Stage Management, 11th Edition

1 Making Things Run Smoothly

Stage managing is like riding a bicycle. If you don’t keep moving, you fall down. —Elbin Cleveland

 

The cast, staff and crew of live theatre work together toward a common goal: a good performance. Theatre is necessarily a group effort in professional, amateur and educational theatre. It is a collaborative effort. However, it is never a group effort of vague fellow committee members, but of associated autocrats: a playwright, a producer, a director, a stage manager, designers and, above all, actors. Each accommodates the other and may overlap others in function when necessary, considering the variety of differing conditions for each show and every kind and level of theatre. But each autocrat assumes distinct responsibilities ...