I occasionally write about ways that aspects of my job intersects with my life. People often expect me to be some kind of organizational guru because I’m a stage manager, but truth… I don’t think I am. It’s a little chicken and egg for me. Am I a good stage manager because I have good organizational skills or did I learn good organizational skills because I became a stage manager. I think a lot of it is the latter. I have to work really hard to not seem like a professional mess, and occasionally those skills in the workplace are useful in the rest of life.
Anyhow, this one isn’t actually a stage management skill, but more a mind blowing tip turned life advice I got once while on the job.
I mentioned a few weeks ago about attending a retirement party of a dear dear colleague who was retiring after thirty plus years at my company. She has taught me so much in the twenty years I’ve known her. One of my favorite turns of phrases comes from her, “Managing expectations.” I’d never heard anyone else say that until she came into rehearsal one days and said to the director, “I need to manage you expectations on what will be ready the first time you rehearse onstage.” What a gentle, level headed, non-panic inducing way of saying, “We’re behind in our work and there are things that won’t be ready.”
But this tidbit came from seven or eight years ago, we were working on a production of The Marriage of Figaro. There was a scene where the maid Susanna had to take her apron off. She starts the scene with her apron on, so at the top of every rehearsal, I would help her into her rehearsal skirt then tie the apron on her since the bow was in the back. Some days, during the scene, the apron would come right off, and some days it would be a tangled mess and the singer would get frustrated as she tried to sing and fumble with apron strings.
One day, my colleague M was watching rehearsal, and saw the singer struggle with untying the apron strings. At a pause in rehearsal she came up to me and the singer and suggested to the singer, “Why don’t you tie the apron on yourself. “
The singer did so.
Then M said, “Reach around and untie it.”
And then magically, the singer was able to reach around an with one tug smoothly untie the apron.
Afterwards, M said to me, “If you let them tie their own apron strings, they’ll know which tail to grab to untie it. When you tie it for them, the strings sit differently from what they expect and they’ll get tangled.”
It was such a clear and simple thing, but I had never thought about it before. Trust the lady who has spent forty years tying apron strings to point this out to me. By letting someone get into something themselves, they will be able to see (or feel) more clearly how to get out of it. (I mean there are exceptions, of course. Corsets, for one.) It’s similar to another piece of advice from a mentor early in my stage management days, “Never hand a singer their prop. teach them where the prop table is, otherwise you’ll spend all your time handing people props.”
It was hard advice for me to internalize – as a stage manager, I feel like I should help people. I want to make life as easy for them as possible, remove obstacles, give them as little to do so they can just concentrate on the work they do onstage. But I’m realizing it’s more work and potentially frustration- for me, for the crew, for the singer themselves – when they get everything handed to them without learning the ropes (apron strings?) themselves. They need to be able to find the prop table back stage and the correct apron string when it comes time to take the apron off.
I think about M’s words often in my non-work life, too – particularly with my kids. I turn around in my head the difference between doing something for my kids and letting them discover something for themselves. Of letting them climb to the top of the play structure, discovering where each foothold is, rather than giving them a boost and bypassing those footholds. Because those are the same foothold that they need to know to climb back down. If they don’t find them going up, will they be able to find them coming back down? Or so many other things – if they put away the dishes, they’ll know where to find them later; same thing with backpacks and bike helmets and homework and friendships – though, we are still working on all these ones, truth be told. But you know, you can’t rescue everyone. And sometimes inserting yourself just mucks things up even more.
So as as a tribute to the wonderful M on her retirement, I am passing along her wise wise words to the world – “Let people tie their own apron strings.”
Have you ever received advice from a work colleague that’s stuck with you?
Last week and this past week was one of those “so many random thoughts came into my head this week”-kind of week. So here’s a random dump of various goings ons since the last week of recaps…
-We went duckpin bowling last weekend. The bowling alley was like stepping back in time. At one point, the guy who brought us our food asked if we could keep the kids from leaning on the ball returns because, “those are original, from the 1950s.” The bowling alley had a deal for six bowlers plus shoes, a large pizza and a pitcher of soda for $105, which seemed like a steal for an afternoon of fun for our family of five.
step back in time! We have to score by hand and math!
-We’ve started rehearsal. I’m working on an opera set in World War I, so my google searches lately have been things like, “1900s German Telegram” and “gas masks” and “1900s pencils”. And my photo roll is full of snapshots from rehearsal as I communicate with the prop master about our rehearsal needs. Here’s a glimpse:
I was like, “What is that?” Paper props“Will this do for the French Lieutenant?”
In case you couldn’t tell, that white blob is a set of rehearsal bagpipes that I fashioned out of a cotton sack and paper and tape because the one we ordered for the show have’t arrived yet. It’s some of my best work. I have to admit I am mad good at making fake props. (I even wrote a post on it…)
-Swim season is finished! Even though I’m so glad that we no longer have to get to the pool every day, I’m a little sad to move on from that part of the summer because for all the complicated logistics, it was fun watching the 12 year old swim and I actually liked having an excuse to get into the pool four nights a week. The 12 year old received one of the Coach’s Choice awards – I’m so proud of her! Every kid also recieves a paper plate award – the 4 year old got “Best Bobber”, the 7 year old got “Best Flutter Kick” and the 12 year old got “Butterflyer at Heart”. How awesome is it that the coaches get together and think of an award for everyone?!
-The schlep every morning to get people places. This is what our foyer looks like in the morning as we get ready to leave:
I have lunchbox, purse, laptop bag, totebag with running clothes in it (in case I have a long dinner break). The kids each have a backpack and lunch. The 7 year old was at skating camp last week, so he also has helmet, winter coat, and his skates. It’s like every day is an expedition. I thought this was funny – him trekking up the hill to the ice arena. For the record, there is a set of stairs just to the right of this picture – he just chose not to use them.
