Managerial (Director as Manager):

Scheduling

Casting – Alan Schneider said "style is casting" – casting is half the work (62).

Rehearsals – (65)

1. Read-through

Read through play, actors and director discuss character and vision of the play, discuss play, show designs.

2. General rehearsals

rehearse in parts

scenes with particular characters

"French scene" -- entrance or exit of a character Scenes -- between "curtains" or blackouts (Remember: many contemporary stages do not have or do not use curtains).

3. Run-throughs -- of acts or the whole play -- sections.

4. Technical rehearsals (65).

5. Dress rehearsals -- like an actual performence, sometimes for an "audience" (of selected invited people).

6. Previews (also called tryouts)-- usually primarily for the professional theatre -- so the director and actors can work out some of the rough spots before opening it officvially -- often previews are out of town before coming to New York. (We at this campus usually have a preview performance for reviewers to come to).

7. Opening night -- in most professional theatre, the director's job is then over... usually goes on to another job, and the Stage Manager takes over any directing responsilities, such as "brush up rehearsals."

The post-mortem is an important theatrical tradition. It occurs usually no less than a week after the closing of a show and involves all key personnel and the Board (producers). At the post-mortem everything and anything about the show itself and the process of producing the show can be discussed.

What went well?
What didn't?
Where could the Board have helped more?
Where could the Board have butted out?
What could have been done more efficiently?

The director can bring up artistic questions about her show and seek constructive criticism from the others present. The purpose is to openly discuss in a positive and constructive way without attacking any individuals involved. The end result should involve all parties learning something - the Board will learn concrete ways that it can improve the production process, and the Production Team will learn more about how to interact and create a show.

SM Job description

The stage manager leads a team usually comprising a deputy stage manager (DSM) and one or more assistant stage managers (ASM), though in small companies/touring theatre, the stage manager may handle all areas of the production.

Together, the stage management team organises the production environment. They ensure the availability of rehearsal space, conduct rehearsals, supervise getting in and out of a venue, and ensure props and equipment are available and maintained. They also gather, record and disseminate production information to other theatre departments.

Typical work activities

The stage manager, with the director, prepares the rehearsal schedule and production schedule and liaises with technical departments (costume, props, lighting, sound etc). During a run, in the director's absence, they may also call extra rehearsals to keep the performance up to scratch. The stage manager also supervises the 'get in' to the theatre, when the set, lighting and sound etc is installed, and the 'get out', when all the equipment is removed.

The deputy stage manager (DSM) conducts rehearsals, and holds the prompt book, noting changes to dialogue, moves, and set (stage) requirements. During performances the DSM prompts actors and cues technicians from the side of the stage.

The assistant stage manager (ASM) calls actors to rehearsals and performances, arranges costume and wig fittings, obtains and maintains props, and disseminates information to other departments.

Between them, the stage management team is responsible for:

setting up and running rehearsals;
procuring all props, furniture and set dressing;
arranging costume and wig fittings;
distributing information to other theatre departments;
managing the props budget;
compiling and operating prompt copy (noting actors' moves and cueing the show);
ensuring the company's welfare;
running the backstage and onstage areas during performances;
supervising the 'get-in' and 'get-out', before and after shows;
liaising with stage staff;
calling actors for rehearsals and performances.

From Part IV. Directing Public (Life of a Show)

Peter Brook: When I give you a signal, I would ask everyone to stand up, wait for a moment, then sit down together. [The audience does so]

Right, everyone has now performed a simple action. There is one question. Can what you just did be improved upon or not? Have we already reached the ultimate level of perfection together? If you really believe that it’s all that marvellous, we can go home with the wonderful satisfaction that a unique moment in life has been reached together. But if it isn’t the case, let’s begin to work. To do this better, there are two ways. One would be the sergeant major technique, which is to say to you "Now, all together, rise to your feet, count together – one, two, three – then sit down". That’s the old army way. But there’s another way which can lead to something quite different. I don’t want to do more than give you a signal. But just adjust yourselves, the way you’re sitting, so that you’re ready without any waste of energy to be able to get up. Now, something else can help us, which is to say that everyone possesses peripheral vision. However you’re sitting, bring into your field of vision as many people as possible on either side. Know that you can feel the people around you. Third thing – listen. When I give the signal, stand up, wait and then find how to sit down again. We won’t say how long the pause has to be, but there is just one natural pause. Let’s see if we can find a natural timing instinctively, all together, without a leader. The first condition is to be completely prepared. The second need is that there shouldn’t be any unnecessary movement.

