The scene was as dramatic, and perhaps more engrossing, as the one just finished on stage. The setting was HERE's American Living Room, an eight-week new work explosion with 14 programs, from the Directing Cabaret, containing three new works nightly, to the Performance Series, where solo shows premiere two at a time. In between was drama: How, in as little as 15 minutes, can the set for one show magically be transformed into the set for next show? It looks so easy, but it isn't.
Despite the fact that there's so much summertime festival theatre going on, playgoers are no more apt to notice set changes than they are at any other time of year. Like the best lighting design, the best stage management is quiet, unseen, hidden from view. Making it happen, however, takes coordination, common sense, and ingenuity.
"Even before getting involved with the American Living Room, I used to love watching scene changes," says Toni Marie Davis, the American Living Room's production manager. With credits that include being company manager for "Forbidden Broadway" and the production assistant on Broadway's "Uncle Vanya" and "Jane Eyre," Davis has seen quality stage management at its finest. Which is why she adds, "I'm also really picky when I watch scene changes. I want to see them organized—not just five people running around, but five people knowing what they're doing."
Davis supervises all production aspects of the American Living Room shows, and while she admits that sometimes she regrets knowing so much about the goings-on backstage—it "dispels a lot of the magic," she says—she takes solace in knowing how to help present that magic to audiences. It begins when each show in the series gets a "tech"—an opportunity to run through, in real time, all the thorny backstage issues related to the performance in order to identify any questions, quibbles, or quality-control issues.
"Then, once we're through tech, I work with the set designer to look at how the transition from one play to the next is working. Many times it depends on how many people we have in the show, on stage and off, who are available to move things around. I can look at a set change and tell someone to 'stand down center' because I can see that, in five seconds, someone is going to come through with some object and they need clearance. We have to be almost militaristic when you have so little time between shows."
The Directors Cabaret, she adds, does operate with one key advantage: Unlike many shows in the series, as a joint project with the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, "the shows have their own set designer, so when you have a night of three shows, the design process has been thought about with regard to all the works in that evening, as opposed to three shows happening together which have never spoken to each other except during the production meeting."
And even when the design and tech process isn't smooth—a condition she expects more than fears—Davis knows "you can always redesign where you have [set pieces] in the pre-set so a scene change that yesterday took 15 minutes now only takes five.
"After that," she says, "the hardest part is figuring out how much stuff a show has and where it goes. A rule of thumb is that when a show is over and you're changing from one set to another, you bring all the furniture down stage—then you move on whatever furniture is coming on—and then you have storage for what you broke down."
The Frenetics of Fringe
Whereas the American Living Room runs eight weeks and showcases 100 works in a few spaces at HERE, the New York International Fringe Festival programs 200 events into 21 venues over 16 days. It's a mad, often maddening compression of logistics that entails running up to six shows in each venue daily. Because shows are scheduled for both favorable and unfavorable performance times—say, a Friday at 8 pm and a Thursday at 1 pm—there's no way to perfect the "changeover" process from one show to another, a prospect that could, in theory, lead to madness of a different sort.
And yet, according to Krista Jean Robbins, the Fringe's production manager, the fact that there is "45 minutes between shows—15 minutes for one show to strike, then a little leeway for an audience to get in and out—and 15 minutes for a new show to come in and set up means that people have to work together."
The process begins when artists first submit their works to the Fringe. Along with their application, they must complete a "tech survey" that requires the applicant to estimate the running time of a show and any special physical requirements.
"Those surveys are everybody's bible," Robbins says. "If a show is going to have a lot of stuff on stage, obviously we try to get them into a bigger venue with more storage."
"But storage," points out Casey Kennedy, who serves as Robbins' assistant, "is a huge problem no matter what the venue is. The Fringe always has companies that, when they strike, have to put things under bleachers, if there's room, or in the bathroom—it's wherever they can find room."
"Which is why," Robbins concludes, "venue directors are in charge—they have to watch over the shows. In some ways, they are like traffic cops. And before that even happens, the venue director meets with the owner of the venue to learn the rules and regulations of the space. Then they meet with the participants to get the lines of communication open." Venue directors, Robbins points out, are only paid a stipend for a job that can involve a 16-hour day. Participants are encouraged—but not obligated—to tip the venue directors (between $20 and $200, typically), and in exchange for that, venue directors are incentivized to ensure that each show has a smooth changeover, especially as each piece will almost never come before or after the same show twice.
"Venue directing is an awfully challenging job," Robbins says, "but not an impossible one. And inevitably what happens is that once a show starts rehearsing, that knocks 15 to 20 minutes off the running time, and that can help transitions from show to show. We ask that anything that can be folded up and moved be moved quickly as soon as the show ends, since the company going up next is usually waiting to get their stuff on stage."
"Of course, when a company is truly professional," says Kennedy, "a 15-minute strike time isn't difficult, especially if the show uses a professional set designer, because that person will know what the limitations of the show are—and ideally will also know the limitations of the venue. Therefore, a set, or set pieces, can be designed so that they can be struck in the time they have. When a company doesn't have a staff, it can be very difficult, which is, again, why venue directors are so important—they'll have to hand-hold a lot and help the participants figure out how to strike fast."
In the end, Robbins and Kennedy say, it's all about thinking ahead and being prepared. "It's such a common mistake not to be prepared," says Kennedy. "And it's almost always the downfall of the shows that have the most problems in tech—where you don't have people to move things, where the actors aren't willing to help, where you end up with an actor just sort of standing there, not knowing what to do. It's like something I learned about the restaurant business: you never go back to the kitchen without something in your hand, whether it's an empty glass or a dirty tablecloth. A really good stage manager—which every show should have—will assign specific props to specific actors. And if a show really has team spirit—and they all should—changing from one show to another will not be a problem."