-The 12 year old’s musical theatre showcase was so much fun! I have to admit I might have mouthed the words to her solo in the Shrek scene along with her as she sang it. In addition to musical numbers, they performed some book (spoken) scenes as well. I had kind of dismissed SpongeBob Square Pants the Musical without knowing anything about it, but the kids performed some scenes from it and they were pretty funny. I would be intrigued to see the show. I’m glad we signed the 12 year old up for this camp – I think she’s at an age that she does better at camps where she’s receiving training in something specific rather than general “have fun” camps. Though I still have hopes that she will want to go to a sleepaway camp at some point too. Also, last week, the theatre camp program took all the kids to New York to see Hamilton. How cool is that? They left on the 8am Vamoose bus and came home at 11pm. Everything – the bus, the show, and dinner – was covered by the camp fees. We sent her with a bagged lunch and some money. It seems like such a milestone for us – we’ve never sent our kid on a trip like this without us. (Well, when she was a baby, my parents would take her to California during the summers, but this feels different because she’s expected to behave and make good choices on her own….) She had an amazing time. But also – it made me think that maybe a day trip to NYC to see a show is a pretty easy thing and I should do that with her at some point this fall.
-My aunt passed away last week. She was my father’s oldest sister. We weren’t exactly close – she lived in Houlong, a small town in Taiwan, and I’ve seen her maybe ten times in my life. But whenever we went to visit she was always so welcoming and generous with her time, making sure that I was enjoying myself, constantly feeding me, taking us around the town on her little scooter. I suppose I am getting to an age where aunts and uncles will soon start to pass – all of my father’s siblings live in Taiwan, and it seems a little unreal to me to hear news of their passings. Since I so rarely go to Taiwan, it is easy to forget, and to think that my aunt will always be there, and that I will see her when I go back this winter.
-On a lighter note – this tweet made me laugh. It is so so so true for us too:
The tweet was linked through this New York Times article on people’s grocery shopping habits. The article was super interesting and indulged a certain voyeur in me. My main takeaway was that Americans buy a lot of cheese. I feel like we buy a lot of cucumbers, apples, berries, and bread. And yes, cheese. What can’t you wait to stop spending money on?
– Taiwanese Sausage! There are many boba places near work, and one of them also sells food, including Taiwanese sausage. It brings back such memories of being at the Night Markets in Taiwan. I’m trying to limit my boba consumption this summer, but Taiwanese sausage might be a dangerous gateway.
-another food related thing – My favorite salad these days – With the summer glut of zucchini, I’ve been making shaved zucchini salad for lunches. No real recipe, but this is what I do- with a peeler, shave the zucchini into ribbons. Add, salt, pepper, olive oils and red wine vinegar (or whatever acid. I would also use lemons if we had lemons). Mix it up to make sure the ribbons are all dressed. Sprinkle with fresh mint, walnuts, parmesan cheese. Top with an egg for protein. I also threw in some lettuce because we had some to use up. It’s been my go to lunch for the past two weeks. This is my entry in Tobia’s summer salad challenge :).
A Week of Outfits: The Sunday before the first day of rehearsal, I put together 6 outfits to get me through the week because I knew the mornings would be really busy with three drop offs . It made my part of the morning so much easier not to have to think of what to wear. I’ve been hearing a lot about “Three Words” styling method, where you choose three words to describe your sense of style. There are a variety of the theme floating around, but one version is – one word that is your baseline style, one word that is describes your style aspirations, and one word that describes how you want to feel in your clothes. (I’ve read somewhere that “comfortable” isn’t a style word because we all want to be comfortable.. Because otherwise that would be my word for all three categories.) My words always change, but I think at the moment, I’m going to choose – Colourful, effortless, and playful. I will say, I have a few requirements of my clothes – I have to be able to move easily in it since I move and lift things a lot in rehearsals. Things have to be long enough that I don’t flash the world when I bend down or sit on the ground. Though I do sometime wear bike shorts underneath if it seems dicy. No button or things that I have to zip up the back. I have to get dressed by myself and have never mastered the art of zipping up the back of my own dress. Natural fibers if possible. Elastic waist bands. Pockets. Not black. I wear black a lot when I’m backstage so I try to avoid it when I’m not backstage. Machine washable.
I thought I’d post here the week of outfits. Excuse the bad photos – I’m by no means a fashion blogger. Think of this as “What does a middle aged stage manager mother of three wear?”
Monday: I didn’t take a picture on Monday but it was my blue Wool& Sierra tank dress with a flower patterned Uniqlo shirt over it. Because I’m too lazy top put it back on, here is it on the hanger:
Tuesday – Linen shirt dress. I love this dress because it is so easy breezy. Also – the sleeves are long. I’m trying to cover my arms, or at least my left arm because it gets a lot of sun during my daily commute, so I want a little bit of protection. This is the upper limit of short for me.
Masking because of a COVID precaution. It really took me back…
Wednesday: Poplin stiped skirt, Uniqlo shirt. The skirt is a new purchase – it was on the sale rack at JCPenney’s for $15. I love a nice skirt with pockets and an elastic waistband – there was a whole rack of these skirts, and I thought, “Why aren’t people buying this perfect for summer skirt?!?!?” The label says dirndl skirt, which I thought was funny.
Thursday: Hand me down cardigan from my cousin, yellow and white striped t-shirt from Pact, orange crinkle pants from Old Navy.
Friday: Red Wool& dress with J.Crew poplin men’s button up. The shirt is thrifted and I love everything about it. When I first saw it on the Men’s rack, I thought it had been mishung, but it really is a men’s shirt. Also – I really love my new hair with sunglasses.
Saturday – Was the day off, so no picture. I spent it in running shorts, a sports bra, and a running tank, on the off chance I got out for a run. Which didn’t happen.
Sunday: Olive green shirt dress (Uniqlo) with hat. I love this dress – so easy to wear. It does come with a belt, but I never belt it. I actually bought it when i was pregnant even though it’s not maternity wear. I thought the outfit needed a little something, so I threw on a hat. I used to have many summer hats, but I can only find this one blue one right now. I’ll have to look for the others. At least this hat matches my shoes. (On the note of shoes – I alternate between two pair of shoes in the summer – a pair of aqua Allbirds and a blue slip on Oofos. These are both getting a little worn in the soles, so I’ll need to replace them soon. I’m annoyed that Allbirds now only come in boring grey/black/neutral colours.)
