First Post in a Looooong While

Hi everyone!

Well...it has been quite awhile since I`ve posted anything on my blog, and for that I apologize. I will attempt to bring it somewhat up to date and perhaps, if I can focus, continue posting my reflections on living as a theatre professional in Canada.

Since Cat On A Hot Tin Roof closed I have been fairly busy. In fact, I think this season has been one of my busiest in a long time. I had a few weeks off when Cat took its final bows and the usual sadness and feelings of loss set in. With every show, every contract we seem to adopt our colleagues as a type of family. We work very intensely together for a short time and as I have said before, bonds form quickly and fairly strongly. This show in particular was such a lovely experience and I miss it dearly.

My next gig was diving into Assistant Stage Managing.... a role I haven`t performed for over a decade! The show was a co-production between The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts here in Montreal and The National Arts Centre in Ottawa. After all of this time working in theatre, it was very much an honour to be working at Canada`s National Arts Centre. I feel that is especially so right now with Peter Hinton at the helm of English Theatre. Peter and I have worked together fairly extensively and aside from thinking of him as a very good friend, I truly believe in him as a true artist. Since his appointment as Artistic Director there, I have felt proud of our industry in Canada and the bravery to put an artist of his calibre in that seat.

The show was Sam Shepard`s Buried Child. What an incredible piece of theatre this play is! And to see it done on the scale that we performed it was truly inspiring. I will openly admit that I was very nervous to be ASMing once again....I felt fairly rusty to say the least! Luckily for me, my stage manager was a wonderful woman named Laurie Champagne and also the person that oversaw my apprenticehip 17 years ago at the Shaw Festival. In those days, I spent 3 seasons as Laurie`s assistant as she was the production stage manager of the festival...a big job to say the least. Working with Laurie on this project was fantastic. Within minutes, I felt the comfort and safety I felt from being by her side all those years ago. In a nutshell, I feel like our chemistry works very well and we were a great team together. It was also very interesting to see how each of us had grown and changed as professionals since we last worked together. Laurie was so gracious and conscious that I had been doing stage management for years since then and wasn`t nearly as green as I had been. For her, I noticed that she had mellowed a little and had such an easy way about her in dealing with the show and all the issues that come along with that. Simply stated, it was just a really, really great time.

We rehearsed the show and opened it in Ottawa first. Working in that facility was great...lots of support and Peter has really begun to build a wonderful company around him. This was also my first IATSE show in a long time. It took me a little while to get used to not being as hands-on as I usually am used to but my crew backstage were terrific. I had a blast working with them and am thrilled that I will get the chance again next season....more on that later.

We had a powerhouse of a cast on this show. I was thrilled to be working with actors that I idolized back in the days before I decided to work in this profession and saw on stage in productions that truly changed my life. We had the great David Fox, the magnificent Clare Coulter and the incredibly talented and lovely Randy Hughson in the lead roles. Rounding out the cast we had the lovely Adrienne Gould, John Koensgen, Christie Watson and Alex Ivanovici. The work was haunting and disturbing in just the right way. The cast worked beautifully together and supporting them from behind the set (which was absolutely gorgeous, thank-you Eo Sharpe!) was such a pleasure and a job I will not soon forget.

It is a challenging show to run. The script calls for heaps of corn that is husked on stage, fresh carrots that are cut and peeled onstage, broken glass bottles (real glass...no sugar glass here!), mud and fresh roses. Running props such as these are a challenge. Especially things like corn when you are doing the show in January in Canada!. At the Arts Centre this was a breeze for me since I had a superb props runner (Michel) who took care of all of this for us. Moving the show to Montreal was a bit of a shock to my system to say the least. Gone was my lovely IATSE crew. It was just me, the corn, the carrots, the mud, the glass and the roses. Thankfully, I had Ace Martens, our house tech at the Segal who helped me with sweeping and moping the stage which following each show is covered in mud, corn husks and carrot peelings, not to mention glass. Still, my preset took me a solid 90 minutes without stopping. My old bones were feeling it by the end, especially at the Segal where I had to truck many of the fresh props up and down the stairs.

