The masters behind the scenes

Stage management is one of the invisible professions of the theatre. By definition, we lurk behind the scenery, and when we’re doing our job well, nobody will be aware of us and what it is we do to bring a performance before them. Traditionally, a team of three stage managers oversees and facilitates a rehearsal period. The Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) tends to do the propping, the Deputy Stage Manager (DSM) will spend their time in rehearsals, and these roles are complementary, rather than subservient, to that of the Stage Manager (SM). But the buck stops with the SM who co-ordinates the efforts not just of their team, but of all artists and staff working inside and outside the rehearsal room to make the production happen.

A changing job description

This carries through into performance, where the SM is usually in charge – and on tour is, frequently, the most senior manager from the company on site. All staff and artists involved in presenting the performance report to them; the DSM will be cueing all technical effects according to the wishes of the creative team; and the ASM will generally run backstage. These roles are fluid, depending on the size and type of production.

There can be overlap with the tasks of production managers, props buyers or makers, and technicians. And the duties of an ASM at the Royal Opera House will differ from those of an SM touring a small-scale play around schools, or on a musical, or on a site-specific show in a claypit in Cornwall. Common to the role of stage manager in all its permutations is that it’s there to facilitate the artistic process to ensure it achieves its potential. Paramount is the imperative to stop anything adversely affecting the production and to ensure the best possible outcome under any given circumstances.

All that is more or less as it has been for a long time. What’s new in the past ten years is that stage managers are no longer just found in traditional theatre buildings, but have become essential for all sorts of events, from VE Day Celebrations to Olympic Opening Ceremonies, from car launches to the Millennium Dome. This has opened up vast new areas of work. Together with a sharp increase in vocational training over the past 25 years, this now makes stage management a skilled workforce in a well-recognised profession with good job prospects.

Work–life challenges

Great, marvellous, let’s all go and be stage managers now! Whilst I would, of course, encourage everyone to go into stage management, as I think it is one of the best jobs in the world, there are a number of factors militating against it. The first is the pay, which is hardly commensurate in most cases with the skills and sheer hard work needed to do the job well, and with the responsibility it carries. Only a small number of producers translate their appreciation of the vital contribution stage management make into a decent salary or fee.

Second, it’s a 24/7 kind of job – when you’re working, there isn’t much space for anything else in your life. Whilst that’s fine and dandy when you’re footloose and fancy free, there frequently comes a point when even stage managers want to give at least part of their attention to something else – like a family, for instance. And, third, many, like myself ten years ago, reach the point when they feel they’ve been there and done that – and need a new and bigger challenge, maybe running the company, or the theatre, rather than the show.

Support on hand

The Stage Management Association (SMA), was founded in 1954 in order to put pressure on Equity to create dedicated stage management contracts. Whilst representation to other industry bodies is still one of its main functions, it soon started providing services, too, such as publishing the monthly ‘Freelist’ of members available for work, which has been going strong for over 30 years.

Other services added since include a magazine, information resources, a website with members’ area, training courses and networking opportunities. As well as supporting and representing, the SMA also promotes stage management within the industry and to the general public, providing careers advice and raising the profile of the profession. Our membership, as well as professionals, now includes others with an interest in stage management, from pupils to students, from amateurs to producers.

But the SMA is needed not just to guide into the profession and support those in it, but also to help them when they’re ready to move on – often about 10–15 years into their career, for one, or several, of the reasons outlined above. Given that the sector is constantly asking itself where the next generation of managers is to come from, arts management is an obvious step for stage managers. Surely, these supreme organisers and facilitators, with their excellent communication and people skills, their planning and negotiating ability, and their multi-tasking genius, make ideal general managers, producers, directors, chief executives?

Indeed they do. A few current examples are the General Manager of English Touring Theatre, the Executive Director of the Young Vic, the Chief Executive of the Wales Millennium Centre and Sir Cameron Mackintosh. In fact, the number of ex-stage managers running companies and theatres is legion. The million-dollar question is – how did they get where they are today from stage management? The answer, in most cases, is by luck or chance – having the right friends, at the right time, in the right place to give them a break and trust them to learn rapidly on the job.

Developing the profession

That process seemed rather arbitrary, to say the least, so in 2007 the SMA created a new network, Stage Managers for Managers, funded by the Cultural Leadership Programme, to find a way of making these opportunities available to all stage managers. Through a mixture of seminars, short training courses, action learning, mentors and work placements, 14 stage managers started to transform their careers. The pilot ends this summer, but the SMA will raise funding to run this programme again in 2009. Companies and theatres can become involved – for instance, through mentoring, offering a work placement or sponsoring a participant – by contacting the SMA. The response so far from the industry, from management associations, and companies and individuals has been fantastic.

And when you’re next recruiting, search those applicants’ CVs for stage management experience. What more could you possibly want in a future employee than someone with many years’ experience of performing and touring; of tuning into and facilitating artists’ visions; of working to tight budgets and immovable deadlines, and with superlative talent for keeping several balls in the air whilst being shot at from close range?