Production Stage Management
An introduction to stage management for academic and professional theatre. This project-oriented course provides students with a survey of techniques and strategies aimed at modeling successful stage management. Students will gain hands-on experience by working in stage management in the Departments performance spaces.
Moon Over Buffalo
This work is from a non-realized production of Moon Over Buffalo for the Stage Management for Theatre class at Southwestern University. For this mock-production, I created a production analysis and character/page breakdown. To show a sample of blocking notation, we wrote the blocking from a Southwestern performance from 2015 shown at the bottom of this page.Sample Production Analysis
| Act Sc., P. | Cast/Costume | Set | Lights | Props | Sound | Special Effects | Special Notes |
| I/p.1 | George, 50s- Cyrano Small company members playing the other parts in 1640 battle costumes | Seige of Arras in 1640 in a battle | Lights come up with actors in silhouette | Tattered flags Musket and cannons Swords | Musket and cannon sounds Cries of a battle | Smoke | |
| 1/p.2 | Works lights on, then back to battle lights | Battle music stops, then resumes Horse and Carriage from offstage | |||||
| I/p.3 | Charlotte, 50s, enters as Roxane, she exits Ethel, 70s, enters in 1950's clothes | Basket of fruit, break, wine, chicken | Horse Whinnies | ||||
| I/p.4 | All exit but Ethel | Scene shifts to the green room, has chaise, large pouffe, esay chair, door to street, 3 doors to backstage, and utility closet | Shift to green room lighting | Theatre posters and other theatre things | battle sounds stop | ||
| I/p.5 | Roz, 30's, enters from street, modern 50s clothes | Roz suitcase | |||||
| I/p.8 | Ethel exits Howard, 20s, enters from street, modern 50s clothes | Knock at door | |||||
| I/p.12 | Roz exits | Cyrano hat in room | |||||
| I/p.13 | George enters, still in Cyrano costume Charlotte enters, also in Cyrano costume | Cyrano nose Two swords | May need sword training |
Sample Character/Page Breakdown
| Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| George | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Charlotte | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
| Roz | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||
| Howard | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||||
| Paul | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ethel | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||||
| Richard | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eileen |
Sample of Blocking Notation and Cue Calling Script
I did not create blocking notes for Moon Over Buffalo as there was no show to record blocking on. Instead, the class recorded the blocking for a performance done by the Mask and Wig organization for the annual Sing! competition. Below are some pages from the performance showing my notes for blocking and cues.
