• Created by Unknown User (lukebord@mit.edu), last modified by Unknown User (egillam@mit.edu) on May 27, 2021 14:54

All information on this page (should) have been consolidated onto the main Stage Manager wiki. Do not continue to update this wiki. This wiki is still up for reference.

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)

  1. 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. 
  2. Talk to the producer and director to find out what times auditions will be and where they are. You are required to be at auditions.
  3. Update the audition contract. All actor auditioning are required to fill this out prior to their audition. In addition to making the changes for the show (calendar dates, show name, etc.), check in with the director to see if they have any questions they'd like to have on the contract. For example, we've asked in the past about whether people are comfortable wearing risque clothing on stage.
  4. 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 they want to run auditions. Specifically, ask how much time they want to give each person (typically we allot 15 minutes). When emailing out, make sure to emphasis what they need to do:
    1. arrive 15 minutes early
    2. have their completed audition contract
    3. have a monologue prepared (it does not need to be memorized)
  5. Ask the director which slides they want printed out. Print at least 4 copies of each slide: one for the actor reading it, one for you/the producer, one for the director, and one extra. If you can print more extras, do. 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).
  6. Figure out which ASM is doing which reherasal day. As soon as you have 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).
  7. Meet with the director to discuss some logistics. Some topics you need to discuss include:
    1. How many breaks in a rehearsal, and for how long?
    2. How would the director like to be reminded of time constraints?
    3. How should actors be corrected (lines, blocking) if they mess up?
    4. How should rehearsal warm-ups be done, if any? By director (or actor) at beginning of rehearsal? By each actor individually before rehearsal?
    5. Work with the director to create a rehearsal etiquette policy to be handed out to all actors at the first rehearsal (the Ensemble already has a general one, ask the director if they want to add anything).
    6. 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 them about scenes one final time before read through, in case they makes any changes
    7. Figure out when designer run and off-book date will be (!!!!!!!)
  8. Meet in person with all of your ASMs in order to go over how to run rehearsals. Additionally, explain their roles during rehearsal and production phase. Make sure to get their phone numbers and save them in your phone.

During Auditions

  1. Show up at least 15 minutes before auditions start. Bring spare audition contracts, along with slides and anything else the director requests!
  2. 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. If the producer is auditioning, get a non-auditioning officer or another experienced Ensemble member to help out.
  3. 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.
  4. Take pictures of the auditioners. This may be useful for the director later, since faces are easier to remember than names.
  5. Be in contact with the producer (or the person filling in for 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.
  6. If requested, read lines for slides.
  7. Help with casting. Keep a list of people, parts, and how they match up (unless your director says they do not need you to). Make sure the casting adheres to the Ensemble casting policy.
  8. At the end of auditions, put all tables back.
  9. Talk with the director and producer about callbacks at the end of each rehearsal.
  10. Send out emails about callback times.

At the End of Auditions

  1. 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).
  2. Before the director leaves, make sure that the actors they 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 them to recast as needed.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. LET ACTORS KNOW THEY CANNOT TALK ABOUT THEIR ROLE ON ANY SOCIAL MEDIA OR WITH FRIENDS BEFORE THE FINALIZED CAST LIST IS OUT.
  6. 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
  7. 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.
  8. Pray that everyone is happy (smile)

Editing CallBoard

See the Ensemble wiki > Term Jobs > Webmaster wiki page for instructions for accessing callboard.

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. 

Read Through

Read through is when all of the actors, the SM, the producer, and the director gather in a room (ask Secretary 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

  1. Get in contact with the director for a finalized script ASAP - you need it for read through.
  2. Ask the director if/how they want to break up long scenes one final time. You need this for the master spreadsheet you should be making later.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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. There's also the Ensemble Guidelines document that can be used as a template; reference one from a previous show and have the producer help you finalize it.

  7. 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:

    1. Give yourself more than an hour
    2. Have the scripts formatted and ready to print before you even get to the student center
    3. Print at the Athena cluster on the 5th floor of the student center
    4. 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)
    5. Keep an eye on paper and ink level between jobs to make sure there's enough for the next scripts
    6. Send out a digital version of the script to everyone also, just in case they don't like physical copies

At Read Through

  1. 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. This should be in the Ensemble Guidelines (or equivalent) that you hand out to actors.
  2. 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.
  3. Immediately after the read through talk to the director about table work and blocking scehduling. Specifically, ask them how many minutes they want 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

  1. Make/check your SM kit. More on this can be found here. 
  2. 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:
    1. (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. This may also get taped outside the theater rather than permanently living in the binder.
    2. A pencil (or five)
    3. A list of every actor and their phone number
    4. A list of which characters (and how many characters - makes counting easier) are in which scenes
    5. A list of which page scenes begin on
    6. The stageplan for each set, along with which scenes each set is for (you may not get these until later)
    7. The script
  3. Do your first scheduling! This will be a table work schedule. More on this below

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.

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. In general, though, here are the things you need to know:

  1. The first one to 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. 
  2. 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). 
  3. 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 they want to do.
    1. If the director can give you their preferences in a timely manner, take them into account. However, you should try to get the schedule out at least 3 days in advance, and prioritize that over a director's last-minute preferences.
  4. Ask the producer if they can find you a scheduling assistant, especially if you are SMing alone. They will make your life so much easier.


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