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Stage Management

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How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
Essay
How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
by Macy E. Kunke
29 September 2023
Hold, Please
Essay
Hold, Please
Addressing Urgency and Other White Supremacist Standards in Stage Management
by Miguel Flores, R. Christopher Maxwell, John Meredith, Alexander Murphy, Quinn O'Connor, Phyllis Smith, Chris Waters
15 October 2020
Year of the Stage Manager
Essay
Year of the Stage Manager
by Amanda Spooner
22 September 2020
Macy Kunke wears a headset and attends to multiple screens at a stage management table.
How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre
Essay

How Stage Management Can Set the Stage for a Greener Theatre

29 September 2023

Macy E. Kunke shares the practical steps she took to cultivate more sustainable stage management practices for a recent production of Men on Boats. By utilizing a variety of digital tools instead of more traditional printed paper methods, the stage management team created only a fraction of typical paper waste and found that their work that was cheaper, simpler, and more collaborative than typical stage management processes.

two people onstage
Hold, Please
Essay

Hold, Please

Addressing Urgency and Other White Supremacist Standards in Stage Management

15 October 2020

Seven stage managers in the United States—Miguel Flores, R. Christopher Maxwell, John Meredith, Alexander Murphy, Quinn O’Connor, Phyllis Y Smith, and Chris Waters—explore a few places white supremacist culture play out in their work—focusing on urgency, quantity over quality, perfectionism, objectivity, and power-hoarding.

a person standing backstage
Year of the Stage Manager
Essay

Year of the Stage Manager

22 September 2020

Amanda Spooner talks about launching Year of the Stage Manager 2020, a grassroots endeavor meant to make visible those who continually operate in the background, and how the movement shifted after the pandemic hit and with the murder of George Floyd.

two people posing for a photo
We Commit to Anti-Racist Stage Management Education
Essay

We Commit to Anti-Racist Stage Management Education

28 July 2020

Stage managers Narda E. Alcorn and Lisa Porter—both women; one Black, one White—offer tools and practices to help build anti-racist stage managers.

a backstage crew in the process of hanging lights in a theatre
Panel Conversation Backstage with Deaf Artists and Technicians
Video

Panel Conversation Backstage with Deaf Artists and Technicians

Making production processes more accessible to Deaf staff, artists, and overhire folks.

Friday 13 December 2019
Web

Production Managers’ Forum (USA) Diversity and Inclusion Committee presents the panel discussion Backstage with Deaf Artists and Technicians livestreaming on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 13 December 2019 at 11 a.m. PST (Los Angeles, UTC -8) / 12 p.m. MST (Denver, UTC -7) / 1 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 2 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5) / 19:00 GMT (London, UTC +0)

Fighting for Gender, Race, and Motherhood in Theatre
Essay

Fighting for Gender, Race, and Motherhood in Theatre

12 December 2017

Stage manager Carmelita Becnel reflects on the need to support mothers, women of color, and stage managers as creative collaborators in the rehearsal room.

Conversation with Colleen Rua
Essay

Conversation with Colleen Rua

17 August 2016

Playwright and producer Samantha Mueller talks to director and educator Colleen Rua about their mutual passion for immersive theatre.

Stage Managing Immersive, Site-Specific, and Participatory Theatre
Essay

Stage Managing Immersive, Site-Specific, and Participatory Theatre

8 March 2016

Erin Mee explores the role of stage manager and shares Stage Manager Sophia Lana Cohen’s perspective on working with This is Not a Theatre Company.

The Best Seat in the House
Essay

The Best Seat in the House

Stage Managing from Scaffolds

11 December 2015

In this installment of the series on Cornerstone’s California: The Tempest tour, stage manager Nikki Hyde discusses what she’s learned from her bird’s eye view.

Off the Road
Essay

Off the Road

California: The Tempest

24 November 2015

Ash Nichols writes about stage managing Cornerstone Theater Company’s California: The Tempest and the connections made on the road.

A Polish Theater Cookbook
Essay

A Polish Theater Cookbook

The Closed and Open Door

25 August 2014

One of the stereotypes about the post-Grotowski Polish ensemble theaters is that their processes are rigidly closed and their rehearsal rooms are treated like devotional spaces. There is often a way through a more closed door, but you may have to put on your sweatpants.

Setting the Stage
Essay

Setting the Stage

An Interview with the O’Neill Stage Managers

4 June 2014

The O’Neill is a space for the playwright to explore the boundaries of his/her piece (play, musical, song, puppet). The success of a piece doesn’t always have the end result of “being produced.” Instead, the success comes from the writer gaining additional knowledge they need to continue the journey of their play—Kurt Van Raden, Stage Manager at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center.

Polish theater in rehearsal.
A Polish Theater Cookbook
Essay

A Polish Theater Cookbook

Rehearsing Without Breaks

10 March 2014

The last two posts of this series have documented the kinds of rehearsal scheduling and breaks that some of the Polish post-Grotowski theaters use. However, in addition to this normal set of practices, on rare occasions, some theaters rehearse without taking any breaks at all.

Two people pulling guns on each other.
A Polish Theater Cookbook
Essay

A Polish Theater Cookbook

How to Make Rehearsal Time Flexible

21 February 2014

This period of shared, relaxed time puts the performers in harmony with the theater, the rehearsal, and their fellow actors. It's like musicians tuning in the same room together. When I participated in this pre-rehearsal hangout, despite my initial antsiness, and not knowing what to do with this unstructured time, I found that my mind grew calmer. The flexible start was a moment of meditation before a strenuous activity: a deep breath before the dive.

A room of children dancing.
A Polish Theater Cookbook
Essay

A Polish Theater Cookbook

The Loose 20 Minute Break

9 February 2014

Our US union regulations and laws require us to take breaks of a certain time, at a certain time. But nothing requires us to take *exactly* and *only* 5 minutes every hour or 10 minutes every 90. Why not, as an experiment, give them more? Why not make one break longer, and looser? An ongoing series of reports from rehearsal rooms and interviews with theater people in Poland; how US artists can modify or adapt Polish techniques for their own rehearsal kitchens.

Actors pose during an acting exercise.
A Polish Theater Cookbook, Part Three
Essay

A Polish Theater Cookbook, Part Three

24 January 2014

Yes, some rehearsals (not all, mind you) are paid, and have to be regulated, legally, as work. But why did we decide, as US practitioners, that theater rehearsals fell so wholly into the realm of work and were so utterly unlike things such as parties or play? Why did we push rehearsals all the way to one end of the work-play spectrum? How did we become afraid of rehearsing without a stopwatch?

How to Have a Happy Fight Call
Essay

How to Have a Happy Fight Call

A Guide for Directors, Stage Managers, and Fight Captains

4 December 2013

We all love a good fight (in a show). A reminder to keep things real by checking in with actors and their weapons, maintain a full fight call, and maintaining consistent order.