War and Peace

Wow, I haven’t blogged in agesssss…. this is mainly to do with War and Peace. Well what can I say about War and Peace…. it was stressful and shattering but it was epic and soooo worth everything I went through. I honestly couldn’t have had a better time. Not only did I learn a hell of a lot about stage management but I learned a great deal about myself.

I realise that I haven’t blogged about War and Peace so I probably couldn’t even begin to start writing down details. It was one of those experiences that I would change a thing about even although we went through good and bad times.

Rehearsals
I must say I enjoyed being in rehearsals a great deal. Having a huge cast (75) made rehearsals fun. You have to be on the ball all the time. As the stage manager I would be in all chorus sessions as I had to be propping all the other times. I would run these sessions which allowed me to be in control at all times. Being in the rehearsal room, was good because all the singers knew exactly who I was and what my job was. When we made the transfer to stage, the singers already knew who was in charge and would listen straight away. I didn’t really have to fight for control. I think was I decided to run the rehearsal room from the very beginning of rehearsals which gave me a lot more control. I must say that the singers we were working with were a great bunch of people. Obviously everyone has their moments where they are stressed and can speak to you in a certain way which can be upsetting (which I am not going to lie happened a few times) but for some reason myself and the cast seemed to have an understanding of each other and we managed to work through those situations. I felt that I really became friends with a lot of members of my cast which was great; however we still had the cast to stage manager respect. I found that they understood why I had to say the things I did and I understood when they were upset and we were able to work together to come up with the solutions.
Overall, I found my director quite hard to deal with at times because I felt she didn’t trust me. However, even my professional mentor found it difficult dealing with her and told me it was just the kind of person she was, she didn’t trust anyone and was a very slow worker. Due to this I did find it difficult to speak with her although I feel that I did do my best not to let my feeling effect my work which I feel I was able to do although it was very hard. She would work very slow or go over sections a great deal of times. Due to this the cast found it difficult to work with her also as they were very uneasy about what they had to do in each scene. It got to the point that the first and only run before stage and pianos, and many of the cast members still had no idea what they were doing as they may have only ever done the scene once. This did create a great deal of tension, however I feel that it worked in the stage management teams favour as the cast would look to us for advice and they seemed to use us a lot more than I have ever seen in other productions. Therefore we all seemed too bound. I did feel the cats trusted us which I feel is a lovely thing to say and they respected the hard work we did for them. I felt the stage management team had a good relationship with the cast.

Stage and Pianos
At the beginning of stage and pianos I felt that I was a bit unsure of myself. I felt that this was because; although I had been in some rehearsals for the smaller scenes I didn’t know them as well as the big chorus scenes. Therefore the first day was hard for me to take full control. I did have control but I felt myself looking to my mentor at times for help. It was very difficult working with my director at this point as tension was high and many people had ill feelings for others. Cast were very uneasy about what they were doing as things were getting changed over and over again. However we battled through as a team. It was difficult as our director used a great deal of our sessions of stage and pianos mainly for blocking. I understand fully that things will change however; whole scenes seemed to be changing fully. As a result of this we were running slightly behind after the first three sessions so when it came to the huge chorus scenes we had less time. We really had to raise the bar.

After the first day of stage and pianos I had a think of exactly what I had to do and decided to step up my game. The chorus session was amazing. They were so much fun and we were starting to make good progress. I genuinely believe it was because I had gained control in the rehearsal room so all I had to do was transfer it to stage. I knew exactly what was happening on stage and I felt so much more confident. The cast listened to everything the stage management team asked of them and did it straight away. It was a totally different experience altogether. I really enjoyed every minute and I seemed to be back in control.

Stage and Orchestra
Stage and Orchestras were also fine for us. I had meeting with our conductor before the sessions to find out exactly what he wanted to do and I then briefed the rest of the stage management team so they all knew exactly what was going on and so they could pre-empt tasks. I felt we done well. Due to our experience in the rehearsal room he was used to me being in charge so knew exactly what to expect and I felt he trusted to get everything ready for him which was great.

Show
By the time it came to the shows everything seemed to have fallen into place. Although we never had a fully clean show throughout the run, it was mainly small things. I really enjoyed my experience overall on this production. I learned so much about myself and about myself as a stage manager. I learned even more between the differences between being on a stage management team for drama and opera. E.g. I learned that the stage manager does the show reports instead of the DSM which although doesnt seem like a big thing to learn, but if it wasnt for this experience I wouldnt know thins.