Grateful For (It’s a long list this time because I realized I have two weeks worth here.): -The Husband. He’s been the primary parent while I’ve been in rehearsals – he’s picked up kids, stayed home with sick ones, arranged play dates, made dinner, made needed purchases, scheduled work on the house, paid contractors… a lot. I feel downright lazy for only having to get the kids to school/camp then go to work every day.
-A box of veggies. Our neighbor was going out of town – you know, just an impulsive trip to the Bahamas like you do when your kids are all older and at camp – so he asked if we would feed his fish and also take this box of veggies from the Farmer’s market. Yes please!
-That I’ve lived to have seen – twice each – a woman run for President and a person of colour run for President. (This might be pre-mature thinking, but probably not.) Look, I don’t care about any one person’s politics. I mean I have my opinions (left leaning, in case it wasn’t clear), but I’m always curious and interested in what people think across the spectrum. I do care, though, that we live in a world where people should see aspects of themselves represented on a national and international stage. Growing up, I wanted to be blond because success was often embodied by beautiful blond people. I’m glad that, hopefully, that is not what achievement has to look like to my kids.
-Google Translate. The current opera is in three different languages since it tells the story of the Scottish, French, and German soldiers. My French is passable enough that I can understand the text, but my German is not (I only took two semesters of German in college.) Enter the miracle of Google Translate – I can just point it at the text, and it translates it for me! Now I know exactly why we need a telegram for that scene and what it should say.
-The Lost and Found. I swear, every day the 7 year old comes home from camp with one less item than when I sent him in the morning. Thank goodness, the camp puts the lost and found out front by the sign in table.
-Other people driving. The past two weeks have been a lot of driving for everyone. Because I work so far away, the Husband had taken over driving to swim practice – so grateful for him for doing that because it is really busy. Then this week, my friend has been driving the 12 year old to her camp because her theatre camp starts at the exact same time as the 7 year old’s ice skating camp. Since my friend’s kids go to a camp not too far from theatre camp, she’s been dropping the 12 year old in the morning. A million thanks to her for doing that.
– The singer M who let me into the building when I had left my swipe card inside after hours. As I was leaving work one day, I went to reach for my car keys, and realized that they were in my purse, which were in the rehearsal hall in the building, the doors of which were swinging shut behind me. Cue PANIC. It was 9pm in the evening and everything was locked and everyone was gone. But then, I saw a singer coming back from dinner to pick up his car, and I have never been so grateful to see a singer in my life. Relief washed over me. He was able to swipe me in and I retrieved my stuff.
-Hand me down bras! I need to re-evaluate my bra game – I’m still wearing nursing bras and my youngest kid will soon be five. But to be fair, those nursing bras are the most comfortable bras I’ve ever worn. When my cousin was visiting, she gave me a whole bag of bras that she had outgrown. Last week, I pulled them out to try on, and they are actually the same Uniqlo bras that I used to buy before I got pregnant with my third kid. Only she bought them in Taiwan so all the labels are in Chinese so it took me a while to realize they were the same bras. What a nice and useful coincidence.
Looking forward to: -A weekend alone/ hanging out with a friend. The Husband is taking the kids out on an overnight, but I have to work, so I’ll stay behind. I’ll have a glorious day to myself, though. Things on my “want to do” list: – hang out with my friend, probably hiking – set the thermostat at 76. – clean one thing. Either my desk or my craft table or the toy room? – paint some cards. – make a batch of hard boiled eggs for next week. -maybe bake something else. -read -write recaps ffor our Maine trip – run, or maybe even swim? That’s a lot – I probably won’t get to all that, though.
– We have a friend coming in to town to come see my show in a few weeks. I always love having company. Especially company that is forgiving of the mess and chaos that is life with three kids.
-The Olympics!!! Always fun to watch and hear the stories.
-Started this Audiobook. I’ve never read Emilie Henry, and when I was looking for a new audiobook for my commute I saw this was read by Julia Whelan, so thought, “If nothing else, the narration will be good!” The 12 year old borrowed Book Lovers on audio and has been listening to it, so I figured it wouldn’t be bad to see what all the buzz is about. So far I’ve laughed out loud many times.
What We Ate (two weeks worth – it’s been a very … functional few weeks of eating.) Monday- Sandwiches at the pool for the Husband and kids. I had veggies and fruit when I got home from work
Tuesday: Chicken salad wraps at the pool. I had tomato furikake sandwiches at home when I got off work. Basically mayo, sliced tomato, furikake seasoning on toasted bread. It was tasty and summer.
Wednesday: Meet the Husband and two little kids for dinner at a hot dog/burger restaurant. I arrived on the late side and ate chili cheese fries and leftover hot dog buns and sausage. I often realize that when we go to restaurants, I don’t really need to order myself food, I can just eat what the kids don’t eat…
Thursday: I ate leftover chicken salad wraps from Tuesday. Not sure what the rest of the family ate.
Friday: Swim Team Pasta Dinner Potluck. I made sesame noodles w/ chicken, cucumber, and peppers. I always feel self conscious about bringing sesame noodles to the Pasta Potluck, but it’s really easy to make and I think it makes a nice break for people who don’t eat tomatoes… (There were leftovers which I was happy to eat all week>)
Saturday: Pizza take out and The Frog Prince. (Which I might have slept through because I was really tired by this point of the week.)
Sunday: Leftover pizza for me. The rest of the family had pizza at the swim team awards banquet.
Monday: Eggplant stir fry with fish. The Husband cooked. This was really tasty as leftovers.
Tuesday: Grilled Chicken drumsticks, steamed broccoli, and leftover eggplant stir fry. I was working this night, so I marinated the chicken ahead of time and the Husband grilled it when he got home. I did a whole Costco size pack of drumsticks so the kids could take them for lunch.