[The action is repeated]

Watching you, I assure you that was better than the first time. If we did this for even twenty minutes, it would be astonishing to see how it’s possible for a large number of people to become more sensitive, more alert, more perceptive to one another than when they started, just by each person making a very special effort himself. If we did this every day for three weeks, there would come a quite uncanny moment when an enormous group of people could in fact do quite difficult things together.

I said I would first ask you to do something, then say why. The reason is very simple. When a group is meeting for the first time, they certainly are not sensitive to one another in the whole of their body. I was very recently in Germany and I asked actors in the big German theatres, "Do you do any exercises?". Either they said, "No, never", or they said "Oh yes, once or twice a week we have gymnastic classes and we work on our bodies". But the interesting thing is that such classes help no-one except the individual, because the real exercise with a group of actors is not for the person by himself. It isn’t to make him cleverer or a better actor, or a better athlete or dancer. It’s to make a group more sensitive to itself. Something quite different. When one does exercises, it isn’t to make people more powerfully skilful, it’s to make everybody from the start quite simply more sensitive. Once a group becomes more sensitive, each person feels the reward. He begins to find (as does the director, especially if he does exercises with the actors) that as you study the work you’re doing, you are actually seeing this work better, more fully, than when you sat at home trying to do it all by yourself. Step by step, through exercise, through preparation, one begins to see that everything that matters in the theatre is a collective process. Then you come to the point where a group who have had time to prepare something meets a group like yourselves, who have come from all different corners and are sitting in seats.

Then you see that the most rewarding aspect of all theatre is when, in an extraordinary way, the audience also becomes more sensitive than it has been when it’s in the foyer or the street. That is what, to me, the whole of the theatre process is about. In big buildings, in small buildings, in the open air, in cellars – no matter where – with plays, without plays, with a script, with improvisation, no matter – it is about giving everyone who is together at the moment when there’s a performance, a taste of being finer in their feelings, clearer in their way of seeing things, deeper in their understanding, than in their everyday isolation and solitude.

That’s all the theatre has to offer, and if it happens it’s a great deal. All the rest is variations on that, but to me there is only one real test, one real way of knowing whether going to the theatre has been worth one’s time and money. These are very good standards. You go to the theatre – and in a way it’s very healthy that one should have to fight to get a ticket and have to pay for it; it’s very healthy if that gives one a real demand. And the demand is that having got there, into the auditorium, one has to have for a moment an experience that is different from the experience in the street and which makes one feel, for a second, that one is closer to the truth.

The great thing about the truth is that nobody has ever seen it and nobody has ever been able to say what it is. If anybody had been able to put into words what a truth is, the theatre wouldn’t have any reason to exist. But the theatre exists because it can take philosophers, who would cut one another’s throats because each one thinks he knows what the truth is; it can take politicians, each of whom tries to sell an idea of the truth; it can mix them with every sort of ordinary audience of all ages, and if, during the evening, something happens which brings that whole audience into one breathless moment where they don’t even ask themselves "Do I believe this or not?" it just happens, at that moment – there’s an experience which no-one can get by thought or by argument. It can’t exist on television, it can’t exist on film, both of which give other experiences. This is something which can only exist because a group of people are living something together.

http://www.nt-online.org/?lid=2632 -- National Theatre

Prompt Book(s) should contain the following:

Title page 
Company Rules 
Contact Sheets 
Cast Medical Info 
Rehearsal Schedule 
Call Sheet 
Sign in Sheets 
Line notes 
Blocking Symbol Key 
Script 
Script w/ blocking (progressive and final) 
Cue Calls (warning’s, ready’s, & go’s) 
Note & Memos 
Meeting notes 
Rehearsal reports 
Performance Reports 
Cue Sheets (lighting, Sound) 
Floor plan 
Costume Renderings 
Rehearsal Music