That said, it was a successful and very enjoyable run. I had a few weeks to rest up before beginning my next adventure. This next contract was my first contract at The Centaur Theatre here in Montreal. I had never been hired there prior to this probably because I think the past Artistic Director (who shall remain nameless) simply didn`t like me. No worries...I wasn`t a big fan either truth be told. The new AD is Roy Surette, an old friend of mine from my Shaw Festival days. The play was a world premier... Bryden MacDonald`s With Bated Breath. It basically is a fragmented story of a young gay man who disappears in Montreal after fleeing a broken heart in Cape Breton and the effect he had on those he left behind. Bryden is a wonderful playwright, and I am proud to say a very good friend. Bryden and I had last worked together in Toronto in the `90`s on a play called Medusa Rising at The Theatre Centre...when I was still a young pup!

This production was an absolutely incredible experience for all of us involved. The play is just gorgeous....sad, very, very funny and touching. I can`t say enough how much I loved working with this cast and creative team. We all bonded so quickly and so comfortably, I am still mourning not seeing these folks everyday. This was perfect for a script like this. All of the characters in the story have to do some sort of striptease to varying degrees. Nudity on stage is a very vulnerable thing for actors and respect and professionalism come to play quite a bit for the stage management team. I had a fantastic apprentice stage manager handling the backstage (Stephanie Link....hire her if you are looking for a good one!!) and my house technician, Mr. Tanner Harvey. They were just a dream for me to work with. And very, very much a part of this terrific ensemble. I can`t say enough good about this group of actors as well. They were all so beautifully cast in this play and I can say that I love each and every one of them. The play was seen as risky for the The Centaur...lots of swearing, sex and nudity. We did have the odd person get up and leave but the majority of audience members...senior citizen and young adult alike seemed to just love the piece. Quite often, they would be waiting outside the theatre to thank the actors for the play. It was such a satisfying and exciting project to be a part of and I am so thankful to Roy and Bryden for having me along on the journey. I`ve made some life-long friends on this one.

The show (*sob*) closed just over two weeks ago and I have basically been laying around the house alot and playing video games (I`m a video game junkie and have a new Xbox 360 that I`m obsessed with). In under a week, I pack up my stuff and am heading to Gananoque, Ontario for the summer. I am stage managing for the Thousand Islands Playhouse. The show is a one woman piece called The Blond, The Brunette and The Vengeful Readhead by Robert Hewitt. It is being directed by one of my faves...Sarah Stanley and is featuring Julie Stewart who I don`t know yet but those who know her assure me that we will get on like a house on fire. I read the play a couple of days ago and was just blown away. It has been quite a few years since I`ve done summer stock and from the title, I thought this was going to be a light, frothy romp of sorts. I couldn`t have been more wrong. It is a tragic and beautiful story with incredible depth of emotion. I am very excited to see theatre like this being performed at our summer theatres and am looking forward to getting started. I hope to be continuing my blog entries during the process as I hope that I will have a fair amount of time on my hands being in a small town and away from home. I`m gonna miss my guy Serge and our beasts very much, but it will be nice to be rural for the summer...if the summer ever gets here!! Man it`s cold....but I digress.....

So keep your eyes out for more posts.... hopefully I haven`t lost any readers with this long delay and hopefully I can rope in a few more. I have a busy season ahead after my summer adventure as well including a show with a cast of 20 actors plus and another trip to the National Arts Centre. Stay tuned...

: )
Todd

P.S. The attached photo is by Andrée Lanthier and features Clare Coulter as Halie & John Koensgen as Reverend Dewis in the National Arts Centre\The Segal Centre production of Sam Shepard`s Buried Child

Click the title of this post for information about With Bated Breath!

Closing Cat

I apologize for not having written a new posting in such a long time. I am finally sitting down at the computer to write this post 4 days after we closed Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and I think I am still in a mourning period.