Wednesday: The family went out to eat and I met them at ice cream when I got off work. I had a sandwich for dinner… that is an ice cream sandwich.
Thursday: Green beans and box Mac N Cheese for the Husband and kids. I had leftover sesame noodles at work.
Friday: Chinese Take-out for the Husband and kids and some friends they had over. I had, again, sesame noodles at work.
Okay – I’m off to continue my child-free day!
What’s your favorite summer outfit? Ten points if you can tell me what that stick like prop is.
I was talking to a dancer in rehearsal the other day about onstage mishaps. She was telling me about a moment during the last show we worked on together, when she was in the middle of a huge fight scene, and her skirt fell off. She couldn’t get it re-fastened, and spent the rest of the scene clutching her skirt to her body while trying to scratch someone’s eyes out.
Hearing her story brought back many memories. I’ve definitely had my share of onstage mishaps:
-There was the time that I was doing a show and a giant chalkboard was supposed to fly in from above during a crucial moment of a scene. Well, we had been doing a different show the night before and in order for the set pieces of that show to fit, they had to fasten the giant chalkboard from my show off so that it wouldn’t swing. Welp… after the last show, the crew forgot to untie it for our show. So when I called the cue for the Giant chalkboard… nothing happened! There the baritone is standing with a giant piece of chalk, looking up, wondering if this huge piece of scenery is going to come in, all the while singing this very fast French patter music. The baritone, who is honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, was so confused and a little bit angry.
-One show a the soprano was supposed to sit in a chaise to sing her big famous aria. Well in the scene previous, another character was thrown into the chaise in a fight, and the force of him collapsing in the the chaise shattered it. Afterwards he told me that he tried to figure out how to put it back together while staying in character, but it was futile. No one was going to be sitting in that chaise. The soprano ended up singing her big aria about love and life leaning against a desk.
– There was the recital I stage managed, of a husband and wife opera singing couple where the husband, who wasn’t feeling very well, walked offstage in the middle of their duet. “I can’t,” he muttered to himself, leaving his wife and the pianist standing on stage and the audience completely befuddled. We took a quick fifteen minute pause. The wife and the pianist looked through all the music they had with them and cobbled together a solo recital program. It still ended up being an evening of beautiful music. The husband and wife singers are no longer married.
-There was the time when the clarinetist for a show thought that the performance was at 7pm when it was at 2pm. By the time we realized he was missing he was too far away to come in for the show, so the conductor and the pianist re-orchestrated the entire show to cover for the missing clarinet.
– Last spring, when I had to step in and call the show for a colleague, I accidentally left the lighting channel turned off during a crucial moment. (The lighting channel is the headset channel that I use to talk to the light board operator. Usually I have different channels to talk to different departments so that people don’t have to listen to all the different departmental conversations at once.) Anyhow, I left the lighting channel off accidentally, so when I called for the stage to go dark so we could execute a scene shift, the light board op couldn’t hear me and didn’t take the light cue. So the stage did not go dark, and the audience got to witness the somewhat awkward sight of the crew coming onstage to push scenery around.
Luckily these incidents did not involve injury, just lots of awkwardness and a bit of fast thinking of how to triage the situation.
As I was talking to the dancer about her skirt incident, she mentioned that her boyfriend had come to see the show and he said he thought it seemed like she was holding on to her skirt awfully tight. We had a good laugh about how sometimes things happen onstage and the show isn’t perfect. It’s very very rarely perfect, in fact. Often even though it is mortifying or stressful at the time, it makes for a good story afterward. She said that she felt bad that her boyfriend didn’t get to see the perfect show.
“You know,” I told her, “It’s live theatre. That was just the show that they got that night.”
I think that’s one of the beautiful things about live theatre – it’s not something that is to be experienced the same way over and over again like a movie might be. Of course we aim for consitency, and for safety’s sake that’s the goal. At the same time, things happen, things that you can’t predict, even though you can learn and prevent them from happening again. (putting an extra stitch in that skirt hook, writing a Post-it in my book that says, “Lighting channel ON”…) Friday night’s show is not going to be the same as Sunday afternoon’s show, and that’s okay. For Friday night’s audience, that is the show that they get to see; that’s the unique experience that they get to have.
And as I said that to the dancer, I realized that this is true of life too. We can plan and plan and anticipate events, but sometimes things happen, and this is just the moment/day/month/life that we get. It might not be what we rehearsed, but it’s still can be a very fine moment.
So many Post-Its! A page from my score for the opera Radamisto.
(So I realize, after the it was written that this post got a little in the weeds about stage management life… hopefully there isn’t too much theatre lingo in it! But happy to explain if anyone is confused by the terminology. I think I take the terms for granted sometimes and assume it’s pretty clear what we are talking about.)
Sometimes, when calling a show, I would get a note from the director that something was called late. And I will look at that page in my score or script, where things are a rainbow of post its which tell me when to call the cues, and I think to myself, “Oh yes. It was. There is a sound cue and a light cue at the same time and I had to page the cast, and the rail cue right before…. I need to just practice reading those Post-Its so I say everything in time for the stage crew to execute the cue when the director wants it.” That’s the internal monologue.
To the director I’ll say, “Yes, I felt that. It will get better. Stage managers need rehearsals too.” (Because it doesn’t get said enough – Singers get three weeks of rehearsals to figure out what they are doing onstage. Stage Managers are expected to make everything happen onstage perfectly the first time when we tech show.)
And the next rehearsal the same thing will happen and the cue will be late again.
And I just keep thinking, I need to practice and do it a couple more times so that I say “go” at the right moment. Sometimes I get frustrated that I missed it and blame the conductor’s lack of downbeat, or the noise backstage, or what not…. Before the next rehearsal, I’ll listen to the recording of the opera with my score in front of me, and practice calling, so that I’ll feel prepared at the next rehearsal.
And I’ll call it late again.
