Stage direction

“ The stage director orders you at a certain time to take the centre of the stage, the leading man is indignant at your being pushed forward; he revenges himself at night by moving his face in such away, "mugging" is the stage slang, that the audience is attracted to him, and from you. ”

“ A stage manager who will see to all these details and provide himself with intelligent assistants who will quietly “set” the stage for one picture and clear it for the next, behind the curtain, in such a manner as not to interrupt the reader in front of it, nor take the attention of the audience, is equally necessary. ”

“ Every travelling company has its own employee who directs and runs the stage business, and notwithstanding the abolition of stock companies, several theatres retain stage managers of their own who work in conjunction with the company's, looking after the setting of scenery, bossing the stage hands, etc. The stage manager may be an actor, or he may not, but he must be a man of theatrical training, and thoroughly conversant with all the requirements of the stage. ”

“ You will attend rehearsal at any hour of the day the manager chooses to call you, but that is rarely, if ever, before 10 A.M. Your legitimate means of attracting the attention of the management are extreme punctuality and quick studying of your part. If you can come to the second rehearsal perfect in your lines, you are bound to attract attention. Your fellow-players will not love you for it, because they will seem dull or lazy by comparison; but the stage manager will make a note, and it may lead to better things. ”

“ It is the stage-manager. He greets the members of the company with a curt, preoccupied air and hurries down to the prompt stand. There are consultations with the working staff and perhaps with one or two of the players. While he is thus engaged let us enquire into the personnel of the company; that tall good-looker in the well tailored gown is a newcomer to the stage. She has been given a small part—a half dozen lines at best. On twenty dollars a week she carries a maid—and a jewel case. ”

“ Pistol, valise, cane, pipe, book, empty bottles, box of pills, candles in candlesticks, crash bag.
STAGE DIRECTIONS.
R. means right of the stage; C., center; R. C., right center; L., left; 1 E., first entrance; U. E., upper entrance, etc.; D. F., door in flat or back of the stage. The actor is supposed to be facing the audience.
Note—The rapid action in this play requires careful rehearsal and strict attention to cues. In many cases the least drag will spoil the effect. The boy who does the caterwauling must be always ready the instant he gets his cue from the prompter. ”

“ With all your grace and charm, if you were to present yourself as an aspirant to the stage, a manager would either require you to pay as an amateur for being allowed to perform, or he would tell you to go and be taught—trained to bear yourself on the stage, as a horse, however beautiful, must be trained for the circus; to say nothing of that study which would enable you to personate a character consistently, and animate it with the natural language of face, gesture, and tone. ”

“ When an act is ready to begin, the stage-manager pushes a button to signal the olio up or raises it himself—if, that drop [1] is worked from the stage—and on the last cue he pushes another button to signal the curtain down, or lowers it himself, as the case may be. He keeps time on the various acts and sees that the performers are ready when their turn arrives. Under the stage-manager are the various departments to which the working of scenery and effects are entrusted. ”

“ What I am sure of is that the American stage is sacred to its artists, principals and subordinates alike, and to its stage manager and the stage hands who keep things moving behind the curtain line.
It is a business and not a game. A theatrical life is taken seriously by all who wish to succeed in it. No triflers need apply nowadays.
After every performance the stage is cleared of all obstacles, scenery and everything else. ”

“ Professor Brander Matthews has given an interesting illustration of this principle in his essay on The Art of the Stage-Manager, which is included in his volume entitled Inquiries and Opinions. He says:
The stage-manager must ever be on his guard against the danger of sacrificing the major to the minor, and of letting some little effect of slight value in itself interfere with the true interest of the play as a whole. ”

“ If we are to make a drama of energy, of extravagance, of phantasy, of musical and noble speech, we shall need an appropriate stage management. Up to a generation or two ago, and to our own generation, here and there, lingered a method of acting and of stage-management, which had come down, losing much of its beauty and meaning on the way, from the days of Shakespeare. ”

“ Now that I have taken you back of the curtain line and out into the front office and shown you just how the wheels go 'round that make the show go, you have become aware that there is something more in the theatre business than a mere group of good actors and singers and dancers doing their best to please you up on the stage. The more the machinery of the stage is kept out of sight, the better the management and the greater the satisfaction, both to the folks behind the curtain and the audience out front. ”

“ While it is the duty of the stage-manager to handle all the elements in his control so as to make the performance as perfect as possible, his most important function is to direct the actors themselves, to see that they read their lines intelligently, with just the emphasis requisite at that given moment in the unfolding of the story of the play, and to advise them as to the gestures and movements which should tell this story almost as plainly as the words themselves. ”

“ You will have a fixed position established at rehearsals, when you enter upon professional stage work, and if you do not hold it and observe the rules about standing still, you will not be wanted and will not last long. It seems a very simple thing to do, when you think of it, but unless you do it right here, while you are learning the basic facts about a stage career, you may fall down on it there. ”

“ As we wish our work to be full of the life of this country, our stage-manager has almost always to train our actors from the beginning, always so in the case of peasant plays, and this makes the building up of a theatre like ours the work of years. ”

“ Don't hurry to get yourself before any producing manager until you have had a little experience in some hideaway place, like at a church or charity benefit performance, some local entertainment, or club affair, anything of this nature, that will enable you to try yourself out before a small or friendly audience, test your ability to overcome stage fright, and get hold of yourself before a crowd. ”

