Job Description
The stage manager is responsible for all logistics regarding running rehearsals and performances. The position is most easily broken into three phases: pre-rehearsal, rehearsal, and production.
Pre-Rehearsal Phase
Auditions
Before Auditions Even Start (aka needs to be done ASAP)
- FIND ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGERS. Ideally there is one ASM (counting you!) per day of the week which there is rehearsal. If rehearsals are Sun-Thu, you want 4 ASMs in addition to you. If there is not one ASM per day of rehearsal each week, then you will have to work out a rotating schedule later for doubling up on rehearsals. For IAP shows, usually there are no ASMs and you will be at every rehearsal.
- Talk to the producer to find out what times auditions will be and where they are. You are required to be at auditions to help read lines (more on this later).
- Give people audition times! At least 2-3 days before the first audition, make a schedule of who has which time slots. On their application actors will mark what times work best for them - do the best to make everyone happy (this is not always possible, though). Also, when making this schedule, communicate with the director to see how he wants to run auditions. Specifically, ask how much time he wants to give each person (typically we allot 15 minutes). When emailing out, make sure to emphasis what they need to do:
- arrive 15 minutes early
- have their completed audition contract
- have a monologue prepared (it does not need to be memorized)
- Ask the director which slides he wants printed out. Print 4 copies of each slide: one for the actor reading it, one for you, one for the director, and one for the producer. Slides are excerpts from the play used by the director to see how an actor plays specific characters. For term shows, the director may not provide monologues initially. Ask them to, and if they have none you can pull from past productions (ask the officers to pass these along to you).
- Figure out which ASM is doing which reherasal day. As soon as you havve a finalized list of ASMs, send an email asking which days they are free. Assign days to ASMs. (This can be done anytime before the first rehersal, but the earlier the better).
- Meet with the director to discuss some logistics. Some topics you need to discuss include:
- How many breaks in a rehearsal, and for how long?
- How would the director like to be reminded of time constraints?
- How should actors be corrected (lines, blocking) if they mess up?
- How should rehearsal warm-ups be done, if any? By director (or actor) at beginning of rehearsal? By each actor individually before rehearsal?
- Work with the director to create a rehearsal etiquette policy to be handed out to all actors at the first rehearsal.
- Longer or more complicated scenes need more time. Ask about length/complexity of the scenes (i.e. if scenes can be broken down into smaller rehearsal blocks). You'll ask him about scenes one final time before read through, in case he makes any changes
- Figure out when designer run and off-book date will be (!!!!!!!)
- Meet in person with all of your ASMs in order to relay any important information from the above task. Additionally, explain their roles during rehearsal and production phase. Make sure to get their phone numbers and save them in your phone.
During Auditions
- Show up at least 15 minutes before auditions start. Bring spare audition contracts, along with slides and anything else the director requests!
- Set up the room. Push all tables and chairs to one side, leaving one in the center of the wall on the clear side. This is where the director and one dirstaff member will sit. Either the producer or the stage manger should be in the audition room. In recent years it has been the producer, but if the producer is auditioning they should be involved in auditions as little as possible.
- Make sure the director knows that they should introduce themself to each actor, and do their best to create a welcoming environment in the audition room.
- Take pictures of the auditioners. This may be useful for the director later, since faces are easier to remember than names.
- Be in contact with the producer during auditions. Whoever is in the audition room should let the person in the waiting room know when to send people in. Basically, after someone leaves, the director will tell the SM/producer when he is ready for the next person. They should relay this to the person in the waiting room to send the next person in. Attempt to stick to the schedule as much as possible.
- If requested, read lines for slides.
- Help with casting. Keep a list of people, parts, and how they match up (unless your director says he does not need you to).
- At the end of rehearsal, put all tables back.
- Talk with the director and producer about callbacks at the end of each rehearsal.
- Send out emails about callback times.
At the End of Auditions
- After the last callback audition, the director will make a list of actor choices for each character in the play. You and the producer should be FIRM about Ensemble rules (confer with Ensemble officers if you are not sure what they are).