Edinburgh
I felt that going to Edinburgh was great. It would have been nice to get to go to some other theatres although I understand it was for budget reasons we couldn’t do this. For the first couple of days I felt that my team were bored as there was not a lot for them to do as we were waiting on other people finishing on their tasks. In the end I ended up giving each person some time off so they were not just hanging around and making sure there were enough of us there to get the work done. Unfortunately I think because of this time hanging around my team started to lose focus as they were comfortable with what they had to do. As a result it was difficult getting the work done in Edinburgh before the show. We had to wait till last minute to get our things done so it was difficult getting my team motivated to get things done quickly. I had to keep asking them to do things which I found this quite draining.

Stage Management team
I had a great time overall with my team although of course we had our ups and downs. Sometimes late coming would bring me to upset. Although lateness always upsets me. Especially when we have a lot to do. If it was just now and again I think that I can understand because of course there are times when it can’t be helped but when it happens repeatedly without a good excuse I find it hard to deal with. I would have a chat with them but it seemed to make no difference. It eventually worked but it took a long time. I don’t really know of any other way of dealing with this…

Also there were a few days where my DSM would be off. I definitely found this very difficult. It was very stressful because not only did I have to deal with my team but also with rehearsals. It was really difficult to deal with. There was nothing I could do though apart from battle through with my ASAM’s. When he was off the first week, one of my ASM’s was off as well, so I and one ASM had to deal a full chorus rehearsal. When we survived that I knew we could do it again, but it was still really stressful and as we got into rehearsals and we were all getting shattered and pushed to the limit it was harder and harder to deal with.

Overall, I found the experience of War and Peace to be amazing and worth every bad experience I went through. It was hard mentally and physically shattering but the success of the production was worth it and hopefully I can take on everything I have learned from this and use it on future productions.

relaxing times

The next few weeks are not going to be that stressful (well not until the 16th of Novemeber). As of yet we don’t really have a complete props list and everything is really a maybe. We have a few references and we have tried to give the designer some ideas about what we were thinking, so we have to wait on her and the director getting back to us. At the moment I am not really that concerned because I know rehearsals haven’t started yet so they probably wont know what they want until then. My only concern is that my ASM are allowed to relax and just float around doing some research about the props and trying to prop with the references we have. Due to the lack of pressure, I don’t want them to think this is the way its going to happen all the time. I’m quite sure Catherine knows what is coming ahead because she has worked on an academy opera before whereas Graham hasn’t. I’m not sure exactly what type of stage management he has done so I don’t know if he knows what to expect.
My plan to raise my concerns with my team. Not as concerns but just to mention it to them that its going to be very different in a couple of weeks. Not that I want the atmosphere to be different. At the moment we are all getting on very well. I would for the atmosphere to stay the same and still get the work done.
Today we all had score reading together and doing very well in my opinion. We got up to page 95. Hopefully by the end of this week we will be very good at the Peace part of our opera so that on Monday we can start War. This was great for our team relationship I think. We then all went for lunch together which was lovely. I think if we keep this good relationship up we will be able to be a strong team, ready to tackle anything…

I actually shared wisdom today…

As we have no actual props list at the moment we have been concentrating on score reading… I have decided that this is very important and I know that it will help us in the future.

Although we only had one score, myself and my two ASM’s gathered around our one score and listened to the overture. After about and hour or so we all seemed to understand it. Our plan is now to take a scene a day and try to follow it. I think that if we have three weeks of this we can really pull this production off. It will be hard work and boring at times but if we just concentrate and keep our heads down it will work.

At the moment we don’t have a props list but it is coming through slowly which is good, we can prop for a while each day. We have been successful so far, Catherine has managed to get a donation of 100 sacks from a company so I am very proud of her. Some people said they probably wouldn’t be able to get hessian sacks because no one uses them anymore but we got them off the first people we asked. Fantastic!

Anyway for me today has been a good day, still very relaxed at the moment because there is not really a great deal. It is the calm before the storm. Hopefully we can use this time wisely and be as ready as we can when the 16th of November comes. Its going to be really busy and stressful but I cant help but be very excited….

To prop or not to prop…

Well things are frustrating at the moment as we don’t have a props list. I understand that we still have three weeks ish till rehearsal start so props are not the real priority at the moment however, as soon as rehearsals start I want my ASM’s and myself to be in rehearsals as much as possible so I would rather be ahead of ourselves on the props front so we can concentrate on the show.
I am sure it will all be fine though, we will get through the props list, we always do and hopefully we can do it with a smile on our faces.

Today has again been a good day. I hope my ASM’s think so too! It has been fairly relaxed although I know that as we get busier we will have a little more stress. My aim is to be just as relaxed yet efficient as the Scottish opera SM team. I think that they did work well together although I think it is because they have all worked together before and understand how each other work. I think that if I can get to know the strengths and weaknesses of my ASM’s then as a team we can use our strengths to our advantage and to the advantage of the show.

