MTG Stage Manager Guide

By Catherine Redfield ‘11, Nicole O’Keeffe ‘09, Brie Frame ‘05

Updated by Anni Zhang ‘17

Updated by Ellie Jaffe ‘23

Some Thoughts Before We Start

A good stage manager wants to know everything. Everything is defined as:

• The Schedule
• You should know the show’s schedule inside and out, mostly because you made the schedule. 
• The Directors
• These include the director (blocking/vision), the vocal director (singing), the music director (orchestra/all music in the show), the choreographer (dancing), and the technical director (builder of the sets and all things technical).
• The Cast
• These are your babies and you should love them like a good parent would, with structure, lots of discipline, and an appreciation for what makes each of them special. 
• The Show 
• Read the script, know the script, love the script. You should know every scene and who’s in it. This knowledge, if learned early on, will save your butt. 
• The Space 
• This includes the rooms you rehearse in, the sets where the actors perform on, and of course the theater where the magic happens. 

PRO-TIP: When in doubt ask your producer, they’re the one person in this show who should actually know more than you. 

Make sure your producer organizes room reservations (with pianos! and chairs & tables -- if this is forgotten, call CAC, they are nice)

Basic Maturity

• Do not let *anyone* (twitter, livejournal, the cast, etc) know what’s going wrong. Except the producer. Always try to keep the producer in the loop, but don’t be bitchy to them. If you need to bitch, do it to someone completely outside the theater community. And you will need to bitch.
• Be an advocate for the cast. Remember who is sick, who has allergies, who has problems with who else. Sometimes the director will be on top of this, sometimes they won’t. The tech will never be aware of these things, and sometimes forgets to respect the actors.

Auditions

You have no creative input. Your job is to remember who is who so the director people can make creative decisions. 

Things you need to know, and documents you need to have before auditions: 

• Create a calendar with times open for auditions for auditionees to sign up.
• 2024 update: Calendly has started requiring paid services for any situations which may require multiple calendars (ie. vocal/acting AND choreo auditions being separate). Try to use something else. 
• Auditions sides (for readings)
• List of Character Descriptions (including vocal ranges)
• Music sides (for callback music learning)
• Cast Contract (for all auditionees to read and sign)
• Audition forms, google form that should be filled out before auditioning
• They should contain: 
• Calendar for rehearsal, put-in, strike, performances, read-through for auditionees to mark conflicts
• Tech crew preferences
• “are you comfortable with...?” questions (consult with dir-staff for their specific requirements)
• 1/2/3 affiliation with MIT (1’s are MIT students, 2’s are MIT community/Guild Members, 3’s are randos)
• Usual experience, range, useful skills, etc.
• What roles they are willing to accept in the show
• How and when they will be contacted about callbacks and roles

Things that should be in the audition room/with you:

• pens and pencils
• audition sides and song sections

• piano (and audition pianists to come along with the piano) 
• tables (several in room, at least one for you)

Things to be done outside (ASM or you should be outside)

• Sign people in: make sure their audition form number and their signed in number correspond
• Make sure the auditionees are reasonably quiet
• Stay in touch with dir staff (via Discord is fine) about sending people in (dir staff will want to know how many people are outside, and sometimes will want to talk between candidates)
• Be prepared to answer a lot of questions (about dates, rehearsal, audition forms, where the bathroom is, etc.)
• Coordinate dance audition groups (usually we do groups of 4-8, who go in to audition individually (before or after the dance audition), hang around then all do the dance audition together) -- talk to your dir staff about how to organize this before hand
• Coordinate instant callbacks (for people with regular callback conflicts) 

Things to do inside

• Make sure all the dir staff get to see the form you sent out earlier 
• Mediating dir staff discussions
• Make sure things move along at a reasonable pace; everyone auditioning should get the same amount of time

Callbacks

• It is the SM's job to create a callback schedule. It is helpful to arrange it by the role, but also to decrease the amount of waiting time between auditions for actors.
• There should be no more than 5 (maximum) auditioning for all major roles, and there should only be one acting side and one vocal side for each character. In recent past, this rule has not been respected. If dirstaff is violating these rules you reserve the right to start randomly removing sides and actors. This will encourage dirstaff to follow these rules.

Casting

• Remember, no creative input.
• Try to make sure no one dies or cries too much
• No one is trying to ruin your life; we’re all volunteers; we all want the show to be good. Try to make sure the dir staff keeps all of this in mind
• We usually call the cast as they are CRB-approved. They have 24 hours to think about a role before they need to tell us if they accept or not. Coordinate with the producer.
• The producer should send the rejection emails, but sometimes this will be your job. If it is your job, be polite. I find it’s best to be concise; there’s no good way to say it.

Scheduling

I hope you like logic puzzles.

Music rehearsals should always come prior to blocking/choreo rehearsals for the same song (and apologize if you can’t make this happen).

