Stage manager

“ 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. ”

“ It is also the stage manager's business to arrange the time and place of rehearsals, and hold each actor responsible for attendance.
On the occasion of the dress rehearsal and of the actual production, it is the stage manager, and not the director, who supervises everything. His position is that of commander-in-chief. He either holds the book, or is at least close by the person who actually follows the lines; sees that each actor is ready for his entrance; that the curtain rises and falls when it should; that his assistants are each in their respective places ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is either the lights or a missing prop or a hiatus between speech and action which the first acquaintance with the scenery develops or a "jumbled" ensemble or something unexpected which brings the rehearsal to an abrupt halt. The dialogue stops like a megaphone suddenly shut off. The director hurries down the centre aisle, the prompter's head appears at the proscenium arch. "Loved I not honour more!" repeats the actor, looking expectantly off stage. "Loved I not honour more!" bellows the stage-manager, getting into the game. "That's your cue, Mr. Prime Minister. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones! ”

“ 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. ”

“ A little later we were conspirators; our stage manager, with the help of a tablecloth, showed us how to conspire. Next we were a mob, led by the sentimental baritone; our stage manager, ruffling his hair, expounded to us how a mob led by a sentimental baritone would naturally behave itself. The act wound up with a fight. Our stage manager, minus his coat, demonstrated to us how to fight and die, the dying being a painful and dusty performance, necessitating, as it did, much rolling about on the stage. The fishy-eyed young gentleman throughout the whole of it was again the centre of attraction. ”

“ And as the richness of the harmony depends largely upon his ability to amplify properly the hints of the author, the stage-manager is, in fact, almost a collaborator of the playwright; he is forced into a more intimate relation with the dramatist than that which the conductor bears toward the composer. To a collaboration of this sort, ordinary playgoers never give a thought, content to take the performance as they see it, and ready often to credit the actor, not only with the inventions of the stage-manager, but even with those of the author also. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all seriousness, a stage manager is a mighty important individual. If actors [Pg 33] roamed about at will in a play, as most laymen suppose they do, you couldn't tell a first night performance from a foot-ball game. Every actor in a piece knows just where he must stand when a certain line is spoken, and when, how, where and in what manner he must move to get in position for the next line. Smooth premieres are not accidents; they are designs. Sometimes, as in the case of David Belasco, producers are their own stage managers. Frequently, as with Charles Klein, authors stage their own plays. ”

“ It would be idle to assert that the average level of our acting is as good as it ought to be. Many theatres suffer severely from the lack of satisfactory stage-management; some from the determination of an actor-manager to be the central figure of every scene. Bitter complaints are uttered by young players about not receiving sufficient suggestions at rehearsal and finding that the stage-manager has so little authority that not only the leading players act as they chose, but even the smaller stars refuse successfully to obey him. ”

“ A wise stage-manager, when he uses a set as magnificent, for example, as the memorable garden scene in Miss Viola Allen's production of Twelfth Night, will raise his curtain on an empty stage, to let the audience enjoy and even applaud the scenery before the actors enter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this time, my dear Rouge Pot, you will see that the stage-manager, like all rulers, pays dearly for his power; but it is to be hoped that the difficulties inseparable from his office will not be wilfully increased by
THE ACTORS.
They are a touchy race at any time. Amateur actors are said to have—one and all—a belief that each and every one can play any part of any kind. Shakespeare found that some of them thought they could play every part also! But besides this general error, each actor has his own peculiarities, which the stage-manager ought to acquaint himself with as soon as possible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And this is why a wise dramatist, if he were put to the choice, would prefer to have his piece performed by a company of average merit directed by a stage-manager of skill and authority, than by far better actors under lax and inefficient stage-management. One of the varied qualifications needed by stage-managers is the insight to estimate the personality of the actors, so that the play may profit by what each of them can do best, while the exuberance of an aggressive individuality is restrained from interfering with the due proportion of the performance. ”

“ In the dim theater he sits alone, the stage-manager being at a respectable distance. If by chance there are one or two others present directly concerned in the production, they all sit discreetly in the extreme rear. The company is grouped in the wings, never in the front. The full stage lights throw into prominence the actors in the scene in rehearsal. Occasionally the voice of Mr. Frohman calls from the auditorium, and the direction is sometimes repeated more loudly by the stage-manager. Everybody is listening and watching. ”

“ The stage manager, in a tan jumper and army shirt, dirty white running-pumps, a battered old cap adorned with many tobacco-tags, and carrying a hammer, wanders on from the right and crosses the stage, passing below Florence and Mrs. Ritter, who turn and look at him curiously, and continues on up at the left to [98] the switch-board, where he picks up the newspaper from the broken chair, and, after lighting his pipe, sits down to read. He is apparently disgusted with the world and utterly oblivious of his surroundings. ”

“ II. THE WORKING DEPARTMENTS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE At audience-right—or stage-left—flat against the extended wall of the proscenium arch in the First Entrance (to One) there is usually a signal-board equipped with push buttons presided over by the stage-manager. The stage-manager is the autocrat behind the scenes. His duty is to see that the program is run smoothly without the slightest hitch or wait between acts and to raise and lower the olio, or to signal the act-curtain up or down, on cues. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being now a stage- manager himself, he probably thinks it unnecessary to play for the singers the schoolmaster, whom he, as a singer, never wanted. In this, however, he is mistaken; the present generation has run wild from its birth. I also can understand too well that, in his friendly zeal for my work, he remained entirely on the proper standpoint of the stage-manager, who arranges things in a general way, and justly leaves it to the individual actors to find out for themselves what concerns them only. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stage-manager will have his own way, but he will have nothing else.
He will certainly have "no peace" from the first cry of "Let us have some private theatricals" till the day when the performance ceases to be discussed. If there are ten actors, it is quite possible that ten different plays will be warmly recommended to him, and that, whichever he selects, he will choose it against the gloomy forebodings of nine members of his company. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen think that when they have made their toilet and drawn on their gloves they are as presentable on the stage as in a drawing-room. No manager thinks that. 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 ”

“ Nine actors will feel a natural disappointment at not having the best part, and as it is obviously impossible to fix rehearsals so as to be equally convenient for everybody, the stage-manager, whose duty it is to fix them, will be very fortunate if he suits the convenience of the majority. ”

“ Vandeford. "I tell you truly that a stage-manager has to be a genius to succeed. He must be a man with a vision and sheer brutality enough to put the vision that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into twenty [256] other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious whole to an audience. He cannot be a respecter of persons while he is pounding, and he must not be interfered with or his vision is obscured and the play loses. Do you see what I mean?"
"Then an author ought to produce his own plays," Miss Adair decided very promptly. ”