And after rehearsal that night I’ll stare at that page, and there will be a moment when I look at it in defeat and confusion and frown…
… and then I’ll just move one of the Post It.
Maybe I’ll move it one bar later, or half a page sooner, but regardless – I’ve realized that one of those Post-Its has to move. Not, of course a Post It that says “Go” for when the cue is supposed to happen. But maybe a Post It for a “Standby” to warn the crew that the cue is coming up, or a “Places” call for when I ask the cast to come to stage. And amazingly, just moving that one Post-it opens up space and time and allows me to call the cues with a little more room.
In my head, I need to page the singer to Places five minutes before their entrance – this is the standard. But I can in fact page the singer five minutes and thirty seconds before their entrance. I can move that “Places” Post-it thirty seconds away from the “Light Cue – Go” Post it. And that extra thirty seconds gives me the time to call the light cue in the right place and stage magic will happen exactly when the director wants it to.
I was thinking of this lately, how shifting one thing can make everything else easier. As the weather here turns chilly and the sun is still too low at 8:45am to have dried the dew from the windows of my car so that when it is time to take the kids to the school bus the car is still covered in moisture – it feels like there is one more Post-It on the page than I am used to. There were a couple of days last week when we were almost late because I had to wipe down the car so I could see safely out the windows. And as the weather gets cooler, there will be more tasks between the school bus alarm going off and getting to the school bus on time. Right now the tasks are: Shoes on, jackets on, backpacks on, get in the car, drive. But in a few weeks, there will be frost on the car windows. There will be winter coats and boots and hats and mitts. There will be letting the car warm up. There will be shoveling of snow.
And I’m sure the first few times there will be almost misses of the school bus. And I will be frustrated and annoyed that the September “School Bus” alarm does not get us to the bus on time in December. And then I will remember that light cue that I never called right until I moved the other Post-it. And I will move the metaphorical Post-it and set the “School Bus” alarm five minutes earlier. And that will give us the space we need to get make morning magic happen. Morning magic being: arriving at the school bus without any yelling or panic.
Having a routine plan is good, but only if it gets me where I need to be. I have to remind myself – if things aren’t working, sometimes I just need to move a Post-It.
The show has teched and opened and closed and I’m ready for summer. The weeks of work was an intense time. Now on the other side, I am amazed a what a big push it was for us to get through those two weeks of performing a large show in the time of COVID. I don’t pretend that putting up an opera is anywhere on the scale as organizing and army or surgery – in fact we often say “It isn’t brain surgery” when things feel overwhelming. But mounting an opera is a project that takes a couple hundred people to pull off, and there are 1500-2000 people watching every performance expecting to be entertained, so it does feel like a large undertaking.
This show, though, felt particularly daunting at times. One main reason was that part way through the run, I was asked to step in at the last minute for the stage manager, bumping up from my assistant stage manager role. Stepping into someone else’s track is not always easy, and being the stage manager requires a level of visible responsibility that can be intimidating for me. But someone needed to call the show and the company asked me, so I was nervously excited to do it. And turns out, when you are calling a show cold without rehearsal, people are really forgiving when you bungle a scene shift cue and the audience gets to watch a bit of awkward stage business that they really shouldn’t witness. Hah.
Everyone was super supportive and encouraging and I really felt lifted by that support. And the chorus, our wonderful wonderful chorus, gathered backstage around the stage manager’s console at the end of the first show I called and gave me a huge round of applause. Oh my goodness, I was so touched by the gesture, my heart almost exploded from gratitude.
When I stage manage a performance, I have a little ritual where I write some variation of the following in my notebook as I prep for the show to start:
Each line is kind of like a mile marker. As the show goes along, I will write the time next to each section when it starts – Curtain Speech, Orchestra Tune, Act 1 begins, Act 2 begins, etc… At the end of the evening, I can easily calculate how long each segment of the show was because I know what time they each started. Actually, even more than “easily” because I have an excel table that will calculate the time math for me – I just input the start times of each part. Time keeping is a big part of stage management – using it well and knowing where it goes.
I read an article recently that talked about the difference between routine and ritual being one of intent and mindfulness. The article quotes Mason Currey who wrote a book called “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work”, as saying that “Rituals create and mark a transition towards a different kind of mental or emotional state.” While a routine might just be a repeated action, rituals can help focus the mind to an upcoming task. Writing the mile markers of the show is certainly routine – it’s a task that has a practical function and needs to be done before every show – but I think of it also as a ritual, something I do methodically to introduce a calm to the start of my show. There can be many unknowns, but I do know that I will look at the clock at these points in the evening and it’s helps me mentally prepare to get there.
At any rate, the first time I had to call the opera I was subbing on, I stood at the console before the show and had my little ritual of writing down the points of time that I needed to note. Then I took a deep breath and, looking at what I had written, suddenly it all seemed very manageable. This huge show I had just been thrown in charge of…. I just had to get from “[Curtain] Speech” to “End [of Bows]”. What I had to do was laid out right there in black and white. So very doable.
For as much calamity that had been thrown at our show in the days, hours, and minutes before the orchestra downbeat, I realized then that there was an end point and I just had to get there. Simple enough. Indeed, I don’t know that I could very well avoid getting there. Sure, I could not tell the orchestra to tune, but that was a very unlikely as it would probably raise eyebrows and cost a lot of money. Looking at my list of mile markers brought a kind of “ah ha!” moment for me, a realization that the end of the show will happen- there is it, written in my notebook, as if it were preordained. It was like a road map, I just had to arrive at “End bows” and my job was done (mostly) and I could go home. There was a great sense of reassurance in knowing that I just had to focus until “End Bows”.
There is a saying, “Everything will be okay in the end. And if it isn’t okay, it isn’t the end.” I think of this a lot when things get hard, or even when I anticipate things getting hard. Work in the moment, but know there is an end. There are times I will even break things down even further and tell myself that I just have to get through the next ten minutes. After I get through enough ten minute sections, I will get to “End of Bows.”