- Before the director leaves, make sure that the actors he picked for each character is doable by that person. Understand how large each role is (i.e. how many lines they have, how often they will be called for rehearsal; Wolfram Alpha the play beforehand to know this information) and make sure that large roles were chosen to be played by people without too many conflicts. If there is a problem you foresee, tell the director and work with him to recast as needed.
- Once this list is made, the director is free to go. You and the producer can immediately begin calling actors and offering them roles. Let them know that they have 24 hours to accept or decline the role - after that time, you will assume they are declining the role.
- Every time you call an actor, give them "the spiel." This includes listing all responsibilities as an actor (read through, put-in, strike, prod hours, etc). GIVE DATES. This is usually the producer's job, but you will be helping most likely.
- LET ACTORS KNOW THEY CANNOT TALK ABOUT THEIR ROLE ON ANY SOCIAL MEDIA OR WITH FRIENDS BEFORE THE FINALIZED CAST LIST IS OUT.
- The order you call people is important. For example, if actor A is the first choice for Rosencrantz and second choice for Guildenstern, call the actor who is the first choice for Guildenstern FIRST in case they reject and you have to offer the role to Actor A instead. (NOTE: the relative "size" of each role also plays a large factor in the order in which you call actors; see the detailed section on calling in the Producer's wiki for more information. Generally, officers can help with calling if they are not auditioning - seek them for guidance
- Once you have a finalized cast list (wait some time after final actor accepts to make sure nobody changes their mind) send out the list to the Ensemble and the director.
- Pray that everyone is happy
Editing CallBoard
See the Ensemble wiki > Term Jobs > Webmaster wiki page for instructions for accessing callboard. The password is "call".
Before read through, update the callboard webpage with the show title and relevant dates, such as read through, off-book date, put-in, tech week, performances, and strike.
If you click "source" in the upper right corner of the page editing box, it should look something like this:
<p>If you are running late, please contact the stage manager running the rehearsal. For the locations of MIT rooms, visit <a href="http://whereis.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org">whereis.mit.edu</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Rehearsals for SHOW NAME</strong></p>
<p><em>Use the tabs on the right to switch between views. Use the link on the bottom to add to your calendar.</em></p>
<p>GOOGLE CALENDAR EMBEDDING CODE</p>
<p>Read-through will be TIME AND DATE</p>
<p><b>Rehearsals</b>: <br />
Rehearsals will be at TIMES. The calendar above will have rehearsal times and the call schedule. <br />
The SM knows about all rehearsal conflicts that were listed on your audition form. If any other recurring conflicts arise, email SHOW EMAIL ADDRESS with the title 'REHEARSAL CONFLICT' ASAP!</p>
<p><b>Off book date is DATE </b>so you'll need to have all your lines memorized by then. As always though, the sooner you have them memorized, the easier it will be to rehearse!</p>
<p><b>Tech week</b>: Tech week is the week before the performances. During that week (starting with Q2Q on Monday), rehearsal will be every night from 6pm until we're finished with everything. It's especially important that you're around for this week to get used to working with the final costumes, lighting, and so on.</p>
<p><b>Put-In and Strike</b>: Put-In will be on <b>DATE</b> All cast and crew members are expected to work for 8 hours at Put-In. Strike will be immediately following the final performance on DATE. Everyone must help with strike.</p>
<p><b>Performances</b>: Performances are at TIME on DATES, and at TIME on DATES. You will be expected to arrive two hours before each performance (6pm or 2pm) to get ready.</p>
Read Through
Read through is when all of the actors, the SM, the producer, and the director gather in a room (ask producer for the room!) and read through the entire play. This is the best way to tell all the actors important things since they will all be in one place.
Before Read Through
- Get in contact with the director for a finalized script ASAP - you need it for read through.
- Ask the director if/how he wants to break up long scenes one final ime. You need this for the master spreadsheet you should be making later.
- Make the master spreadsheet! There is a template you can use. The more organized this is, the better your life will be. See the section below for tips.
- Assign call letters to each character. This is usually the first two letters of their name (e.g. Hamlet = Ha, Claudius = Cl) or the first letters of their title (e.g. Player King = Pk). If there are repeats, get a little creative - just make sure they make sense. These are the letters that will be on callboard and in notes.
