As stage manager, my overall responsibility is to keep ‘the technical, or back-stage aspects of every performance in line with the director and designer’s original concept’ (Maccoy, 2005, 16). I shall be working on the technical aspects of the performance, keeping in with the director’s vision. However, as we do not have specific lighting and sound designers, we shall all be collaborating with ideas and the final decision shall be made by our director, Chloe.

With this devised piece, the first few rehearsals are dedicated ‘to explor[ing] and experiment[ing] with ideas, images, concepts, themes, or specific stimuli that might include music, text, objects, paintings, or movement’ (Oddey, 1996, 1), to obtain what works and what does not work within our piece. At this point in the process it is difficult for me to start my job on the technical aspects of the performance as the first rehearsals are for experimenting with ideas on our concept. However, through our lengthy discussions, I have in mind the director’s vision for the piece, although this may change slightly, I can start suggesting ideas as an outside eye because Chloe is an actor in the piece and I am the only one who is not performing.

With our concept following online identities and how the media controls the way in which society should look, Chloe, and our set designer Rosie, wanted the stage to reveal all of the technical aspects of creating a performance such as, exposed cables, live feeds, etc. We have also discussed the use of multiple videos and a lot of technical elements so I know that soon I shall be conducting a rather large cue sheet alongside Chloe’s technical requirements.

Works cited:

Maccoy, P. (2005). Essentials of Stage Management. New York: Routledge.

Oddey, A. (1996) Devising Theatre: a practical and theoretical handbook. London: Routledge.

Stacey Hartley – Stage Manager