It helps if you get the various director to tell you who they need and how much time they’ll need for each song/scene ahead of time. Approximate timing, if the dir people don’t know how long rehearsing will to take: 5 minutes stage time = 1 hour rehearsal time.

Be aware of who’s being called and for how long. That is, try not to call someone for only 15 minutes out of a 2 hour rehearsal, and try not to call people for 4 hours without breaks.

IAP (simultaneous rehearsals):

During IAP, you will probably want to schedule two or three rehearsal going on at once. This is an enormous logic puzzle. Leave yourself ~2 days to figure it out before you send it to your dir staff. Your dir staff will want to make changes, so plan ahead. You want to make sure everyone is where they need to be, then you should go to the director or choreographer to take notes. You will want an ASM for IAP, because you can’t actually be in two place at once, sadly. 

Rehearsals

Get there at least 15 minutes early, to make sure the room is set up correctly. See Resources for CAC if room is locked, or is set up incorrectly. Tape* out the stage for blocking/choreo rehearsals (this probably will take more than 15 minutes; if so get there earlier). Call the cast if they’re late -- be consistent about when you expect them to arrive. Make sure the director is not going to be late. It should be noted that you can order cast around, but directors don’t take kindly to being ordered around, so find more subtle ways to interact with your director.

Organize with the director and props designer about rehearsal props.

Be ready to reschedule on the fly. Have a list of French scenes (de-marking scenes by who is on stage, rather than textual breaks).

If a rehearsal is cancelled, make sure to release rooms and make sure everyone knows what’s going on and why. (The cast gets really irritated when their schedule changes without reasons being given.) Also the rehearsal pianist: they are worth more than gold, do not offend them.

Also note if the rehearsal is cancelled too late, someone will need to sit in the room or we will be fined by CAC.

You may need to take blocking notes. Ask directors about it. You’re expected to record the physical movements around the stage (cross upstage left, etc.). Some director won’t give direction like this; they’ll just wave their hands and wander around the space with the actors. Try to get used your director’s style. Also, it is important to record direction that affects designers. If the direction is “cross downstage and put the book in your pocket”, you need to let the props designer know there needs to be a book, and the costume designer needs to know there needs to be a pocket, and they need to talk about the size of these two things. This should go in rehearsal reports. (See below.)

As early as possible, get in contact with the set designer for a ground plan of the stage, to tape* it for rehearsal.

Rehearsal reports (can go as one email, or separate, depending on the show)

• Cast: next rehearsal schedule, any important announcements (schedule alterations, costume parade, &etc.)
• Prod Staff: (Lights, Sound, Props, Set, Costume, Dir Staff, Admin, Self) any information about the rehearsal that is relevant to these people; relevant conflicts for the next rehearsal

If actors miss rehearsal, make sure they get the blocking. Either email them your notes, or grab them before or after rehearsal to tell them what they missed. For choreography rehearsal, it often helps to make a video recording of the final practice of a dance, both for those that missed the rehearsal, or for people to practice from.

Make sure the director has a process that allows blocking to happen efficiently. Make sure you know where already blocked things happen, so you can tell the director when things are physically impossible.

Tidy the room at the end. Pick up trash, collect forgotten scripts. You don’t need to put away the chairs or the piano.

If you are in Lobdell, make sure that the room is back to “normal dining configurations” even if the room didn’t start this way. This means circular tables in the center with eight chairs to each table. If you do not do this, MTG will get fined 250$.

Things to get done before Prod Week

Safety Meeting(s)

After the set design has been finalized, the technical director and/or set designer must meet with someone at CAC (Meredith Sibley, at the time of writing) to go over the design. This is required by MIT policy to ensure there are no safety violations on the set. A separate guide exists on working with CAC and EHS, if you don’t already have access to this guide, ask the guild president. There can be additional restrictions on what's allowed based on the performance space. Coordinate with the technical director and set designer to schedule this meeting with CAC. The earlier the meeting happens the better in case some parts of the design need to be adjusted. In this meeting they will also discuss put-in and strike and the accommodations CAC needs to provide (for example: notifying the police that the alarmed door in Walker will be opened, giving access to the Kresge parking lot, being in space after 1 AM for strike). You should attend this meeting and take any notes that seem relevant. Sometime after put-in, CAC will come by to check on the set and make sure everything follows the procedures discussed at the meeting. If there are any violations, they will force the technical director to correct them.

Paper Tech

Paper tech is a meeting where the you sit down with the lighting designer, sound designer, set designer, and director to go over the cues for the show. This is your meeting to run. This can also include the costume designer if there are complicated costume changes. This should be done before tech night and usually happens in the weekend before prod week. You should make sure this meeting is scheduled, but it's not necessary that you attend.

