I was working on a show earlier this semester outside of the department, and something striked me and I haven't been able to let it go.
The SM was becoming more and more frustrated because the director wasn't happy with how the sound or lighting was being executed during the final few dress rehearsals, and he was taking his anger out on the SM, who isn't very tech savvy, and was the only one running both the sound and light board. She said she would put the director's problems in the rehearsal reports. She would then proceed to bad mouth her team when the notes weren't accomplished by the next day, and the director would continue to voice his problems to the SM. Yes, it's not the SM's job to reprogram the light board or alter a sound cue, but it is her job to communicate her problems to the designers and get a response from them. To send one email and then wait 24 hours til the next rehearsal without a response, I think, is unexceptionable. Even more unexceptionable is to then bad mouth your team for not checking their email constantly. What I think both failed to realize was that the team was working as hard as they could with the time they had. They all had 9-5 jobs, and rehearsal would start at 6, so by the time the designers could come in to start their notes, we'd already be starting the run.
To fix this, if I was the SM, I would've been on the phone with the designers after the rehearsal to see if they could walk me through how to fix the problems. Or try to schedule a production meeting. I don't think any of the designers were ever in the same space at the same time, which led to the downfall of the communication.
Working with the company was a little hard in that I was the youngest on the backstage team by 20-40 years. Trying to explain why something wasn't working, or trying to come up with a solution and talking through the process was difficult, and I could see the SM beginning to shut down. Something as little as a light cue taking too long to come up would stress her out. Neither of us knew how to program or change the light board, the lighting designer was out of state, and she didn't know what to do until I suggested hitting GO earlier...
The SM was becoming more and more frustrated because the director wasn't happy with how the sound or lighting was being executed during the final few dress rehearsals, and he was taking his anger out on the SM, who isn't very tech savvy, and was the only one running both the sound and light board. She said she would put the director's problems in the rehearsal reports. She would then proceed to bad mouth her team when the notes weren't accomplished by the next day, and the director would continue to voice his problems to the SM. Yes, it's not the SM's job to reprogram the light board or alter a sound cue, but it is her job to communicate her problems to the designers and get a response from them. To send one email and then wait 24 hours til the next rehearsal without a response, I think, is unexceptionable. Even more unexceptionable is to then bad mouth your team for not checking their email constantly. What I think both failed to realize was that the team was working as hard as they could with the time they had. They all had 9-5 jobs, and rehearsal would start at 6, so by the time the designers could come in to start their notes, we'd already be starting the run.
To fix this, if I was the SM, I would've been on the phone with the designers after the rehearsal to see if they could walk me through how to fix the problems. Or try to schedule a production meeting. I don't think any of the designers were ever in the same space at the same time, which led to the downfall of the communication.
Working with the company was a little hard in that I was the youngest on the backstage team by 20-40 years. Trying to explain why something wasn't working, or trying to come up with a solution and talking through the process was difficult, and I could see the SM beginning to shut down. Something as little as a light cue taking too long to come up would stress her out. Neither of us knew how to program or change the light board, the lighting designer was out of state, and she didn't know what to do until I suggested hitting GO earlier...
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