This happens quite often for me, once I finish a contract. It is always hard when a show closes... all of a sudden, you have free time, room in your head-space that all of a sudden seems vast and empty. There is always a period for me when I have to re-discover my sense of purpose when the demands of my job are completed. The emails and questions stop, the urgency to get things done before the curtain rises is gone and I have difficulty deciding what needs to get accomplished next. This is not a totally awful thing but it is a little disorienting, even after 17 years of doing this work.

As well, saying good-bye to people you have been so very intimately connected with on a daily basis is hard. Although, I have been very pleasantly surprised when roads cross again with folks I have had the pleasure to work with previously, there are no guarantees. When a show closes, there is a feeling of finality and loss that is always a struggle to deal with. Many of my cast members in this show were from out of town and that makes the chances of us getting to see each other again much slimmer.

I try not to dwell on it too much and be content with the friendships, memories and lessons that this experience gave me. I am always struck by how much this business (and please forgive my dime-store philosophizing) is such a reflection of the life cycle. We are constantly having to process the pain and beauty of birth, the struggle and joy of life and the finality and transformation of death in a condensed and intense period of time. Perhaps it makes us stronger and better able to tell the stories of life here on earth and in each of our hearts and minds.

Theatre is such an intangible art form. I had conversations with some of the mothers of the children in our show and they were so desperate to have something they could take with them... a concrete piece of the experience that could be held onto and kept forever. But aside from a few photographs taken in the green room, there is no way to hold onto it except in memory. It is what makes theatre magical... that moment in time that can never be repeated, only pondered and incorporated into all of our life experiences. Hopefully, the experience will have positive reverberations in ones life...inspire, question and change how each of us approaches the days to come.

I do know that this show was inspirational and life-changing for me. I had such a wonderful time with this production and I will count it as a landmark experience in my life. When I was a young gay man, struggling with my own coming out, I discovered Tennessee Williams and this play. I read everything that he wrote with a voracious appetite and this play, above all of his writings, stuck with me the most. For me, it was a life-line. The fact that Tennessee actually was writing about the struggle to deal with gay sexuality in such an open and blatant way gave me immeasurable hope that I was not alone... some freak of nature that had to hide his true self in order to survive. Yes...there will always be debate on whether the character of Brick is gay or not. I have my own opinion, and others will have their opinions...but that didn`t matter to me. The unseen character of Skipper makes a confession to Brick...a confession that Brick refuses to deal with. That confession was that he was in love with Brick...it is there in the lines. To paraphrase, Brick says that Skipper sleeps with Maggie in order to prove to her and himself that he is not gay. When that didn`t work out, ­Skipper broke in two like a rotten stick because he believed that Maggie`s observation (accusation ?) was in fact true. The fact that a play presenting this storyline existed, had been performed on Broadway and was considered a classic was a ray of hope to this scared teenager in highschool. It told me that life could be lived fully and without shame and that to not do so, the life ahead of me could become tragedy. I came out to my friends, family and teachers when I was 17. And I thank Tennessee for giving me the courage to do so. Lives and families all experience tragedy...it is just a part of life. At the very least, my tragedies haven`t been because of denial of who I am. It was a bit scary to enter into this production because of how important this play had been to me. I think that fear evaporated on the first day of rehearsals, when I saw how beautifully, tenderly and intelligently the approach to the telling this story had been crafted. And after watching the show over 25 times, I had the honour of seeing how all of the elements & hard work came together so successfully and I am still beaming with pride.

I think that it was a great success...and not just for my own selfish reasons. We were pretty much completely sold out for the last week of the run and there was much scurrying for tickets. And for good reason. I think that the show was just fantastic. Our director, cast and designers did Tennessee Williams proud. I believe we were successful in breathing life into these beautiful, tragic and poetically real characters that he created so many years ago. We were able to tell this story with relevance and drama that was impossible to not to feel if you were one of the lucky ones able to get a seat in that theatre.

