I figure I’ll jump on the bandwagon here, and do an "Ask the . . . " thread.
Tonight we had our dress rehearsal for a three week run of ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ We open tomorrow night after a 2.5 month rehearsal process.
I’ve been music directing theatre of all sorts for many years now, on stages large and small. So, ask away!
How does it compare on the grand scale of hard work? It seems a lot more fun than cleaning sewage pipes. Though maybe if sewage pipes really made you happy…
Not to be snarky (much), but my one eyebrow always goes skyward when the starlet with the hit movie says it was just exhausting to be on set for 3 months. And then she drives away in her $100,000 car.
Real theater, at least, appears to be harder work than a film actor, but I don’t know for sure.
Well, it’s probably not as arduous as cleaning sewage pipes. But, it is a fair amount of work.
The ‘prep-work’ that needs to be done includes:
[ul][li]Going through the score and assigning individuals to different vocal parts that aren’t assigned explicitly[/li][li]Determining any cuts/changes (usually done with the director)[/li][li]Practicing playing the music (if I’m playing piano for myself) and/or practicing conducting (if I have a piano player)[/li][li]If the director wants any additional harmonies, writing and arranging them[/li][li]Hiring the pit musicians[/li][li]If it’s an original show or a compilation, selecting music, re-scoring/arranging, or writing some music may also be required[/li][/ul]
At a rehearsal I’m teaching music, tweaking it to sound how I want it. Not just notes, but dynamics, style, character, etc etc. I’ll run vocal warm-ups, conduct and/or play the pieces, and give critiques/help lead the singers.
In a lot of ways I think about it as a management position. I’m part of a creative team that has a vision for the show, and our job is to come up with a final product that matches that vision (and justifies whatever budget we’ve got). A huge part of my job is reading people, and working my performers so they deliver the best performance they can. Knowing when and how to say what is a sticky business. Many of the people I’ve worked with have a hard time with critique (diva-type folks), and many want to do what I ask but don’t know how, so I have to come up with the right way to achieve my goals out of people who don’t know how to get there on their own.
And, at the end of a night of playing piano, singing, possibly doing some of the dance/movement, and just being an active and dynamic personality for an entire rehearsal, I’m pretty physically exhausted. Not as much as if I’d been cleaning pipe, but it’s certainly not a job for the lazy.
I’ve never been on a film set, but I have been for some TV (30 min sitcom-type shows), and it is a stressful and draining environment. It really is a process of bringing order from chaos, with many people to pay attention to and take direction from. Even moments when a person isn’t working require a lot of attention and focus. A set is not a place one goes to relax. 
But it’s not all glory. I’ve MD’d 7 shows in my life, and time spent in the spotlight showing off my nifty tux and taking bows is puny compared to the rehearsal time, meetings, and score study.
Trying to force feed notes to a tone-deaf lead who refuses to learn is emotionally exhausting.
Eonwe, what was your most embarassing moment?
Well, fortunately I have yet to do something like cue the orchestra in at the wrong time during performance, or something obvious to the audience like that (though I’m sure it’s just a matter of time).
There was one time I was MD-ing as well as playing piano (for a production of Once On This Island). The keyboards were using a light flute patch, and then are supposed to go to a percussion patch to do some aux percussion stuff. Well, I missed the switch, and so instead of a big percussion hit, I blurted out a nasty sound with flute.
A funny story not quite related to music directing, is the first time I ever played a wedding on an actual organ. I was a little nervous, and there had been very little prep time.
I had a book that had in it both the traditional music for the bride’s entrance, and for the departure.
When I do a wedding I typically get a copy of the program and put it up on the music stand so I can follow along. Well, it’s time for the bride’s entrance and the program says “Wedding March,” so I turn to that in the book of music. I get halfway through the fanfare at the beginning when I realise, “shit! This is the wrong fanfare! It’s the wrong piece of music!!” They had called both the processional and recessional ‘Wedding March,’ even though ‘Wedding March’ is the piece to be played at the end.
So, I keep playing the fanfare, and then do some snappy modulating to go down to the key of the processional, flip in the book to that piece, and continue on. It turned out all right, but it was horrifying.
I’ve had moments when people (cast, directors, or musicians) have been horribly rude to me, but those are more embarrassing for them than for me, I think.
Oops!
The setup: The pit is stage left. My entrance door is stage right. I open the door, walk to downstage (under a follow spot), take my bow, then cross to stage left to address the orchestra.
In theory.
One night, between acts, some zealous security guard decided that that unlocked door was a security risk. He locked it. Yep, the follow spot was illuminating a locked door. What was to be thunderous applause turned into thunderous laughter when I tried to open the door.