I hope my team management skills will improve over this production so that I can use my experience to further my skills and use some of my experiences to help my graduation project. At the moment I am finding it hard to work on my graduation project because I cant make myself work on it. I don’t really know where to start with the whole thing. Although I have done some research I don’t really know how to put it together or if any information I have come across will actually help me….

Catherine is an awesome actress

Well today was been a great day and before I go on can I just say that I am writing this blog on my itouch….proud?? I think soooo!!!

Anyways, today was my last day working with scottish opera, which was actually quite sad I was quite enjoying myself. Today we was an understudy run and we were used to help with scene changes. We were also allowed to look at an asm’s score so we were able to practise score Reading… I am getting there!! As we had the score we had to cue on some of the singers and scene changes. It was so much fun and filled me with a lot of confidence.I know I am not perfect or can score read very well but after today I now know that I will be fine.

We have had a great experience watching this team work…which has gave me a few ideas for managing my team aswell. As of tomorrow we are going to start proping. Although I have been with my team for a few weeks the next week or so are the most important. The next couple of days I have to lead by example with my asm’s and make sure they know what is going to be expected from them. If I can make sure that we all trust each other we will work as a team well and our show will be a great success. Throughout my time at scottish opera, I loved that they had a very relaxing attitude but still got the job done well. I hope to install this in my team. I do not want my asm’s to come in every day and just do the job…I want them to want todo the job. In my opinion, there is no point not putting your whole heart into the production.

In my opinion I don’t think john had as much of control of the stage and pianos as he usually has, but I think that was because the producer of the show was quite over powering. I plan try to make sure this won’t happen with us but I don’t really know our director yet so I don’t know what will happen.

This week we have been trying to get a props list together. Our director said she would have a props list together for the beginning of the week. However instead she emails us to tell us to look through the score instead to come up with one. The was really hard, it took us around 4hours to go through the hand written Russian score and tried our hardest but aoarently it wasn’t good enough that was quite upset. But we did try our best so that’s all we can do….

hmmm…

Today has been a strange day, I feel quite isolated from the rest of my year.

At the moment everyone is getting tense about our pyro show which is now a week away. Myself and Anne are the stage managers and have both been arranging all the meeting so far but today someone called an emergency meeting for tomorrow. Of course if people are concerned about the show they should call a meeting but apparently this meeting has been called because they don’t think I am doing any work for it. I am not the only person on this show and I am not the only stage manager, I understand that everyone is busy but I am too. I don’t understand why everyone seems to think it’s my fault which is pretty annoying to be honest. Although I am not technically working on a show I am not just, doing NOTHING. Which some people don’t realise. I don’t know exactly how this meeting is going to go tomorrow but I don’t really want to go. I am meant to be a Scottish Opera tomorrow as I said to the Stage management team I would be(just in case they need help), However I have been told by a few people today that the pyro show comes first. To be honest I am torn between them… I am really excited about working on opera 1 and although there is not always a lot to do at Scottish Opera I don’t want to miss anything, because there might be a situation that comes up that we can learn a great deal from. So I don’t know whether I should go to the meeting or not. Myself and Anne have organised every meeting to date and now I have a commitment to Scottish Opera I don’t want to break, I don’t know what to do…

At the moment I am just in rehearsals at Scottish Opera and although I haven’t been doing that much I have been observing and watching how situations are being handled. When my ASM’s join us I feel like I learn more because I point things out to them and try to explain things to them which re-instate it to me! I have also been getting to know the opera singers who are in the production which is great and they are talking to me about the production which makes things easier… One singer even told me today that he didn’t know If I would be a good stage manager because obviously he doesn’t know me …but I walk and stand like a stage manager…so I guess that’s something!!

My ASM’s seem to enjoy coming to Scottish opera with myself and Kieron and I love having them. I think it’s because I am quite enthusiastic about the show we are about to attempt to put on… but Kieron is not so enthusiastic which makes us all a little depressed. He doesn’t want to be on this show and I understand he is quite upset about it so I think this situation has to be sorted out today. There is no point doing a show that you’re not going to put your whole heart into because it will affect your team and the production as a whole. If the situation with Kieron is not sorted out soon it’s going to make everyone not enjoy the show as much. It’s not fair on Kieron or our team…

Rehearsals in progress

Rehearsals in Scottish opera are well underway…

One week until stage and pianos and everything is starting to make sense. On Friday I went myself to Scottish opera, without Kieron and I seemed to talk to a lot more people. Many of the singers were talking to me a lot more and even offered to let me look at their scores when they were rehearsing which was lovely! It really helped and I felt like I was teaching myself how to score read. I guess its just practice! Friday was great and because of this when I arrived today I felt very comfortable and more open with people which was a nice feeling. I spoke to one of the ASM’s this morning which was very helpful and I helped her set up!

