Since November 21st, 2024, here is the list of events that me and the stagecraft department have accomplished:
- Completed a full run of our fall one act play festival.
- Safely orchestrated a takedown of our stage, amphitheatre and booth.
- The cast and crew brought Me Among Them on the road to Heritage Woods for MetFest (Metropolitan Theatre Festival) 2024
- A small crew set up, stayed on call for and cleaned up after the Winter Ball.
- I ran sound for the music concert and trained a junior on microphone setup for solos.
As previously mentioned, none of these things would have been possible by myself, I am nothing without my crew even if I have knowledge and experience. Running a circus alone ends with a tent on fire.
We have had success in all of what we have accomplished. One such success is the one act play festival. We had a good turnout, averaging on 110 audience members per night. This means that we managed to completely cover our costs and still have profit to donate to local families for the holiday season.
Some of the challenges we faced the past three weeks had to do with communication and preparation.
To overcome these challenges in the future I will continue to build a culture and community to foster trust (2). This will help to maintain a level of trust between myself and the crew. In order to overcome our lack of preparation leading to minor setbacks, I will be creating to do lists and plans that can be handed out to core crew members, including all necessary details (1). This should help to ensure that small trivial things such as turning speakers on before performances don’t become a job for last minute runners.
Our next steps as a theatre will be to tech and crew the Winter Talent Show as well as advertise and run auditions for our spring production. this is because we are fast approaching the last week of school before winter break and must start on the spring production to be able to put on a successful spring production.
This has been my update on the proceedings of the theatre tech from the perspective of the Stage Manager.
Melea Chew Roberts
- 5 steps to improve communication with your crews. (n.d.). CompanyCam Blog. Retrieved December 12, 2024, from https://companycam.com/blog/5-steps-to-improve-communication-with-your-crews
- Council, F. A. (n.d.). Council post: 12 methods to identify and fix communication problems within a team. Forbes. Retrieved December 12, 2024, from https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2020/02/13/12-methods-to-identify-and-fix-communication-problems-within-a-team/