Sometimes in life, when things seem daunting, I know when the end will be – “End Bows” for example- and sometimes I don’t – waiting at the hospital with my sick Father-in-law. Either way, it helps just knowing that there is an end point, a time when this show, this task, this moment of life will be finished and I will be able to look back and reflect and move on.
The other day I turned my back and the baby dumped a box of Cheerios on the floor. I snapped a picture and sent it to my friend. “Cheerios are my version of Nutcracker snow, ” I wrote.
For those who don’t work backstage, let me explain. At the end of the first act of the perennial Christmas favorite The Nutcracker, there is a huge snow scene. Vast amounts of snow is dropped from above the stage, blanketing the stage, drifting into the wings, coating the dancers. So much snow also means intermission clean up. I am forever finding little white bits of Nutcracker snow somewhere backstage, even deep into spring. But it is huge part of the show. So every performance snow gets showered on the floor. And every intermission the crew sweeps it up so they can set for the next act.
(I guess the opera version of Nutcracker snow would be Madama Butterfly flower petals. And there was a recent production of Eugene Onegin that featured a leaf drop with similar pervasiveness.)
And so it is with that box of Cheerios. It starts on the table. The baby dumps it on the floor. I clean it up. It gets dumped on the floor again. The cycle begins again. And for the rest of the day, I will be finding Cheerios in all obscure corners of the dining room.
Putting up a show is often an exercise in creating and then dismantling then restoring in order to create again. A scene moves forward, props get used then discarded. Costume pieces get worn then removed. Scenery shifts. Then you get to the end of the show and then everything gets returned to it’s starting place so you can do it all over again. And the same things happen again. The same props move, the same costume pieces are put on and off, the same scenery changes position. Then the crew scrambles to put it all back together again.
We call it “Re-setting for the Top”, this act of putting everything back to where we started so that we can do it all over again.
But in reality, it’s not always the same. Particularly in rehearsal. Things change, singers find new nuances in their portrayal. Directors change traffic patterns to clarify the story they are trying to tell. Dancers, adjust a position or a movement. Even stage managers, who are supposed to be the soul of consistency, even we find subtle ways to make things better or more efficient – perhaps that prop should be preset facing the other way for ease of pick up. Or maybe this entrance order needs to be adjusted to get those who sing first onstage at the front of the line. Or maybe I need to move that post-it in my book so that I see it sooner and throw the cue on time. There are always big tweaks and little tweaks that can be made.
The second act of La Boheme, despite being one of the busiest scenes in all of opera-dome is actually quite short – usually kissing twenty minutes. In a three hour rehearsal, even with thirty minutes of chorus breaks, you can run Act Two at least five times, maybe six or seven if you’re fast at re-setting. That’s a lot of re-setting. But at the same time, it’s a lot of chances to figure out how to make things better.
There is a saying that life isn’t a dress rehearsal, the implication being that the curtain is up and we are living our one shot in front of an audience. But I think, the people who say this don’t truly understand rehearsal. Or life. I think, perhaps life is indeed like a rehearsal. Despite this being our one precious life, I don’t think that we are here to get it right on the first take; it’s a process. It’s a process of learning and trying and failing and clarifying and then trying again. Perhaps we need to be more forgiving of ourselves and of others and realize that everyone should get an opportunity to reset for the top, another chance to try things again until one arrives where one wants to be.
This includes that baby and the box of Cheerios. I’ll keep resetting that box, and perhaps one day, instead of dumping the Cheerios on the floor, she will finally figure out how to pour it into her bowl and get herself breakfast.
Earlier this week, I got the call to schedule my vaccine appointment. While I feel like I had waited forever, in truth, it was just last week that eligibility had only opened up for me – under 65, no health conditions or qualifying employment. I had been feeling antsy and impatient, but I had been ready to wait. I had heard through the neighborhood listserv that there was one particular vaccination site in the next county that had plenty of availability, so I switched my site preference on my pre-registration to that site rather than the one in my own county. And actually, when I looked at the map – this other site was actually closer to me than the one in my own county. Then I just waited.
Monday evening, as I was clearing up dinner, I got a phone call. The automated call put me into hold que. Around twenty minutes into waiting, I started to despair, thinking that it had just been a bug and I’d gotten my hopes up. But I stuck it through. (I tend to be the person who stays in their original checkout line at the grocery store even though it is the slowest one.) And after thirty minutes, someone picked up. They had appointments for the next day, and I said, “Yes, Please!” I was booked for both shots right then. I’m really grateful to all the people working the phone lines, scheduling appointments.
My appointment was at a state site. It was a series of large temporary structures set up in a parking lot and run by FEMA, though I also saw people from the Coast Guard there too. There was directional signage and arrows on the floors and friendly knowledgeable people. In fact, it kind of reminded me of the first day of tech in a new space. I was asked for my appointment QR code and ID and then pointed towards a door and sent to another station where I was again asked for my QR code and ID.
And then, to my delight, amidst all the scanning and vetting and iPads and what not, I saw something very familiar: at each station was a pack of green sticky dots and a pack of orange sticky dots.
These are the very same sticky dots that I use to put spot light cues in my score. Seeing these sticky dots delighted me to no end. They are such a staple of my stage management kit that I feel almost possessive of them – silly, I know. But my sticky dots, aside from one or two homeschool/ preschool art projects, have been languishing unused for over a year. It gave me great joy to know that someone somewhere (or many someones) were using sticky dots.
So after asking me questions about allergies and my current health, the nice young man doing my intake put a green sticky dot on me. I guess it meant that I was low risk for immediate side effects.
I moved on to the next station, where I rolled up my sleeve and very nice person jabbed me in the arm, handed me a vaccination card and I was then directed into yet another tent.
Here in this tent, I sat with all the other green dots on the left side of the room, where there were rows of chairs spaced six feet apart. I was told to have a seat and wait for fifteen minutes before I could leave.
So I chose a seat and sat there, six feet from my fellow vaccinated. Kind of like the graveyard scene in Our Town.