- Make a document that has a list of scenes and the actors needed to be called for it. THERE NEEDS TO BE TWO OF THESE: one for TABLEWORK and one for BLOCKING. If a character is in a scene WITHOUT a talking role, he does not need to be called for table work. Everyone physically in a scene need to be called for blocking. The reason this document is helpful is that it lets you copy and paste who is called once you decide which scenes you are calling for a given rehearsal.
- Figure out what you want to tell actors during read through about your personal policies. Some things you might want to talk about are: rehearsal lateness policy, conflict submission policy (for scheduling). You should make a document to print out and give to the actors. See here for information on what to include in your document.
PRINT OUT THE SCRIPTS. Make sure the pages are NUMBERED. This is a big operation and usually requires help since you can only print from one printer at a time. The jist is, print a couple of scripts at a time from each printer at the stud Athena cluster (5th floor). The scripts do not need to be hole-punched, stapled, or anything - you can give actors just the paper in the correct order. Make sure you print one for yourself (this one you should hole-punch and put in the SM binder - more on that later) as well as one for the director, producer, et al. Typically, you need num_actors+5 copies of the script. Here are some tips for printing:
- Give yourself more than an hour
- Have the scripts formatted and ready to print before you even get to the student center
- Print at the Athena cluster on the 5th floor of the student center
- Print 2-5 scripts at a time on all of the printers at once (don't do more than that so other people can use printers too)
- Keep an eye on paper and ink level between jobs to make sure there's enough for the next scripts
- Send out a digital version of the script to everyone also, just in case they don't like physical copies
At Read Through
- Tell actors the important things they need to know right before the actual read-through starts. This includes: emailing you all conflicts (unless a better system has been set up), actor contracts, put-in, strike, call letters (and their functionality), designer run, off-book date, spaghetti, etc.
- During the actual reading you should be be keeping time of how long each scene (or subscene) takes to speak. This will go on the master spreadsheet (read below). The best way to do this is running a stopwatch and "lapping" it at each scene.
- Immediately after the read through talk to the director about table work and blocking scehduling. Specifically, ask him how many minutes he wants per page. Then, on the master spreadsheet, add how many minutes you will need to call for table work and blocking (round stuff consistently to either 5, 10, or 15 minutes). Use judgement: if a scene is three pages of very short lines, you can get away with doing less. Compare the "calculated" time based on the director's estimate against how long it took during read through before you make your final call - if read through time was much much shorter than the calculated time, call that scene for less time during blocking (more on this below).
After Read Through
- Make/check your SM kit. More on this can be found here.
- Construct the SM binder. This is insanely important to do correctly, because if not, you and other ASMs will be flustered at every rehearsal. Here is everything that should go into the SM binder, in a suggested order:
- (Inside the left pocket) the stupid, expensive piece of paper from Cambridge that says you can legally do the show. It is the producer's job to get this paper to you, and you need it before opening night. Don't expect to have this at this point, though; give the producer time
- A pencil (or five)
- A list of every actor and their phone number
- A list of which characters (and how many characters - makes counting easier) are in which scenes
- A list of which page scenes begin on
- The stageplan for each set, along with which scenes each set is for (you may not get these until later)
- The script
- Do your first scheduling! This will be a table work schedule. More on this below
- Announce these as soon as
The Master Spreadsheet
While you are in no way required to make a master spreadsheet, past SMs have found it an invaluable tool that helps things run smoothly throughout the entire show. It is highly recommended that you construct and maintain a master spreadsheet for your own sanity. If, however, you have a better solution to a large volume of important information, feel free to use that instead.
(I do not have internet access right now and will have to make this section later).
Scheduling
Scheduling is by far the worst part about stage managing. No two SMs schedule the same, so there is not a preferred way to do it. Below are the ways that previous SMs have scheduled that they found worked for them; try them out and see which one is your favorite. In general, though, here are the things you need to know:
- The first two weeks of rehearsal will be table work. You can probably schedule all of these at your first scheduling session. Make sure every scene/subscene gets scheduled at least once.
- The rest of the rehearsal time will be for blocking. Again, try to schedule each scene at least once before scheduling the same scene again (unless requested to by your director).
- You are in charge of scheduling, meaning you are in charge of what the director gets to do each day. Make sure you communicate with the director to see what he wants to do.