Stage Managing

It's been a while since I've been in the rehearsal hall. For Spider Baby, sure, but once we opened mid-October we stopped rehearsing. And I've had rehearsals for choirs and for class scenes, but those don't feel the same as rehearsal for a musical or a play.

So I decided to offer to stage manage Take Back the Night at USC. TBTN is an organization dedicated to bring awareness to and hopefully end sexual violence, and the play I'm stage managing is a series of short scenes examining these sorts of situations. It's not a happy topic, but it's an important one, so I'm glad to be there working on the show.

It's definitely an interesting experience, being on the other side of the table. I've done it before--ASM'd and assistant directed various shows and I've been at a ton of auditions for a cappella--but this one's a little different. I don't have a ton of things to do because we aren't in an actual theatre--more like a classroom. So for the performances, I run the lights, which are a little wonky because we don't have the ability to just light up the stage. So the audience will be lit all throughout the show. That's OK, they can read their programs and see all the little names... I guess. I find it annoying, but there are limits to what we're able to do and we don't have the time/resources to make other drastic choices.

During the runthrough today, since we weren't even in the actual space, I led warm-ups (I think they thought I was crazy because I was having them do random dance moves... but that's OK. I am crazy!) and then yelled out "blackout" or "lights up" in-between the scenes. I also ran half of the fight call, which is fine and dandy except for the fact that I have no experience in stage combat. Other than the Spider Baby fighting, which took forever to learn. So for the rest of rehearsal I worked on cover letters and resumes. I actually got a lot done, which is good. I'm just ready to be done with it all.

Too bad that probably won't happen anytime soon, unless I miraculously get a dream job out of nowhere. Or even just a job out of nowhere. On the plus side, the show ends this weekend and I'll have a little more free time to relax. Not that I want the show to be over--I'm enjoying being in the creative space, even if I'm not being so creative myself--but I've been super busy these last few weeks and it's a little overwhelming. Honestly, once I get through this weekend I should be OK. It's just getting through to the weekend that's the hard part. Wish me luck!