“ These two instances show that the necessity of economising the attention of an audience is just as important to the stage-manager as it is to the dramatist and the actor. In the main, it may be said that any unexpected innovation, any device of stage-management that is by its nature startling, should be avoided in the crucial situations of a play. ”

“ The stage during rehearsals is like a workshop—a certain amount of noise and confusion is necessitated by the labour going on in it, but no one has time to spare from his share of the job in hand, and the discipline in a good theatre is remarkable. ”

“ Scenery, lighting, costumes, must all be ready, and the performance carried through with as few interruptions as the director can afford to make. The director should be in the back of the "house", and stop the players only when they do something absolutely wrong. It is very unwise to change lines or "business" at this eleventh hour. The stage manager and his assistants must be in their assigned places, the lights manipulated, actors "called", the curtain rung up and down on schedule. ”

“ For all of the arts acting most requires practical demonstration. And that can be taught only by professional tutors.
And how few are qualified to teach! One may have the power to portray without the ability to impart. That is why the stage manager is in such demand. So much more is demanded of the actor and actress [200] than the mere delivery of lines. It would take many pages to illustrate what I mean, but as a rule in all these schools that dot the country very little attention is given to the technique of stagecraft. ”

“ To organize a staff whose duty it is to furnish and equip a theater, hall, or schoolroom; to arrange and efficiently run rehearsals; to supply "props", costumes, and furniture; to manage the stage during the performance—all this is next in importance to the acting itself.
Of late years especially it has been made clear that the art of the theater, although it is a collaboration of the brains and hands of many persons, must be under the supervision of one dominating and far-seeing chief. That is to say, one person and one alone must be responsible for the entire production. ”

“ Our purpose is to persuade the people to encourage the stage upon principles honourable to it; not as a place of mere barren pastime; but as a school of improvement. But how shall we be able to bring the public mind to that habitual respect for the stage without which it must lose all useful effect, if the actors show themselves unfit for conveying instruction. ”

“ The manager marshals those required in the scene and explains precisely what he wants each artist to do. The business on the stage is demonstrated, and those in waiting are told just how to make their entrances, and all exits are indicated very concisely. The stage-manager rehearses the first episode before those concerned, to convey a general idea of his requirements, and they immediately repeat it. No dialogue is written, but the actors of professional experience realise what words are demanded for different situations, and accordingly extemporise as they proceed. ”

“ They are of poetry all compact, and the more simply they are presented, the less obtrusive the scenery and the less protruded the needful effects, the more the effort of the producer is centered upon preserving the ethereal atmosphere wherein the characters live, move, and have their being, the more harmonious the performance is with the pure fancy which inspired these two delightful pieces, then the more truly successful is the achievement of the stage-manager. ”

“ The Stage Manager. As the director cannot always be present at every rehearsal, and as oftentimes two parts of the play are rehearsed simultaneously, it is evident that another director must be ready to act in place of the head. It is chiefly his duty to "hold" the prompt-book and keep a careful record of all stage business, "cuts", etc. At every rehearsal he must be ready to prompt, either lines or "business"—action, gestures, crosses, entrances, exits, and the like—and call the attention of the director to omissions or mistakes of every sort. ”

“ Against this it will be argued that spectators can give good advice: in the first place, it is too late to act upon any important suggestion at general rehearsals; then, those who really [Pg 237] offer valuable advice, during the course of rehearsals, are the actors, firemen, scene-shifters, supernumeraries and everybody, in fact, who lives by the stage, and who know the theatre much better than all the Bachelors of Arts and Academicians in existence. ”

“ They say life’s a stage, but what a sad thing we have so few good stage managers. Our productions have more in the way of Costume and lack, so often, the right lines. Lines do count, not always words, but sympathy of thought is quite as necessary. ”

“ It will be well to have a few friends witness the dress rehearsal, which will give confidence to the performers, previous to their dêbut before a large audience. As soon as the company has been organized, and each performer has received his several programmes, it will be the duty of the stage manager to see that the various branches of the profession are progressing in unison with the rehearsals. Each tableau should be carefully examined, and a list of the machinery, scenery, wardrobe, and furniture of each piece noted down, and competent persons immediately set to work on their completion. ”

“ And why, from the nature of the case, cannot the stage ever rank with the recognised professions? Because, as a means of earning a livelihood, that is as a mere employment, the stage is open to all the world. ”

“ Experienced professional stage-managers, with all the tricks and methods of the theatre at their fingers’ ends, find it impossible, out of a body of men and women born and bred in the atmosphere of the playhouse, to construct a crowd that looks like anything else except a nervous group of broken-down paupers waiting for soup. ”

“ If your numbers are limited, you may have to choose the one who knows most about theatricals, and he or she may have to act a leading part as well. But by rights the stage-manager ought not to act; especially as in juvenile theatricals he will probably be prompter, property-man, and scene-shifter into the bargain.
If your "company" consists of very young performers, an elder sister is probably the best stage-manager you could have. But when once your stage-manager is chosen, all the actors must make up their minds to obey him implicitly. ”

“ Acts that [Pg 339] can be given in front of a drop "in one" must be sandwiched between "full stage" acts, so that scenes may be set for the latter without interrupting the performance, and the experienced stage manager arranges his material with a keen eye to variety.
As important as the star dressing room to a leading woman, as vital as full-faced type to a star is his place on the bill to a vaudevillian. By their numbers ye shall know them. Headliners are given a position midway in the entertainment, and insist upon it as "legitimate" actors upon the center of the stage. ”