During the rehearsals, the producer was in charge of the rehearsal room most of the time which I thought was very odd because I have always thought it was a member of the stage management team. On occasion, the DSM would stand by the SM and room and then SM would stand by the singers! However the person in command seemed to vary a great deal which was quite confusing. I think that if I was in the singers position, I wouldn’t know exactly who to turn to at times with a problem. Hopefully, as a team in ‘War and Peace’ we can work out a system that will work for us so that we have consistency and therefore be more efficient!

Is it meant to be…

This is just going to be a short blog about how I feel about War and Peace…

I worked on every academy opera since I started here apart from one, and I have grown quite fond working on them. So when I found out I was given the allocation for Opera 1 this, I was so happy!!!!!!!
Although I was happy, I am not naive, I know its going to a great deal of hard work and very stressful at times but I genuinely believe its worth it. I was even happier when I found out Kieron was my DSM, there is no one else I would rather go through hell with on this allocation haha!

I am very excited about this allocation and that’s why I know that no matter what happens, I will try my best and do whatever I can do to make this show the best that it can be.

However, Kieron is not so excited about doing this show which is quite upsetting. He doesn’t like opera so I understand that it would be a great deal of stress for something he doesn’t care for that much. I know it will be very difficult for him but if he does this allocation I will be so happy and will do anything to help him! I know he is not sad about working with me but it’s just a little upsetting seeing him like this. Opera 1 is such a huge opportunity, and I hope that if he decides not to do this allocation he wont regret it.

I don’t want him to be forced to do this allocation because if he is… he will just be very unhappy and his last year at the academy will not be a memorable one for him and the show might suffer if his heart isn’t really in it.

In the end I hope that this all gets worked out sooner than later so that it doesn’t cause to much pain. I don’t want Kieron to be unhappy because he is such a lovely person but It definitely wouldn’t be the same experience for me without him.

RSAMD dont make SM teams, but if they did…

Well our Scottish Opera placement continues….

Again today we sat in the rehearsal room watching how everyone interacted with each other and how the SM overcame certain problems. To be honest I wasn’t really getting much out of this experience of sitting and watching however, after a small chit chat with John I’m looking at the experience in a different light so I think when I go back this afternoon it will be better for our learning. John asked us to think of questions before we went into the rehearsal room and see if we could answer them ourselves by watching and reflecting and if not, ASK! I would think of questions during the sessions before but would always ask… but with this way I know exactly what I need to be looking for and teach myself rather than annoy the opera SM team even although they are happy to answer questions.

At the moment they don’t have a great deal of time to spend with us to answer questions etc because they are trying to learn a new show in 2 weeks however, it is also great to see how focused and dedicated they are to there work and shows you the attitude which we should strive to have everyday of our production. I feel that although I am learning a few techniques from them I am learning more about how to relate to people and how to keep standards high even in the rehearsal room. Attitude is everything. If you have a bad attitude it will reflect on your SM team, technical staff and the production as a whole will suffer. I understand that times will be stressful and hard, throughout this process but as long as I strive to keep a positive attitude and, ‘not lose face’ I think that as a team, we can put together a show to be very proud of.

Myself and Kieron have worked together before so we know how each other work. I know he is very like me because he wants the best for this production and strives for excellence at all times. If we can let our ASM’s know exactly what we expect from them and install our positive and hard work attitude in them, I see no reason why this will not be on of the best academy shows and will be a huge success.

My main fear is that we are all talk and no action. But I know, that we are so passionate about this show that we won’t let that happen. As I am studying team management for my graduation project, I think I will be able to try out different methods of team management, in the hope I will find one that will work for our team so that we can all work in a happy environment. I am positive that if we try our best we will succeed.

The next couple of weeks are going to be about learning score, learning the ways of a stage manager and the different methods I can use and team building. If we can create a strong team now, we can tackle this show head on as a happy team.

I just got a hug from Puleng and now happy:)

x

War and Peace

Well, today was the start of my first senior role in the academy of my third year and hopefully it will be all that I hope it to be.

We are starting this production on a mini placement with Scottish opera where we are watching and shadowing a stage management team to see how they work and interact with others. I was a little apprehensive going to Scottish opera today because I didn’t know what to expect but as soon as we arrived and got introduced to everyone I was happy to be there. Everyone was lovely. We had a tour around the building and then sat in rehearsals for the morning. It was interesting watching how comfortable everyone was with each other even though that had not been rehearsing very long. It seemed to be a very relaxed atmosphere compared to when I started last year’s opera1. I think this was mainly due to the directors attitude.

Although I have only been there one day I am more confident that myself and Kieron will be able to pull this off. We have decided that it’s going to be the best one yet! We have had a few ideas about paperwork and theatre practise today that we plan to incorporate into our style and hopefully this will prove to be a great success.