So the concertmaster got up to go let me in. Meanwhile, I had to go back into the green room. (Where the stage manager yelled at me to “Get out there!” Hey, sweetie, I’m working on it.) I went through the stage entrance and emerged center stage. The concertmaster, by that time, had accomplished the task of opening the door. I had to tap him on the shoulder to let him know that I had, in fact, arrived on the scene.
Best applause of the entire run.
Ah, gotta love stage managers (and I mean it, sincerely). They have a very thankless job, but are often really quick to bluster at you without listening to the problem. I can’t think of how many times a scenario like this has happend to me:
<situation occurs in rehearsal where there are a sequence of cues, maybe a light cue, a staging cue, and a music cue. I’m unclear as to what the sequence is supposed to be, ie, what my specific cue is. Is it the actors taking their positions, the lights coming up, or something else. So we get to that spot in the show, and I don’t know when to begin, so I stop and ask . . >
Eonwe: I’m not sure when I’m supposed to come in. Is it -
Stage Manager: You were supposed to come in there.
Eonwe: Yeah, I know, but I was unclear; do I come in on lights up, or is there -
Stage Manager: You’re supposed to start in the blackout.
Eonwe: Ok, but what’s my cue in the blackout, am I watching the actors take their places, and if so -
Stage Manager: Come in when everyone is set.
Eonwe: Yes, but how do I know when that is? Who is the last person I should watch for?
Stage Manager: Watch for Kate. Once she takes her spot, you start the music, and then lights come up.
Eonwe: Cool, thanks!
Heh. If I could get the whole problem/question stated initially without interruption it’d save a lot of aggravation and wasted time.
(not a question. an anecdote inspired by the story above).
In high school, I had a minor role in a play. The play was directed by Mr. and Mrs. Director, a married couple, expecting their third child. Mrs. Director’s involvment in rehearsals shrank as opening night and due date approached. Mr. Director was in charge of both the sound board and the light board–things were not complicated, so he could do both.
Midway during the final performance, two characters were sitting on stage in the dark. Then the lights were supposed to come up, then the talking would start. Well, after pausing a bit, the characters decided that maybe they’d just better start talking, and hope the lights came on. They did. During the intermission, it was discovered that Mr. Director had gotten a phone call that his wife was in labor and had departed the theater. He’d left two alumni in charge of the sound and lights, but since they knew what was going on only from having watched the show with Mr. Director the night before and from reading his incomplete script notes . . . we were lucky they didn’t make more mistakes. Mr. Director claimed that if he hadn’t grabbed these guys, he’d have just turned up all the lights and left the theater. Leaving us to carry on without any sound or light cues at all.
Baby was born in time for a phone call to the cast party to let us all know what had happened.
SMs really are sometimes examples of humanity at its finest. This particular one, however, was a bit high strung and not terribly smart. A dumb MIT student. Go figure.
For the next show, she was the set designer. Prod staff that out-voted me decided to try a setup that was “innovative.” Among other evils, it was similar to what I explained above, with the pit left of stage left. But this time the orchestra and cast would be seperated by a wall. Not a short wall, a 12 foot tall wall. It would run completely from the back of the pit to – get this – my face. Literally. There wasn’t even room for my music stand. When I explained that, among other things, I would not have the freedom of movement I selfishly desired, I was told “Conduct the orchestra with your right hand, and the cast with your left.” Yep. With a wall in between my hands.
You can probably imagine my response to that. Things got a little heated.
Even with fixing that problem (“No wall, assholes!”), it was still a strange setup. The cast couldn’t see me, so my left hand was projected onto a wall above the audience. Shadow puppet conducting. The cast and orchestra couldn’t hear each other, but on the rare occasions when they did, the sound was delayed by about a second.
Everything else in show went off perfectly, though.
The lead soprano threw a hissy fit and stormed out of rehearsal, never to return.
The assistant director left in a huff.
There was a petition to strike the overture.
The evil set designer bailed before the set was fully designed.
We never had a SM.
The lead tenor quit during prod week.
My GF, the new lead soprano, seriously injured her foot during prod week. We had to reblock everything to accomodate her antique wheelchair, which we had to somehow procure.
Half the men in the chorus were tone deaf.
We never did find a bass player.
Before one performance, a soprano accused a baritone of hitting her. She was livid. He denied it, but he became livid too. To top it off, they played father and daughter in the show.
And through all of that, we pulled off seven performances in six days, with nary a train wreck.
Not a question, but…squeee! I love this show! I’d come see it if I was anywhere nearby.
That sounds like a Third Order Differential Equation Award to me. 