So, with that, I bid a fond farewell to Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and offer my thanks to everyone that made this experience possible. I now have some time to get ready for my next experience and I intend to keep this blog going throughout. My next gig takes me to Ottawa and the National Arts Centre for a staging of Sam Shepard`s Pulitzer Prize winning play Buried Child. I will be working as the Assistant Stage Manager for this production... something that I haven`t done in over a decade. To say that I am nervous about this is a bit of an understatement. I am very out of practice with this role and forsee many personal challenges ahead. Please stay tuned to this blog as I attempt to document this next leg of my journey.

Thanks for reading!

Opening Night

Well... we have made it to opening night! After 4 weeks of rehearsals and previews, a lot of hard work, a ton of emails, smashing props, purple toes, thousands of meeetings and mini-meetings we have arrived.

I am tired, inspired and ultimately incredibly proud of this show. I think that our wonderful director, our gifted and oh-so-sweet cast, our visionary designers and absolutely awesome technnical team have done Tennessee Williams proud. The show is gorgeous and hard to take your eyes off of. If you are in Montreal, it would be a shame to not catch this production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. It is a show I will always keep very close to my heart and I am sure that I will have tears in my eyes when we arrive at tonight`s curtain call. I am also confidant that we will have many in the audience feeling the same way.

I look forward to sharing with those of you reading, the adventures ahead of us as we run. The show most certainly doesn`t end after we open. This play will continue to grow and deepen with each and every performance and I am very excited to be a part of this ongoing process.

I send out much love, respect and thanks to everyone who have given their all to get us here!! And to all who will support us as we carry on to closing.

Merde!

Tech. Week Quickie

I have been feeling a bit guilty for not submitting a new post in a while. Good intentions are the asphalt to hades I guess... but to be very honest, finding the time right now has been difficult.



I do find myself with a few moments this morning, so I thought I`d scribble down a few lines just to keep the old blog somewhat up to date.



A week and a half ago, we were finally joined by our full cast...adding the actors playing the roles of the Reverend, the Doctor and the house servants. As well, our team of kids playing the no-neck monsters were also thrown into the mix. This has been quite a process, to say the least. With 20 actors in the rehearsals, any extra time that I had back in our first week was suddenly gone. With folks joining us so much later in the process than is usual in a traditional rehearsal process, it made last week fairly intense for the stage management team. The urgency of getting fittings done for the new folks and still scheduling fittings for the ones that had already been with us has been pretty intense. Our wardrobe team and costume designer are super-heroes....working so very hard to get these garments ready and working with me on the fly to negotiate the little time we have left for rehearsal has been amazing.



As well, we have been working on our beautiful, complicated and large set since the newcomers` arrival. Making this a safe space in which to rehearse while work continues on it when we are not is a daily and sometimes hourly task. There are pros and cons to having the privilege of rehearsing on the actual set prior to tech. week. On the pro side, we are able to really fine-tune the blocking with a high level of precision. Sight lines can be easily checked, traffic issues and the use of the 3-dimensional geography are all much easier to negotiate for the director, actors and for stage management. Safety issues can be flagged early and solutions found long before we turn the work lights out and begin laying in cues. On the con side, it is difficult for the designer and the technicians to schedule their time around our rehearsals and make progress on the finishing touches yet to be done. Thankfully, with this show and this talented team of artists, most of our set elements are in place and most of the work yet to do is largely cosmetic in nature. Important stuff, for sure, but nothing that has limited our need to progress with rehearsals.



So, last week was yet another week of first days, new discoveries and new friendships being formed. The feeling that one senses from this cast is simply lovely. I was speaking with my director one night this week as we drove home together, following one of our very long days and we both commented on what a very warm and friendly group we have on this production. Not only do we have very talented people to tell this story, they seem to genuinely like each other`s company. I will often woosh through the green room on a break, rushing to the telephone or computer to work on scheduling or problem solve something, and I will catch the snippets of lively conversations and laughter that seems to be a constant thing on our breaks. Being able to count myself as a part of this group makes the long hours and lack of sleep totally worthwhile. It gives me so much more energy as I make the trip into the theatre each morning...I truly look forward to seeing each one of them.



