Can anyone give a basic outline of what a stage manager needs to do in a group production?

Question

i have an individual study to do but im really really lost can someone please help out like now?

Answer 1

What do you mean by a group production?  I'm going to presume you mean a production put on by a theatre company, for now anyway.  Duties will vary from theatre to theatre, but generally:

- Oversee the running of rehearsals; this may include taking blocking notes, prompting, keeping time, ensuring breaks happen, publishing and distributing rehearsal schedules.

- Liase between director and production departments; taking notes in rehearsals, distributing notes to the appropriate departments and ensuring that all information gets to the people who need it - essentially the stage manager is the central point of contact.

- Run production meetings; take notes and distribute to all involved.

- Assist in the transition from rehearsal room to stage during production week; this may include putting cues into the prompt script at the plotting session, running technical rehearsals, overseeing stage crew, making up run sheets, co-ordinating all technical elements, completing risk assessments, taking responsibility for health and safety of cast and crew.

- Oversee safe and successful running of the show.

There's a whole lot more to it than that, but that's a rough outline!

Answer 2

First of all, you need to act like you know what you're doing.  Be confident!  Then people will listen to you and respect you.  Being Stage Manager is really fun, actually, when you get the hang of it.  One thing you may need to do at the beginning of rehearsal is take roll.  Keep a sheet with all the actors' names on it, and the different days of rehearsal.  It can be kind of a chart, and you can put an X by anyone's name under whatever day they missed.  That'll help you keep track of people, and you can see who's been missing too many rehearsals.  Most of the time, though, you'll be backstage calling light and sound cues.  You get to wear a head set that communicates with the people running the light board and the sound for the show.  Anytime there's a blackout, or a change in the lighting, or when there's supposed to be a sound effect, you are the person who actually tells them when to do it via your headset.  You'll keep a script with you backstage on a dimly lighted desk, and you'll have the different light/sound cues marked in different colors to make it easy.  When you know a light/sound cue is coming up, you say "Sound - Warning" or "Light - warning".  At the exact moment that you want them to actually hit the button, you say "Lights - GO"  When you say "GO", the light/sound button will be pushed.  Depending on the number of technical people you have working for you, you may get to prompt the actors as well.  When they are supposed to have their lines memorized, but forget certain lines, you tell them the first few words of their line.  Or if they mess up a line, you can tell them to start their line over and remind them of what it's supposed to be.  There are other duties, of course, but your director will give you those later.  These are just the basic jobs of a SM.  Basically, you're second in comand to the director; except come show time, you'll be backstage but your director will not be.  Hope this helps, and good luck!