happy with what they got. I know I was. I probably seem like a bit of lightaholic, and thats probably because I am. Its one of those things that I really enjoy doing, and it never gets boring for me. As for the team, I think we worked really well together. And I do apologise for hogging the board a bit, I do that sometimes, just say next time if anyone wants to have a go, or i’ll just sit all day like a child in a candy shop. As for the other teams, they seemed to run smoothly. Catherine and Martin were running all over the place trying to fix cans. I dont really know what emily and lauren were up to, but they were the last to leave.True SM’s. There did seem to be a bit of confusion on how to work the sound desk, it is a bit of a bollox.

Anyway, the venue tech’s gave us a tutorial on how to use the illusion desk and we got all the lights plotted and focused. I feel we may have to tweat that tomorrow as it is a bit messy with the houselights not being on the desk. Again a great thanks to john for not making his class boring, and i’m looking forward to tomorrows class.

Out

Summary of the week

Well what can I say? Ill start with today first and then i’ll move on to the entire week. Today, was a bit different. Im not really sure if it was in a good way or a bad way though. It may have been just because I’m so completly exhausted from the serious lack of sleep i’ve had this week, but I felt today dragged out a bit. I still enjoyed the day, but the fact that we had to do the same thing over and over again, made it a bit boring. I understand why we had to do it, and I don’t think it could have been done any other way, but I think everyone would agree that it did drag out a bit. No offence to Johns teaching, the first part of it was ok, but the score reading cue part just didn’t do it for me.

Next i’d like to say that this class did boost my respect MASSIVELY  for Stage Managers. I can now see just how hard it is to be a Stage Manager, and I honestly don’t think I would cut it as one. I didn’t really see the big picture before these classes, i’ve always taken orders from stage managers, and because they made it look so easy, I presumed it was easy….. Very very not the case. So I apologise if i’ve ever underated a stage manager, I now see what you have to go through. ……………..I kina think this was another aim of john’s teaching…..maybe……

As for the score  reading classes today….. I don’t really think I was awake enough for them. I found it……. ok I can’t think of any words other than- HARD. I did take some of it in, but for the majority of the class It was away over my head, and spent most of the time trying to catch up. I think the week has taught me how to follow music, but I don’t really understand how? I still can’t read music…. but I can follow along. good. that was the plan.

Overall this week was a great sucess. It kind of reminded me a bit of creative beginnings, but in a really good way. It was much better than anything we did during creative beginnings, but it brought me back to the fun we had during thoses weeks. I would like classes to be like this more often. I have to say though, when I bring up what we did during this week to anyone who wasn’t doin the classes, all I get in response is bullshit! People just think that these classes were a joke and we couldn’t have learned much from them, but i say this now- in the words of Aleksander- Thats Horseshit!! I learned so much from these classes and I would challenge any other teacher to do it another way that would be more effective. I do sometimes wish that John wasn’t an SM teacher and would be a PLX teacher instead. That would be interesting