Director acting as Stage Manager?

[jamesmiller]

Hey everyone,
while we are having a slow few months on the tour, I have taken a job as TD for a local professional theaters production of Phantom of the Opera (not the Loyd-Webber version ).

Here is my question / concern: The stage director / choreographer (who is also the Artistic Director) has made it know that he intends to direct all future company shows AS WELL AS stage manage them... .

I am wondering how this arrangement would work? I tried to talk him out of it, but he is set in his ways. Is this going to pose any major problems during the rehearsals, etc or should I just continue as if nothing is out of the ordinary?

Have there been any past cases of director / stage manager combo's? I searched around some forums and the web, and found no mention of this practice.

Thanks!

[icewolf08]

Define "professional theatre." If it is an Actors Equity cast then this arrangement is probably against the rules for this to happen. If it is just a bunch of non-union actors, it is probably not an issue unless the quality of the work suffers because of it.

[jamesmiller]

I don't think it's an equity cast.... I think by "Professional", they mean just that they pay their actors and tend to not let just "anyone" work on their shows, as community theaters do.

From my talks with him, he seems very knowledgeable in both areas... He said he comes from both a stage manager and director background, so I dunno...

I just thought this arrangement was kind of odd?

[rochem]

Personally, I don't like it. The SM and Director are two almost totally opposite positions. The director needs the freedom and space to be creative and work with the actors to make his vision appear on the stage. The SM needs to be taking care of everything that could interfere with this to allow the director to be able to do his job. Besides that, tech rehearsals and the run of the show could turn out very badly depending on which way he is leaning more towards. Unless he has a really good ASM, I personally wouldn't recommend it. But is there really much you can do about it? You may end up just having to live with it and make it work the best you can.

[cdub260]

At the Pageant, the director calls the show. This has not been an issue for us. It has simply been SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for 30+ years. Fortunately, our current director knows better than to try to micro-manage the show once it opens and trusts those of us crewing the show to do our jobs.

If your director is like ours, you won't have a problem. If not, you'll have some issues, but probably nothing that will destroy your show.

[cprted]

To be completely honest, any director who is so insistent on SMing their own show would probably be a nightmare to SM for anyway.

[seanandkate]

I can't imagine SMing a show that I direct -- I need someone to write down tons of stuff in rehearsal, track changes and such, and in technical rehearsals, I'm too busy taking acting notes. I remember having to call a show once for a rehearsal while taking directing notes and didn't call a completely clean show and ended up with about 5 notes. You CAN do both if you want to do a &$^%-poor job at both . . .

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by jamesmiller

...Have there been any past cases of director / stage manager combo's? ...

None since Steele MacKaye.

[jamesmiller]

That's what I thought...
It seems like it would be hard to do both to me. I've never worked on a show that way.

Although, now that I have been involved in the tour of A Little Princess I have seen things never done in local theater before that they do for the tours... Like the fact that even though there is a Stage Manager working with the director in rehearsals right now, once the show goes on the road, this forums on Landon Parks will be taken over as production stage manager.... Also odd that they have a director, an assistant director and a 2nd assistant director.

The last rehearsals I sat in on it seemed more like a film shoot than a theater production.

From what I got, the reason he wants to do both is that he feel's left out of the production run... He seems to be the type of guy who has security issues with himself. Keep in mind, I don't know for sure if he is doing ALL the stage management work, or just taking over during the run? I know he has an Asst Stage Manager who was taking a great deal of his notes at our meeting.

[mstaylor]

I have done it three times, twice in community theatre and once in semi-pro. Two out of three times I told the director to leave the lighting both and we would handle it. They were excitable personalities and couldn't just call cues.