The children add a whole other energy to the room. They have been working for two hours every rehearsal day, with at least one hour each day on the set, with the cast. It has been great seeing their process. They have noticeably moved from being a very high-spirited and at times unruly group to a more focused and hard-working bunch that are obviously pleased to be a part of this production. As they get more comfortable with their roles and all of these adults, the characters that they are bringing to the story are forming and it is getting easier to point them in the direction that we need.



Yesterday, we made it through our cue to cue session...12 hours of painstaking work, laying in the lighting, sound and video cues that will frame our story. We still have much work to do... just ask my lighting designer! With limited time, our goal yesterday was to lay in the large technical sequences in the show. We have things such as a sunset, a fireworks display and a large thunderstorm to create as well as some very stylized blackout entrances for each act to execute. This forced our cueing session to focus on the larger technical points in order to nail down safety issues for the cast who will be traversing the complicated geography of our set in total darkness and problem-solve any issues we have with these larger technical elements. We were successful in meeting this goal...we were able to cue all of these things right to the end of the show. For this, I am very pleased. What we haven`t been able to accomplish is to create and lay in the cues that fall in between these sequences. This is very difficult for the lighting designer. Guesses have to be made as to where we will be in the flow of the lighting when we hit the big moments. This means that we will scrape and scrounge any time in the schedule when we can work on the missing cues. I am confidant that we will find this time and now that I know what the actors have to deal with when they hit the stage in the more tricky moments, I can focus on getting the other cues in the book.



From what I have seen to this point....acting, direction, design and the writing itself, I am so confidant that we are going to have a gorgeous production from start to finish. I have had a very strong connection with this play for a very long time, (something that I would like to create a posting on sometime when I have more time). But for now, for me, who has loved this work of Tenessee`s for most of my adult life, I feel so honoured to be a part of this production. I think we are doing it justice and so much more. Our work moves me daily, and will continue to move me as we go deeper into it and ultimately, begin sharing it with an audience. We are a week away from our opening night. And although very tired and still struggling with this damn cold, I feel great....alive....inspired.

Week 2 wraps up...bring on Week 3

Happy Thanksgiving!!

In theatre, when I am working I often forget about things like stat holidays such as this one. If it weren`t for some of my non-theatre friends & family wishing me a happy thanksgiving, it is possible I would miss it altogether. I think I ended my last posting feeling thankful, at least.

As week 3 of rehearsals begins in only a few short hours, I think I can still say that I am thankful. I am more tired than last week that is for sure but I had an awesome sleep last night and really enjoyed my day off yesterday with my hubby and my pets.

Around the beginning of last weeks rehearsals I got nailed with a terrible head & chest cold...BANG!....super-fast and I had no warnings it was coming. Getting sick in my line of work is not really an option. I have only missed one performance in my whole career and that was years ago at The Shaw Festival, when I had an understudy who could come in and cover my track. Even still, I have lingering guilt about that. There is a work ethic that our business comes with and I think it is engrained in me on a cellular level. The old axiom `The Show Must Go On` is a reality in my world. So, with tissue box at my side, and numerous and liberal usages of hand-sanitizer I forged on with the week but at times, it really has felt like running in mud. My hubby was struck with the dreaded cold a day after me, but luckily he was on a week off and able to take care of the household chores which made life much easier for me. I figure from the time I leave the house in the morning until I get home at night, I am pulling around 12 hours per day....difficult to get healthy with those hours but I think the adreniline is helping a lot. This week he returns to work, so the days will get a bit longer...at least this morning I feel that the congestion has eased somewhat, so hopefully I`ll be past this soon!