Waiting
The white canopy of the tent made for a soft, diffuse natural light filled space – all bright and airy. It was the most well lit and quiet place I had been in a long time.
I might have stayed for more than fifteen minutes.
The Husband texted: Are you coming home?
I replied: Idon’t know. It’s quiet and well-lit here.
On the radio the other day, there was a discussion about recycling, and they said that cardboard recycling has gone up during COVID. We are no stranger to this phenomenon, having more than done our part to contribute to Jeff Bezos’ wealth. The real cardboard goldmine, however, came courtesy of the new fridge we bought for the basement.
“Make sure to tell them to leave the box!” I said to the Husband when he told me that the fridge was being delivered.
The day the fridge arrived, as the delivery people were trying to figure out how to take the door off the fridge, I waved them down, pointing at the box. “Can you please leave it?” They delivery guy looked at me and laughed.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and dragged it to the far end of the driveway.
Immediately the kids were entranced and set up shop inside, among the Styrofoam and packing materials. It made a shady little hideout from the 90 degree weather.
“We can’t just leave it here,” I said. “Let’s have a plan.”
The next day, I was playing in the backyard with the two younger kids when I heard scraping and thumping and heaving. I looked around the house, and saw the eight year old trying to heave this box, this very big, refrigerator box, over the front gate and into the back yard.
I wasn’t quite sure what the plan was. Just that it was a big box. When I was little, I read a book called Christina Katerina and the Box by Patricia Lee Gauch. It tells the story of a little girl’s endless adventure with a large cardboard box. Ever after, I saw cardboard boxes as full of infinite possibilities and mutations, and even now I have a hard time throwing large boxes out. “It is going to be something!” I tell myself. After all, the cardboard box was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2005.
The eight year old decided that the refrigerator box was going to be a clubhouse/ lemonade stand. We painted it with some leftover paint from painting her bedroom (turquoise) and the dining room (yellow). Holes were cut to be the service window. The kids moved in and started to play in it, running in and out, serving lemonade, using other boxes to be a pretend counter.
Painting the lemonade stand.
Then rain was forecast and the box was brought inside, much to the Husband’s chagrin. I mean the thing is huge. We folded it up and tucked it in the play room, and the eight year old continued to plot and design. Eventually she fashioned a drink dispenser out of a smaller box and some paper and we slotted it into the side of the larger box.
Inside of a lemonade stand. Yes, our living room is impossible to navigate these days.
The cardboard creative bug was unleashed.
A few weeks later, I saw this DIY large object permanence box on a Montessori website, and decided to make one for the baby. Mine is not as neat and tidy as the one featured, but still, the baby has really gotten into dropping a ball into the hole and looking for it at the bottom where it comes out. She has actually now moved on to dropping cars in the hole and watching them come shooting out the doors. The three year old, too, has really gotten into this.
Put the car in the hole…… and it comes out the bottom!
“More! More! Cardboard creations!” a Gollum-like voice inside me insisted.
Which brings me to yet another stage management skill that has been languishing during COVID: making rehearsal props out of tape and cardboard.
I remember during my first stage management internship at a regional theatre – a production of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians – the props mistress was so excited to have found a set of ten carved Indians on eBay. She was rhapsodic about the ease with which she was able to find these things, and now we just had to wait for them to be shipped to us from across the country. The idea that she could find such a specific prop without having to visit fifteen antique stores or hand make it herself was intoxicating.
The patience and wonder we had with the way the internet made propping a show much easier has worn off a little these days. Now we take it for granted sometimes that things can be clicked upon and delivered the next day. Like on those days when a director demands that the prop he added five seconds ago should have been in rehearsal yesterday.
So what is a props ASM to do when the need is immediate and the Props Master needs at least a couple hours to produce something? Well, if it isn’t readily at hand, you decide that, yes, the performers need something to put in their hands. Right. This. Minute. No, they can’t mime it. So, okay. What are we going to give them? (At one theatre I worked at, the Prop Crew had a tongue-in-cheek rehearsal prop request form. One of the questions on the form was, “Please explain why a piece of 2×4 labelled with gaff tape will not suffice in rehearsal.”)
So you root around, take stock of what there is, scavenge a little, do some magic with scissors, some origami with unpliable objects and then wrap it all in yards of tape to keep it all together.
I have crafted many a rehearsal prop in my time. Janky rehearsal prop construction out of minimal materials is definitely a job skill. You have analyze how the “improptu” is needed to function in rehearsal. Does it need to work or move in a certain way? Is it something that has to be thrown? Sat upon? Exchanged between singers? Does it need to just be the right size and shape to fit in someone’s hand?
Next, you have to balance aesthetics with the function. So you don’t want it to look so ugly that it is distracting in rehearsal, but you also don’t want it to look so good that it becomes the real prop. This is where wrapping the creation in black gaff tape is helpful.
Then you look at what is available and get to work.
Things that are helpful to have for optimal rehearsal prop creation:
Tape
Dowels
Handkerchiefs, or fabric
String or Rope
Paper
Cardstock
Wire
Scissors, or Box Cutters
Tape. Gaff Tape, Spike Tape, Clear Tape. A wide variety of tape.
With those things, I figure you can make just about any rehearsal prop you need. I mean maybe not things that are bigger than a house cat, but really most things. It won’t necessarily be pretty, but it will get you through til the real thing comes. Or until the director decides that was a bad idea after all and cut the thing.
“Improptus” I or my colleagues have constucted: jewelery, cigarettes, cigars, globes, reticules, pocket watches, wands, butterfly nets, miniatures in frames, large pictures in frames, brushes, hand mirrors… the list goes on.
So back to COVID present times and the carboard box city growing in our house – or as my husband calls it, “The Warehouse”. I asked the three year old what he wanted. And he said he wanted a UPS truck.
My friend Kristen had recently gifted us a large box. Originally I had promised this box to my husband to use as cover in the garden later this year, but I figured that there would be no shortage of cardboard in our house, and that a UPS truck was a worthy project for such a large box. So I wrestled the box inside the house and started cutting a front window.