• Meet with the Lighting Design to get all the light cues into the SM Call Script
• Meet with the other designers to get Sound Cues, notes on costume quick-changes, prop p(re)-sets; Orchestra Director to establish who will cue whom. 
• Due to the disproportionate amount of light cues, it may make sense to meet with the LD separately from the rest of Paper Tech to get all the cues and not have the other designers just sitting around. However, everyone should then convene together so you can get the rest of the information and everyone will be on the same page before Prod Week.
• Talk to props about perishables if necessary
• Sleep. You won’t have a chance next week.

Prod Week

Load-In

Help the the TD call cast members. Follow the schedule. If you are running something, do that, but otherwise let other people take the lead.

Prod Week Schedule

Usually it goes (but this is show dependent):

• Sunday - Sitzprobe, actors run through songs and musical transitions with orchestra. If there is extra time this is also a good time to run final reviews. 
• Monday - Tech night -- you are in charge. You can call stops, as can board. This is the time to spike set changes and make sure all props and quick changes are walked through. Lights can also call stops if they really need, but it is not encouraged.
• Tuesday - Orch night -- you’re running it, but it’s MD’s show -- they can call stops
• Wednesday - Dress -- Costumes and hair & makeup are introduced
• Thursday - Final dress
• Friday - Opening

There are a lot of different departments coming together during prod week. It is your job to ensure that everyone gets their work done with as little friction as possible. You are God. Be responsible about it. With great power comes great responsibility.

Make sure that the cast knows whats going on, especially if they have downtime. Make sure cast/director and TD/set crew share the space fairly. Be aware that some people need to take the T.

Make sure everyone knows what is happening each night: whether there’s costume, make-up, hair; whether they’re supposed to do everything full-out; if there are any nights the cast when the cast can mark vocally and physically.

Sign-in sheets. Whatever works for you. Many people have places the cast have to sign in, though they sometimes require nagging to remember to do it.

Performances

Be clear and consistent about headset etiquette as soon as you get headsets. In particular, people should always say when they are coming on and off headset. Agree for all crew how you’re going to communicate. Arrange when you expect crew to arrive pre-show. Have all of their phone numbers and know who is scheduled. Or have a delegated person to do it (ASM for run crew, or LD for spot ops).

Set up and stick to a pre-show schedule. (Call, Physical/Vocal Warm-ups, Fight Call, House Open) Be aware of how long it takes for the cast to get ready. Girls in curlers take a long time, particularly. Actors prefer to have vocal warm-ups as close to the show as possible, and fight call is difficult if your curls are setting. Make sure someone does dimmer check. If the LD or a lighting minion won’t be around, insist that the LD show you how to do it. Also make sure there is someone around who knows how to change dead lamps.

It’s a good idea to give 30, 15, 10, 5, 1 to places. Make sure you or the ASM physically goes to the cast and crew to call places. That way you can get feedback, so that if the call can’t happen you know ASAP. Coordinate with front of house about closing house. In Sala, often they will be in charge of calling places because you need to get to the booth.

Calling the show. No matter what the cue is, the last word out of your mouth should be “GO.” If there are various types of cues, have different naming conventions. Lights are traditionally numbers, sounds letters, and sets whatever seems appropriate (we have noticed that if you have a lot of set changes, the naval alphabet is good). If there are a lot of cues at a given time, you can combine them (ie “Sound cue B, light cue 57, and orchestra all GO”), but make sure everyone listening know ahead of time that’s what you’ll be doing. Also, since this is a musical, a lot of light cues will be on the music, so practice a lot during prod week to get the timing perfect. It’s good to give stand-by cues (ie “light cue 57, ready”).

Make sure you or the producer or the TD lock up space before we go.

Stage Manager’s Bag

• Call script/blocking script
• Contact sheet
• Set design
• First aid (cough drops, painkillers (ibuprofen & acetaminophen are good to have, because some people can’t have one or the other), honey, female supplies, vitamin C, bandaids)
• Tape measure and straight edge
• Tape (masking, spike, cellophane, gaff)
• Pens, pencils, paper (lined and unlined)
• Hex key (there are specific sizes for both KLT and Sala; if you have your own set it’s easy to mark those)
• If anybody ever asks you for something you don’t have, add it to this list.

Resources

CAC

If you ever need to contact CAC, (617) 253-1500 gets to facilities. Ask the operator for the CAC manager on duty (this number is available 24/7). The daytime number for CAC is (617) 253-3913.

Methods for taping out the stage.

Not required, but nice, is to tape out the stage in rehearsal rooms. To do this: get a copy of the set plan with measurements!  Please remember in making room reservations that only Mezz Lounge, 20 Chimneys, Lobdell, Room 407. and Room 491 are large enough to fit the entire stage.

407 & 491 have 1ft x 1ft tiles. This is made of awesome.

• Masking tape
• String
• Chairs (physical barriers are good, especially as walls)
• If you are on good terms with people with set shop access, you can always borrow pieces of luan, etc.)