The first week of rehearsals hadn`t quite finished when I published my last posting. It is incredible what can change in a matter of hours. Simply stated, one of our cast members decided to leave the production on Saturday. By Monday morning a wonderful actor was found to step into this role and the rehearsals have carried on beautifully. The professionalism and respect deployed by our director and artistic team to respond to this crisis was impressive. Our cast has taken this in stride and have warmly welcomed our new member.

The ability to respond and deal with unforseen circumstances is a key quality that any stage manager needs to have in their skill set. What makes theatre so exciting for me and for audiences is the simple fact that it is live...anything can happen. This adds a whole other element to story-telling that cannot be replicated in a movie theatre or on a television show. Everyone...actors, technicians, audience members, ushers...are all in the same room, at the same moment dealing with the reality of what is happening right then. It is the stage managers role to keep this experience on course, working in the moment to keep the vision of the director as well as the actors and designers intact as accurately and as safely as possible. I have had many crazy things happen on shows that have been up and in front of audiences and have had to respond in the moment to keep it all together. I have had many shows when fire alarms have forced the show to stop and building to be evacuated, I had an actress taken away from back-stage due to a cracked spine during a performance, I have moved a performance to a park and we performed under the glow of car headlights when a blackout struck one summer...I have even had to don costumes and go on stage and perform in order to keep the show going on. All things that are completely unexpected, yet on some level the stage manager needs to expect them and work with his or her team in order to get the job done.

When things happen in the rehearsal period, at the very least you do not have the pressure of being in front of an audience. The thing that does keep the pressure on is the clock. The rehearsal period for English theatre is very time-sensitive. We begin the rehearsal process on a specific date and the date of the first performance doesn`t move. Every day, every hour in the rehearsal hall is valuable. I work very hard with my director and my designers to maximize this time. In French theatre, the rehearsal process is stretched out over a much longer period and although they still have time as a factor, they don`t seem as pressured by it.

On this show, we have the added challenge of having a staggered start to rehearsals. Normally, the entire cast would begin on the first day and therefore be available to me for scheduling of wardrobe fittings, rehearsal of their various scenes etc. Today, two weeks into the process, I will finally have my full cast present and in rehearsals. With 10 children and 10 adults in the cast, this is a fairly big show with alot of work for our costume department. A number of our cast members are coming in from out of town so our costume designer will see some of them for the first time today....about a week and a half before costumes appear onstage with them. The work in the rehearsal hall is incredibly valuable and needs to be prioritized...but costumes are important as well. I have spent a great deal of time wheeling and dealing with my director and costume designer so that everyone`s needs are met. This will get a bit more difficult in the days to come as the clock keeps ticking. Thankfully, we have such a great team on this show and everyone is busting their butts to get the job done.

Also of note, today is the first day we begin rehearsing on the stage. This is an exciting day for me, but also one that contains some levels of stress. Always the first thing I get concerned about is safety. The set for this production is quite large with many levels and potential for accidents to happen. This morning, my assistant and myself need to comb the set for any issues that might endanger any of the people that will be working on it. Of course, this stess is off-set by my fantastic production manager and technical director who have put in many hours to make sure that the deck will be ready for this day. I have worked with these guys quite a bit in the past and feel very confidant that we will have a safe environment in which to work. Still, a stage manager`s eye is honed to detecting issues that might seem fine on the surface, but when you have someone moving around the space with a script in hand and their heads in the story, the smallest things can become a hazard. So we will spend the morning looking for any of these potential hazards, as well as placing various furniture bits and props before the cast members arrive.

The very exciting part of this type of staggered rehearsal period is that today I will be having my third first day of rehearsal.... It is exciting when the new cast members arrive and bring their energy and talents to a story we have been working so hard on to tell. It will be wonderful to hear the right voices be put to the lines that myself and Lori have been reading in for the past two weeks.