“It needs to have a sliding door,” the three year old said.
This is when I have to start breaking things down in my head. What exactly are the essential elements of a sliding door? Well, a door. And a track. And a handle.
A door is easy – a large rectangle. I cut out a window on that as well.
And a handle is easy to fashion out of a strip of cardboard, though it does take a lot of tape to get it to stick.
Which leaves a track. And I think what is a basic track? Well it’s a groove, I guess. So I cut two long pieces of cardboard to run the back length of the box, bent them to form a place for the door to ride, and taped those to the box. I slid the door in and voila!
I drew a UPS symbol on the box… amazing how much authenticity a logo can give a confection of cardboard and tape.
Ready to make deliveries!
Next, turning out attention to the inside – some knobs and a steering wheel, all made to turn on cylinders made of more cardboard.
“And it needs buttons,” he said.
Well, that was beyond me. But not beyond that other Stage Management magic weapon…. the Sharpie.
All the bells and whistles.
He is delighted with it. He sits in it and drives, “pushes” the buttons, turns the knobs. He fills it with more, yes, cardboard boxes, and delivers his packages around the house. I almost need to find him brown pants and a brown polo shirt.
I’m not sure how long these cardboard creations will last. But, as with improptus, longevity isn’t the point. Even though these things aren’t the real thing, they serve their purpose. There is joy and satisfaction in their creation and there is joy and satisfaction in seeing them put to use. They are perfect for the now. They don’t have to be perfect for the forever.
Usually I’m the one who puts the 3 year old to bed and the Husband puts both the baby and the eight year old to bed. Last night we decided to switch and I put the baby to bed. I haven’t done this in a while because it doesn’t go well for me. My method of putting her down involves nursing her to sleep and then being stuck underneath a sweaty sleeping baby because a) she is super sensitive and wakes whenever I move, b) I am too short to reach over the crib railing for a smooth baby touchdown to the mattress, and c) she has my nipple firmly clenched in between her teeth.
The Husband, however, has some crazy daddy magic technique that gets her to go down with minimal amount of crying. Except in the cases where I let her nap too late into the afternoon or she falls asleep during her post dinner nursing session. Then all bets are off and the baby gets to hang out and watch 30 Rock with mom and dad. These incidences are very rare. Dad is that good.
Anyhow, last night, after the Husband explained his flip and settle technique of getting the baby into the crib, as well as his very precise 10 minute walk, 10 minute rock routine, he left me with the baby.
So I got to do something I haven’t done since last October. I got to walk aimlessly around in the dark, trying to keep a little tyrant happy as I watch the minutes of my life tick by. Also known as lightwalking. Okay, so I wasn’t really lightwalking. But it sure felt like it.
Lightwalking, for those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, is when, during the technical period of a show, people stand onstage so that the lighting designer and the director can have bodies to look at as they create the lighting looks. Now who these bodies are vary by company. Sometimes they are volunteers who come and do it for cookies, coffee, and dress rehearsal passes. Sometimes it’s an intern or two or three. Sometime it’s a stack of chairs. At my home company, it’s the assistant stage managers.
Now, I love my job. But there is one part of it I don’t love to do. Okay there are two: 1) I hate having to tell the chorus to be quiet, and 2) I really don’t love light walking. It is physically tiring to have to stand still for minutes (or hours) on end (though a lot of stage managers are good at letting the light walkers know when they can relax and sit down for a second). Also, while often I bring a book or something, a lot of times I can’t really do much while light walking because someone is looking at you – or rather what the light is doing around you – so if you move, a voice from the darkness of the theatre will say, “Can you please look up?” Mentally you have to keep yourself engaged because once in a while the stage manager will send you on an errand to find the crew, or make some photo copies, or some such. So you stand there, a human mannequin, and just let the thoughts run through your head. It’s usually some monologue like, “Do I need to update the paperwork for this evening’s rehearsal? I should follow up on that note. Did I move that Post-It in my book? What’s for lunch in the Canteen? I forgot to tell the Husband that there are diapers in the wash. I have to pay the bills. Hmmm … what is this spike mark here and do we still need it?” and so on.
Faust groundcloth. Look at all those spike marks! Yes, we need all of them.
So over the years I have learned to embrace the special part of my job that is lightwalking. I’ve learned to enjoy my book one page at a time. Sometimes I’ll bring a crossword puzzle, or my fellow ASM will bring trivia cards which we can read to each other over the special ASM channel on our headsets. That latter is actually a fun bonding experience. I’ve learned how fun it is to get to be on parts of the set and recreate stage pictures (Tosca jump, anyone?), even to pretend to be a chorus of sixty with just two other ASMs. I’ve come to love the quiet of lighting session – this loud quiet of work being done, punctuated by the tapping of buttons as the electrician programs the light board, the gentle murmur of voices as the artistic staff contemplates the visual details, the quiet conversations of the crew as they wait in the wings for one of us to ask them to move a chair, or a wall, the soft scratchy brush strokes of the painter as they do touch up on the set, with their softly apologetic reminders of where not to step . I’ve learned to delight in looking up close at our sets – marveling at how the peeling painted foam looks like beautiful medieval rocks from the audience. I’ve learned to brace myself when someone calls, “Going dark!”, ready to have the lights all go out and be enveloped in velvety faux night. And I’ve learn to be really Zen about standing in the dark, to savor being onstage and looking out and appreciate how fleeting the work we do is. The gentle knowledge that standing on this green spike mark, this is where I am meant to be now, and this is what I am doing now, and there is nothing more important I can be doing for the show right now than standing right there, looking into that blinding light.
And last night, as I was trying to get the baby to sleep, I had this realization that this was my COVID version of lightwalking. This walking back and forth in the dark, the quiet murmurs of night time, this holding something ephemeral yet full of life in my arms, this protective possessiveness, this opportunity to be in the moment, in a walking mediation, even this living in fear of failure and tears while being slightly bored… this was where I was, and this was where I needed to be at that moment.
