So I just got home from our second show of Wizard of Oz. (I'm Calling Stage Manger) The directors decided that they wanted us to have a video of the wizard before he appears in human form in front of the four leads. Well, this video, which was done by our video class at school, has been causing problems all week - sometimes it plays in black and white, others it doesn't turn on properly, etc. - it just doesn't work right. So tonight we had multiple problems:
1)In our first appearance of the wizard tonight, the video actually stopped in the middle of it and went back to the DVD menu...so I decided to call the video out and go to the next part of the show. The projectionist (also the running stage manager) quit out of windows media player and her background appeared with a big peace sign... Well, I am in a booth at the top of the theatre and I looked down from the stage to my script to figure out what cue to go into...well when I did that, the conductor got on a headset and told me to go with the lights, thinking that since he was the closest to the stage and could see if tech was done doing the change, (and without actually realizing what I had done), I called the light cue up, revealing a bunch of techies on stage and actors getting to their places...
2) The second time the video came down, we had another problem. The stage manager backstage didn't connect the computer to the projector properly and the video wouldn't start...so I grabbed my god mic and started reading the lines...well my entire crew started cracking up resulting in me having to rip off my headset so that I would not laugh. So i was reading lines and calling the show at the same time - to make matters even worse, the Wizard says "go" a bunch of times in the script and the light board operator kept wanting to push the go button...luckily a teacher was up there to tell him not to do it until I came back on headset....
So yah, it was a pretty interesting night...
1)In our first appearance of the wizard tonight, the video actually stopped in the middle of it and went back to the DVD menu...so I decided to call the video out and go to the next part of the show. The projectionist (also the running stage manager) quit out of windows media player and her background appeared with a big peace sign... Well, I am in a booth at the top of the theatre and I looked down from the stage to my script to figure out what cue to go into...well when I did that, the conductor got on a headset and told me to go with the lights, thinking that since he was the closest to the stage and could see if tech was done doing the change, (and without actually realizing what I had done), I called the light cue up, revealing a bunch of techies on stage and actors getting to their places...
2) The second time the video came down, we had another problem. The stage manager backstage didn't connect the computer to the projector properly and the video wouldn't start...so I grabbed my god mic and started reading the lines...well my entire crew started cracking up resulting in me having to rip off my headset so that I would not laugh. So i was reading lines and calling the show at the same time - to make matters even worse, the Wizard says "go" a bunch of times in the script and the light board operator kept wanting to push the go button...luckily a teacher was up there to tell him not to do it until I came back on headset....
So yah, it was a pretty interesting night...