So...aside from my stuffy nose and tired bones, I am still very excited and inspired by this process. The long hours all pay off for me. I work very hard to get everything right every day and I make mistakes every day. I try to make each mistake an opportunity to learn and get better at what I do. If I stop doing that, then it would be time for me to move on and leave this work behind. But thankfully, that hasn`t happened. I still feel that tingle of excitement every morning as I begin my trip into the theatre.

So....here`s to week three!!!

Week One Wrap-up

Well, I am getting ready to head into the final rehearsal day of the week.... and I gotta say I`m dragging my ass a little bit. What can I say? I`m old, I guess. This is a deceptive little process, starting with only 3 cast members and adding more as we hit each new rehearsal week. I expected this week to be fairly quiet with lots of discussion around the table and me being able to get on top of a bunch of things outside of the rehearsal hall.

But no...we have been going at a great pace. As we head into today, we have a little bit of Act II to block and some of Act III, and this afternoon we will stumble through most of the play with our three principals this afternoon! For those who don`t know what blocking is, simply it is the director and cast working out the movements of the characters in each scene and me recording these movements into the prompt script. As well, Lori, my assistant stage manager is tracking how the props are set, used and moved around the set with an eye out for costume information.

This is fantastic!! I think I am going to have a very pleased director on my hands. We will have hit his goals for this week and put us in great shape when we add the next 3 cast members next week....Big Mama, Mae & Gooper. The play largely sits on the storylines of Maggie, Brick and Big Daddy and having worked out much of their paths through the piece gives us a wonderful skeleton on which we will build the remainder of the show.

As well, we have had a production meeting at which all of the departments are present and information and progress is shared, two video meetings as we have a beautiful video element to the show that will enhance the environment of the play and a props meeting...and there are quite a few props in this show, some pretty tricky. We have had 3 initial wardrobe fittings with more to come and have published 2 sets of production notes.

Production notes are put in a document that stage management sends out. We gather any and all information that comes out of the rehearsals and try very hard to clearly describe this information for each department. The writing of the notes is a very important part of my job as I see it. Having a document with accurate and respectful language is key to keeping everyone on the same page and it is always wise to have a record of what information has been relayed to who. (or is it whom?...does anyone else use whom anymore?) I spend a great deal of time on this piece of paper and make sure that my assistant is with me when I create it so that I get all of her information as well. There are always things that I will miss as the rehearsal hall is rocking and rolling and I depend on her eyes and ears very much. It is important to keep in mind that what you write has an impact on those reading it. This impact can be very positive but it can also be very negative as well. Respect and diplomacy always need to be incorporated into this document. Each person on the team is an artist in their own respect and take pride in the work that they do. Someone may spend hours trying to get something just right, only to read their email the next day telling them that it is wrong or it has been cut. That hurts. I think the stage management team needs to always keep this in mind when information needs to go out and it is worth wrestling each and every sentance you put down on the page.

Aside from the written information, I very much believe in connecting with the departments face to face, whenever possible. I always go over the notes with the director before publishing them... a note may be stated in the rehearsal hall that really doesn`t need to go out at that time, or the director may have changed their mind since giving the note. With larger notes....things that may have budgetary considerations like adding or modifying an element of the show, should also be talked about with the production manager and designer whenever possible. Having a conversation can often ease the blow of these bigger notes and further clarify an issue that is difficult to put into accurate wording in a document. Besides this, most people would rather have a conversation than receive a piece of paper that greatly impacts their art and hard work.

These conversations aren`t always possible due to busy schedules and such, but I make the effort whenever possible. I began stage managing long before the internet, email and even cell phones which made communicating all that much more difficult. These tools are invaluable to a stage manager today and give me the chance of having more detailed communication with folks outside of the production notes document.

So...all of this adds up to the fact that it has been a busy week! And a great week as well! I am even more excited and honoured to be a part of this production now. The work in the rehearsal hall has been inspiring and exciting. This play continues to fascinate me and to see these characters come to life in front of me at the hands of a skilled director and very talented actors is.........well, it is why I do this job. I find this process so very interesting and it gets me to drag my tired, 41 year old ass outta bed each morning so I can be there, in that room watching and helping this vision come to life. Our artistic team is also rocking out such a gorgeous space for this story to occur....the world that these characters will inhabit will be poetic, beautiful...from the floorboards to the clothes on their backs.

