The Playgoer: Stage Managing a Disaster

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Stage Managing a Disaster

For all those who know what it's like to "call" a show, here's a glimpse (via Riedel) at the SM's report for a particularly tortured preview of the already cursed Dracula that recently crashed and burned Off Broadway.

7:15 p.m.: Willa Kim informed [producer] Michael Alden that those costumes that have not been paid for have been removed from the building. I informed Joe Tantalo [theater manager] that some of our actors would be performing in street clothes this evening. I asked Joe how large our house was this evening. He replied "180 . . . 120 of those being comps."

7:20 p.m.: Alexander Morr [producer] called on my cellphone asking to speak to Willa.

7:30 p.m.: I called the ½ hour explaining to the cast that Michel Altieri [Dracula] and Emily Bridges [Lucy] would be performing in street clothes. (The cast took this news more or less in stride.)

7:40 p.m.: Alex agreed to present Willa a check in the amount of $8,630.83 by tomorrow at 3 p.m.

8:08 p.m.: The red velvet curtain at The Little Shubert rose majestically on our handsomely costumed production of "Dracula."
Yes, it got to the point that actors, informed there are no costumes, apparently said, whatever.
What's your favorite ever Stage Manager's report--either that you read or wrote?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

General Notes: This evening we had four patrons in wheelchairs and two blind patrons (one with a dog) who were give appropriate accommodations to their satisfaction. Additionally, approximately 24 minutes into the production, we had 226 deaf and epileptic patrons due to the fire alarm going off.

Van said...

From my own personal notes, written down during the show, which would be refined afterwards into the official report:

EVERYTHING BROKE

underlined twice, and circled


I'm not actually sure which night that was - was it when the trampoline threw a spring? The light board lost all control? The sound playback computer crashed (hard)?