And it begins...

From Sarah Stanton:

Eric is right. Last night's sing through went well. I hope the cast enjoyed the pace, because it's going to be insane for the next few weeks.

My name is Sarah Stanton. I'm the Stage Manager (SM, for these purposes). Carmen is my 11th show with CapOpera (on and off-stage). When you look at a production's program, you see titles you recognize: Director, Conductor,Costumer, etc. Stage Managing is one of the "weird jobs." Most people don't know what exactly it means, or why on earth anyone would want to have an SM. Consider yourselves lucky, because you're about to get a glimpse.

During the show, my job will boil down to staying on headset and barking cues to the lighting tech and running crew, orchestrating scenery changes, making sure the cast is ready to go onstage when its time, keep track of God-knows-how-many props, helping with quick costume changes as necessary,and making sure that the audience has no clue that any of this is going on.

Great, so that explains the two performances. Until then I have a different set of requirements. I'm the liason between artistics (Director, Conductor, etc) and the cast, sending mass-emails and answering questions. I attend and set up for all rehearsals (the cast is only called for certain days, that lucky bunch) and take notes. In 10 days, I will have the entire opera blocking in my score-not just for one character, but for all of them. I will make sure that each rehearsal starts, breaks, and ends on schedule. I'm sure the cast will get tired of my barking calls at them if they aren't already (2 MINUTE WARNING!, PLACES!, and the dreaded PLACES MEANS PLACES: START MOVING!!!!) I also have to recruit a running crew (very hard to do for a non-profit company).

Last night was the first official meeting with Director-Thomas Mauney, Lighting Designer-Alex Bright, Techical Director-Lindsay Cramond, and Scene Artist (not sure exactly what the talented Jessica Hyatt's title is...it's fluid at this point). A good hour or so was spent looking at sketches and talking logistics. We have a working idea of what the set will look like, and how many flats it will take to put it together. We haven't gotten much further than that. Concept was discussed and that group will be in constant contact so that we can start construction this Saturday. Once I have a props list, I'll need to see what we can borrow from Meredith College's stock, and have that ready to use for rehearsals.

Sidenote: 2:50pm It's barely into Day 2 and I've gotten 14 emails so far.

As we were cleaning up after rehearsal last night, this wicked big cockroach ran onstage. It only took 2 stomps to squish, but it reminded me of a comment Eric made this week. An omen, maybe?

Tonight is the first staging rehearsal. Thomas has 5h 45m to stage Act I (the first 109 pages) before the Run/Work 8:45pm Wednesday. That on its own explains why I'm so particular about making sure rehearsals aren't delayed. I've seen what happens when time gets away from a director and a cast. It isn't pretty for anyone involved. So get your pencils ready!