There is so much yet to do. Many hurdles to jump (hopefully more successfully than Brick does in the play) and many more long days. But I am energized and ready to take it all on. I look forward to my precious one day off tomorrow and will be happy to sit myself down once again on Monday behind the script.

First Day

We have begun. After a long week of preparations, worry and anticipation, the first day arrived yesterday. Our rehearsal process for Cat is a little modified from what would be considered the norm. First days usually begin with a big meet and greet when all of the cast members, designers, technicians, theatre administration gather together to meet as a team for the first time. For this show, we are starting our first week with the three primary characters....Maggie, Brick and Big Daddy. The bulk of this play rests on the shoulders of these three characters and our director wanted to take the first week to really concentrate on their journeys through the story and get a solid basis upon which to build the entire play. On the second week, we add 3 more characters...Big Mamma, Gooper and Mae. In the third week, we will finally have all of our cast members joining us...Doc Baugh, Reverend Tooker, Sookey & Lacey who are the house servants and then the children...all 15 of `em!!



It is on the Monday of that third week when we will finally have our meet & greet and the whole team from Artistic Director on down will all be in the same room. So...it felt a little strange yesterday when the 3 actors, the director, myself and my assistant gathered in the rehearsal room to begin. But what a beginning! My present cast members are just lovely folks...I am always amazed at this life in theatre. It seems that no matter what the show, what the circumstances, we all have this familiarity whether we have met before or not. It`s like that with each production a bond is formed incredibly quickly. I have always felt that it is like a little family is formed with each show...that somehow we know what we are in for and that we need each other to get through it. I truly believe that theatre people are all cut from the same cloth. We may be very, very different with our quirks and styles but on some internal plane, we seem to recognize each other and open ourselves up to each other very quickly.



For example...I have a TERRIBLE singing voice. You will never catch me singing in public... (unless I am very, very drunk and then you would still need to work hard at getting me to just hum a tune). Yesterday, we did a read-through of the script and of course we had many parts not covered with only three of the cast in the room. The director was going to read in the other parts, but as we began, it became apparent that it was just too confusing for him to do all of them...so myself and the assistant director hopped in. I played Big Mamma and Reverend Tooker as well as some of the children. The children sing. Without even thinking about it, I sang the songs at full voice.... and I felt ok about it...completely safe...among friends. When I step back from it I realize that I had only met most of these folks hours before and here I am doing something I am totally insecure about without hesitation. For me, this is such a beautiful thing and one of the reasons I continue to do this work. Now, I did apologize for my southern drawl when doing Big Mamma...I did feel a little self-conscious about that....accents are always a tricky thing and usually I would just read it straight. But with Tennesse Williams` work, especially this play, the accent is (as I see it) crucial to the story... I guess it wasn`t too bad though. Everyone was very complimentary afterwards. As a child, my parents had friends from Memphis and I heard that drawl quite a bit during my formative years. Maybe that is one reason I find Williams` plays resonate so much with me.



Hearing the three principals put voice to the words was just magical....even with our attempts, odd as they may have been, to carry the whole story along and without any rehearsal, you could hear the absolute beauty of these tragic and deeply enmeshed characters very clearly. It is a powerful and deeply moving play... at times, hysterically funny and others, shocking and disturbing. And mostly....deeply human....real....familiar. Hmm....there is that word again...familiar....family.



This play is very much about a family. And as I sit here, typing and drinking in my caffeine to get the day started, I feel thankful. Thankful that I get a chance to join this family of artists who are gathering to tell this story, this family from the playwright`s mind and get to play with them...for a little while anyway. That`s the other thing about theatre. It is brief and fleeting and it is very important for me to savour each moment while we are all in the room together.



Thankful.