The Stage Manager's Toolkit ─ Templates and Communication Techniques to Guide Your Theatre Production from First Meeting to Final Performance

As a Stage Manager, you are responsible for organizing rehearsals, running performances, and keeping everyone and everything on track and in sync. To do the job well, you need to be a communication wizard—able to collect a wide range of details and share them as effectively as possible. The Stage Manger’s Toolkit is more than another overview book which generalizes how to be a Stage Manager. It presents the day-to-day duties in detail—discussing not only what to do but also why. Focusing on communication best practices, the book explores objectives, paperwork, and the questions that need to be asked in order to ensure a smooth production whether on Broadway, at a university, or somewhere in between.

• Introduces strategies for sharing information both in person and in writing

• Explores how document design can enhance the accessibility and effectiveness of your reports, charts, and lists

• Contains principles for web-based information sharing as well as hard-copy paperwork

• Provides customizable paperwork templates on the accompanying website, allowing you to put the ideas to work on your own show

Other features:

Organized based on the chronology of a typical theatre production: pre-production work, rehearsals, the tech period, performances, and post-production duties.? In each section, the book outlines the objectives for the stage manager and the communication techniques that will ensure success.

Provides examples of paperwork a stage manager commonly works with, including variations for plays and musicals, shortcuts for shows on an abbreviated time table, and strategies for maintaining consistency and legibility.? The book highlights differences the stage manager may encounter when working on professional and academic productions.

Laurie Kincman is a faculty member in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, heading the undergraduate emphases in stage management and arts administration. Her professional credits as a stage manager and production manager include work with the Old Globe Theatre, Malashock Dance & Company, Shakespeare Festival/LA, Opera Pacific, the California Ballet Company, American Stage Festival, and for choreographers Jessica Iwanson and Donald McKayle. Laurie is a member of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, the Production Managers Forum, the Stage Managers Association, the Association for Arts Administration Educators, and Actors Equity Association.