Saturday, November 28, 2009
For Stagedoor Manor Theater Camp Troupers, a Macy’s Parade
NYTimes.com: "It was 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, and 15 young children — mostly of Macy’s employees — were decked out in red-and-green elf costumes on Central Park West, where the floats were queued for the annual Macy’s parade. Also on hand were 20 teenage actors with Stagedoor Manor, a Catskills theater camp, who had spent four days in rehearsal to ride the float and perform in the parade for the first time."
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6 comments:
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parage is always facinating to me. I've always wanted to know how groups are chosen to perform etc. It is clearly all very political. the fact that 15 macy's kids showed up that morning is an illustration of this. But as the actor said, its live theatre, you have to go with the flow. The stagedoor kids seemed very elloquent and poised. They did a good job in the parade too :)
I agree that theatre is a live presentation and commend actors and technicians when they are able to handle surprises and changes with elegance like the stagedoor actors. It also helps to have plenty of preparation before-hand. Simply because actors are able to adapt to changes does not mean that we should forget important aspects of planning and assume that they will be able to handle it. This instance, however, was successful, and I enjoyed the performance in the Macy's Parade.
Stagedoor Manor is a complete joke. I went there for one summer and the while the level of talent is indeed high, the level of training and craftsmanship is tragic. It's not that it's summer stock, it's that it creates an army of self-centered actors who, unless they adopt a new tone and behavior, are bound to piss off anyone they work with. Elitist behavior is the very root of theatre. But I find that shows end up the best when everyone is on the same page. EVERYONE from the costume run crew to the leading lady. Everyone is needed for a successful show and if a rift exists between the actors and their crew, all is doomed. I wish that places like this actually tried to mold a new generation of actors who don't come off like Hannah Montana, a generation of actors who don't go into acting to have their faces on every magazine and their looks are first before their talent. Alas this will probably never happen. Until then Stagedoor Manor should be held responsible for promoting every horrible child actor in the country.
PS I know some very good actors went here and I am not saying that everyone there is snotty and stuck-up, just a HUGE majority of them.
Not to be that guy, but one of my good friends from camp happened to be in this performance. That is what led me to this article. However, that aside, I am struck by the amount of work and coordination a parade such as this must take to create. Never mind the fact that this essentially shuts down one of the worlds biggest cities for a half a day, but there are hundreds of thousands of people involved. I imagine production meetings for this are quite involved. Every time we complain about how hard it is to coordinate shows that we are working on, we should take a look at productions of this caliber.
Watching the parade on Thursday, I remember being impressed by the quality of the work that the Stagedoor performers showed. It is made even more impressive when you learn that they learned the choreography in 4 days. On a much larger scale, coordinating the parade must be a huge undertaking. You have to work with the Macy's officials, the production staff and work around NBC's broadcast needs and requirements, because even though it is a live show, the parade is designed for TV audiences. As we see from award shows like the Tony's live theatrical performances and live broadcasts don't always mix well. Nice job to the production team, NBC and Macy's on a well produced and performed Thanksgiving tradition
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