Unsung Creatives: The Hidden Magic of Stage Management

In theatre there is a huge demarcation in perception of job roles. There are Creatives, and those regarded as the support in the process of creating and then maintaining a production.

I trained in stage management, honestly because I didn’t have the courage to put myself out there as a director or performer. I don’t for a minute regret that. However, for years and years I sat on the sidelines listening, watching, learning but rarely speaking. I started before there were any stage management courses. I worked as a student Assistant Stage Manager at a repertory theatre in Perth, Scotland for two seasons. A different play every ten days. It was a brilliant training ground but the accepted mantra was that stage management were the bottom of the pile holding up the more creative upper echelon. I still regard theatre hierarchy as a pyramid with the Producer, Director, Choreographer, MD, Lighting Designer and performers creating the apex with the stage management often holding up the whole edifice without really being recognised.

It’s definitely changing. The stage management were all on the poster of a show I walked past at the Old Vic in London. That would never have happened in my day.

In the days when – seemingly unbelievably now – people smoked in rehearsal rooms the director would just help himself to my cigarettes, on my first day as stage manager working on auditions for a musical, the Director walked in and simply said ‘cappuccino’. No offer of money. I don’t think this would happen today. Stage management creativity in the eyes of the ‘Creatives’ isn’t a thing. If an actor dried we covered for his insecurities but accepting blame for something else that must have gone wrong. Prompting in rehearsals is really skilled. Needing to be in tune with the actor’s emotional process but pretty much regarded as just a necessary support. Calling a show is perceived as following instructions of the director, choreographer, lighting designer, musical director. But of course, in reality it’s much more. The way you call a show makes a huge difference. Audiences always notice when it is wrong, not when it is right and the scenery touches the deck beautifully on the last beat of music.

On my first big musical, the leading man told me he could always tell if I was calling the show by the way the flat flew out with the music at end of the last big number.

Stage management is multi-disciplinary.

Scheduling is an art. Running a team is an art. Company Management is definitely an art that can make a very happy or a not very happy company atmosphere. It was good training for my coaching. I’d been doing it for years without knowing that was what I was doing. A real balancing act of being friends but still taken seriously in disciplinary terms. Emotions run
high in theatre.

Stage Management allow for running the show in a flow for an audience to never notice how much work this has taken.

A director to an actor – ‘of course darling, let’s talk it through’. To a stage manager. ‘I’m not really interested in why – we just need to make it happen.’

It’s time this distinction was removed. A friend who show-called the brilliant Guys & Dolls at The Bridge explained how she and the stage manager worked out all the complex lift movements, timing them out musically. You are in tune with a show be it a play or a musical. It an amazing feeling.

Stage management lack confidence because it’s the narrative. Theatre people are ‘big’ and energised. It’s what we love, but can also be overwhelming. It takes courage to deal with bad behaviour. I’m quite sure the same goes for many businesses. Where people feel they sit and whether they have a voice. Or more importantly if they do speak does it count? In business this is particularly true for women.

I’ve been lucky. Incredibly lucky. With how my life started. Interesting, dynamic, clever parents. This gave me a sense of my own self-worth which through talking to many people I have come to understand is anything but common. In coaching I have found for myself the closest thing to being in a rehearsal room talking to an actor about character. The only difference is we are finding the true story and from the inside out, not building it from outside in. I found my way home in the end.

I don’t do the job of stage manager anymore but my heart is still in those rehearsal rooms and the constant being on edge. Always wanting to be ahead of what might be needed.

The way I learnt what I brought to the table is because people started to tell me. When a job appears to be a support role but is actually requiring ingenuity and creativity. It is easy to take that person and their skillset for granted. If you know someone is doing a good job, tell them. This drip, drip of confidence building can be so enabling. You may not feel as confident as you appear to other people but that’s OK. Be in the character of the person you know you can be and it will become easier. I remain addicted to theatre and corporate event show-calling.

We are all, after all, adrenalin junkies in this creative space.

Learn more about Kate Salberg coaching HERE.

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