Saturday, November 25, 2017

SM - Wrap Up

Life got too busy to stick to my blogging plan.

Ultimately, I generally liked stage managing, but the satisfaction it returned wasn't worth the time invested. Once we got into tech week, I would commonly spend up to 8 hours at the theater.

My dedication was appreciated, though. The director claims exclusivity with me for all future productions (I declined to sign that pre-nup). Although I initially butted heads with the sound designer -- she's an experienced theater tech who felt that this show didn't require separate light and sound board operators as well as an in-booth SM calling cues -- I won her over by my eagerness to learn, and to do what I could to insure a smooth, perfect run. Towards the end of the run, she began lobbying me to SM a production for her at a different theater.

Initially, I declared that I wouldn't SM again until I'd retired. But I might consider doing it again, perhaps once a year, under certain conditions:

  1. A maximum of 2 acts. The 3+ hour run-time of this show was brutal.
  2. Inside the loop. The 40 minute commute to the theater easily doubled during rush hour.
  3. Get Michael involved. Rehearsal and performance reduced my interactions with my husband to short, sleepy conversations as I arrived home late and settled into bed, where he already had been dozing.
  4. A technical director runs strike, and I don't have to be involved. That was long, hard work, and made a bitter, unpleasant end to the experience. I don't want to do that again.
I enjoyed the satisfaction of learning something new and doing it well. It was fun running the sound board for pickup rehearsals during the run of the play, and one afternoon I ran the light board so the tech could go see a different show. (It was easier, I found, to actually hit the "Go" button myself than to tell someone else to do it.)

Now that it's all over, I expect I'll get a bit restless, but for now, I'm very much enjoying the old routine of meals with Mike and quiet evenings at home in front of the TV.

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