Stage Managing Pacific Overtures

-Thanks to stage manager Jennifer Kincaid for offering this insight.

When Walter announced the 2008/2009 Porchlight season, I immediately laid claim to managing Pacific Overtures. Of course, I had to be officially asked to work on the show, but I made my interest known early on. Porchlight has an excellent history with Sondheim's musicals, and I know this show is no exception. It is my fourth show with the company - second show with Walter as director and third show with Eugene as Musical Director - but the first time working with both Eugene and Walter on a Sondheim collaboration.

The role of Stage Manager in rehearsals is as the principle "note-taker". As the show comes together piece by piece it is my job to keep track of every little thing that goes into its creation. From a production angle, I commit as many of the designs as possible to memory so that in rehearsal I can confirm where things might be on stage once we move into the theatre (because we rehearse without our set on a taped-out floor to indicate important set elements and only a small number of rehearsal props). As the actors begin to move around the stage I take careful notes about everything they do - Kayama draws his sword on this line, Abe sets down the tea cup and then exits down stage left, etc.. Eventually all of these notes are compiled into the master Prompt Book, which helps me keep the show in good condition once we open and start our run at the Theatre Building. Once the show closes, the Prompt Book along with design drawings, photos and video serves as the official archive of the show, and much like a scrapbook that you can take out of storage years down the road, Walter and Eugene will be able to pull this book out at any time and (if I have done my job correctly) should be able to re-live this entire production!

As I write this blog entry, I am sitting in the rehearsal space listening to our first sitzprobe (the first time all the musicians and cast get together and sing through the entire show with full orchestrations). This is the reason I wanted to do this show. The music is absolutely fantastic. And our cast is stellar. But nothing about it is particularly easy! The orchestrations are complicated, the characters varied and the cast seems to multiply onstage, each actor having to fill numerous roles, both historic and modern. Keeping track of it all could be nightmarish to some, but to me it is a stage manager's dream come true. Definitely keeps life exciting!

Coming up next week is my favorite part of production. We say goodbye to the rehearsal hall and move everything we've done to the theatre to start Tech Week on our stage! Tech Week can be more ominous than the "Four Black Dragons" in the show, but I'm confident that with our cast and crew we can pull it off as planned. Our set is scheduled to load-in on Monday with our "Q2Q" happening Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. During a Q2Q, I sit with the lighting and sound designers and literally put every cue into the Prompt Book. We need to run all of the cue sequences to make sure that everything looks and sounds like it should, that sound levels are where they should be, each explosion is carefully timed, screens are lit when they need to be and are dark when there is movement behind them that needs to be concealed. This is the "magic" of the show - and I love being a magician! Sometimes this can be a boring process for the actors because they don't get to act much over the tech nights, but time spent on the stage is imperative as it gives them all time to walk around and get the "stage into their bodies" so that they can find their way around in the dark and are aware of any and all hazards.

After Q2Q comes the Dress Rehearsals when we add costumes to the mix. And this show has a TON of them. Costume changes are often very fast and it's another whole bit of choreography off-stage to manage dressing and undressing. Sometimes I find an actor's most amazing performance is not what they do on the stage, but what they manage to do backstage and not appear winded when they make their entrance in stage lights!

The performance we call the "Tech/Dress" puts it all together. With any luck we'll get a couple of these in before we have an audience. Here's hoping (*fingers crossed). Our first audience is on Saturday night and then we have a few Previews before we officially open on Wednesday the 18th.

My wish for this production is that our audience can appreciate all of these complexities in the simplicity of the setting of Japan. It's paradoxical Sondheim at his absolute best. And I hope that you all enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it!

Jenn A Kincaid
Stage Manager