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Monday, March 14, 2022
Stage Manager Stories: Michael J. Passaro, MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL
www.broadwayworld.com: Need a cue? Call a stage manager. Need a line? Call a stage manager. Need a day off? Call a stage manager. Need a call time, a schedule, an inspection, a to-do list, a floor plan, a script, or just a pep talk? Call a stage manager!
I love when stage management articles come up, it is what I live for. And when I get to write a news quiz comment about it, it is like a little treat. Even just the introduction for Passaro was impressive. Passaro’s resume is something I can only hope to achieve in my lifetime. He has worked on four productions of this show and that is so wild to me. To have such an intimate knowledge of one show as a stage manager would be crazy, I wonder if it would become muscle memory at some point. I really appreciated that he gave gratitude to his entire team because management is a hard job and takes a lot of people to keep the production above water. The entire section about Passaro’s work on The Testament of Mary was also very eye-opening. Everything that the actress would tell Passaro about how they were acting partners is something that I had never considered and I think it is definitely one of the things that draws me to stage management so much. I am so excited to see what the rest of the stage manager features are and I hope I get to write another comment about it.
I honestly have such a great love for stage managers. I feel like people love to focus on the designers and their crazy ideas and art that they make. And while stage managers put in a different kind of effort, they still put in the same amount of insane work. They really are a jack of all trades as the article says. Like Passaro says there is so much more to management than just calling the cue. Something really interesting that he mentioned was the one person show that he managed. In that situation there were so many cues and just one actor so they really had to work together. Here the stage manager was described as an acting partner. I honestly think this is true in almost all cases. The stage manager has to interact and anticipate with the actors onstage just like any other scene partner, so that they can get the cues at appropriate times. Stage managers are such an underrated role.
I really appreciated the how accurately this article was able to encompass a general overview of what it is like to be a stage manager. As someone who is studying stage and production management, I really enjoyed reading the interviewee’s responses as I resonated with their perspective of what it means to be a stage manager. This is especially true when he discussed how stage management is not just about cues or paperwork, but that the title “is an umbrella of positions” that involve every aspect of the theater and who’s inside it. Whenever I see a production on Broadway, I am always so curious about how the management team is formatted and what is going on behind the scenes. More specifically, I am fascinated by how problems are solved and how it is determined who calls the show every night. When I saw Moulin Rouge! The Musical, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated how many cues there were and how much scenery needed to be moved all the time.
As someone who has never had proper experience as a stage manager, I am very intrigued by the role and definitely has huge respects for state managers. From my experience working in theatres and live shows, I know that a lot of the times stage managing is more about dealing with emergencies or spontaneous incidents that were not part of the plan. I think a lot of the advices Passaro has offered in the article is usually and can definitely be applied beyond stage management. While reading, I was kind of confused by what he meant with managing the whole building for Moulin Rouge!, so I did a little Google search and realised that the nature of the design adds extra workload automatically, but it is definitely worth it! And with the pandemic, we have begun to see many other forms of theatre, so the job of the stage manager will continuously be challenged, altered and shifting to fit the new performance and design style. Although this could be very challenging, I think it is always rewarding when a team of theatre lovers gather to find solutions and provide the best experiences for the audience.
4 comments:
I love when stage management articles come up, it is what I live for. And when I get to write a news quiz comment about it, it is like a little treat. Even just the introduction for Passaro was impressive. Passaro’s resume is something I can only hope to achieve in my lifetime. He has worked on four productions of this show and that is so wild to me. To have such an intimate knowledge of one show as a stage manager would be crazy, I wonder if it would become muscle memory at some point. I really appreciated that he gave gratitude to his entire team because management is a hard job and takes a lot of people to keep the production above water. The entire section about Passaro’s work on The Testament of Mary was also very eye-opening. Everything that the actress would tell Passaro about how they were acting partners is something that I had never considered and I think it is definitely one of the things that draws me to stage management so much. I am so excited to see what the rest of the stage manager features are and I hope I get to write another comment about it.
I honestly have such a great love for stage managers. I feel like people love to focus on the designers and their crazy ideas and art that they make. And while stage managers put in a different kind of effort, they still put in the same amount of insane work. They really are a jack of all trades as the article says. Like Passaro says there is so much more to management than just calling the cue. Something really interesting that he mentioned was the one person show that he managed. In that situation there were so many cues and just one actor so they really had to work together. Here the stage manager was described as an acting partner. I honestly think this is true in almost all cases. The stage manager has to interact and anticipate with the actors onstage just like any other scene partner, so that they can get the cues at appropriate times. Stage managers are such an underrated role.
I really appreciated the how accurately this article was able to encompass a general overview of what it is like to be a stage manager. As someone who is studying stage and production management, I really enjoyed reading the interviewee’s responses as I resonated with their perspective of what it means to be a stage manager. This is especially true when he discussed how stage management is not just about cues or paperwork, but that the title “is an umbrella of positions” that involve every aspect of the theater and who’s inside it. Whenever I see a production on Broadway, I am always so curious about how the management team is formatted and what is going on behind the scenes. More specifically, I am fascinated by how problems are solved and how it is determined who calls the show every night. When I saw Moulin Rouge! The Musical, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated how many cues there were and how much scenery needed to be moved all the time.
As someone who has never had proper experience as a stage manager, I am very intrigued by the role and definitely has huge respects for state managers. From my experience working in theatres and live shows, I know that a lot of the times stage managing is more about dealing with emergencies or spontaneous incidents that were not part of the plan. I think a lot of the advices Passaro has offered in the article is usually and can definitely be applied beyond stage management. While reading, I was kind of confused by what he meant with managing the whole building for Moulin Rouge!, so I did a little Google search and realised that the nature of the design adds extra workload automatically, but it is definitely worth it! And with the pandemic, we have begun to see many other forms of theatre, so the job of the stage manager will continuously be challenged, altered and shifting to fit the new performance and design style. Although this could be very challenging, I think it is always rewarding when a team of theatre lovers gather to find solutions and provide the best experiences for the audience.
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