Performance Diary: 'Follies,' Part 2

by Kirk Woodward

[In his account of the work on the Gas Lamp Players’ production of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies, Kirk picks up where he left off in Part 1 of his “Performance Diary”: in the middle of the rehearsal period.  Kirk will take us through the final dress rehearsal to opening night and the short performance run.

[If you haven’t read Part 1, posted on 15 December, I suggest readers go back and pick that up before reading Part 2, below.  Kirk has been presenting a day-by-day chronicle of the progress of the show and without his commentary from the beginning, you will have missed the build-up.]

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – There are some rehearsals you just have to have, whether you want to or not. What I am going to write here should not be taken in the slightest as a criticism of the creative team of our Follies production. I think they’re splendid and doing a fine job. But a production has to work with what it has – including its schedule.

Tonight was a “stumble-through” of Act 1, which is basically a series of vignettes at a party, meaning that its focus frequently changes, while movements occur around the main events that seem to be random (they are not). It was the first time we’d tried to play the act from beginning to end.

The central story, about four characters, is played by eight actors, and that fact in itself demonstrates the complexities of the script (the additional four actors are younger versions of the “present day” characters). 

I have written before in this blog about my conviction that any part of the rehearsal process should have a single focus [see, for example, “Performance Diary, Part 2,” 28 August 2024: “I still feel that a director should define for the cast a single, definite purpose for each rehearsal, or for each run through . . . .”] – in particular, when something new like, say, stage lighting is introduced at a particular rehearsal, that should be the focus, and the actors should be told to concentrate on that and not worry much about acting (which nevertheless will happen, usually effectively, because the pressure is off).

[In “A Directing Experience, Part 1” (13 October 2023), in which Kirk explains this principle as applied by the director he was assisting: “One important directing technique, which I have come to strongly endorse, is that he tried to give goals for each rehearsal. This communication practice frees actors to concentrate on a few specific things, and in the process, everything else is likely to improve as well.”  ~Rick]

Tonight, though, was full of new items, and the result was predictable. Among tonight’s major “firsts” were:

We had a pianist for the first time – previously we had been moving and singing to recordings of previous productions. As far as I could tell, the pianist, who I have the impression will eventually be quite good, was unfamiliar with the score, which, being a Sondheim score, has plenty of complexities. He made his way through the score, but often what he played was unrecognizable.

We also had a musical director present for the first time, but since none of us had worked with him before, he had no idea of what the actors might want in the way of accompaniment, and he spent most of his time either indicating a tempo that might or might not work with the song, or turning pages.

We were in a new space – the cafeteria of the high school. The stage was marked out by tape on the floor, so we could tell how small the playing area is, but being in a big room gave the feeling of spaciousness. Next week the small size of the performance space will be a shock, even if intellectually we know the dimensions of the set.

The act was being put together for the second time, so many were unsure of their cues for entrances and exits (including me). Not everyone was completely “off book” with their lines entirely memorized (I was, but I have very few lines), and, again, the singers in particular were suddenly singing against musical backgrounds that were entirely new to them.

So we worked our way through the act, and it was necessary and useful to see how all the separately rehearsed pieces fit together, but there was a lot of confusion and little sense of performance – how could there be? As an example, Janet Aldrich, a powerhouse singer, made a huge impression singing “I’m Still Here,” but she had to call for lyrics twice and was being coached on movement while she sang, a reflection of how muddled things were.

At this point it doesn’t seem to me that the central story of the musical is clearly told – not that the authors have helped much with that problem. A friend told me that she had talked to a film director recently who said, “I tell the actors, you can do this or you can do that, but you have to do this, because if you don’t, the story doesn’t get across.”

That, it seems to me, is the crux of the matter – a director is always trying to answer the question, “How can the story best be told?” I don’t doubt that Kristy and Susan are aware of this.

And it’s foolish to judge a production based on rehearsals. We have almost two weeks until opening, nine full rehearsals, and as my friend also pointed out, we don’t have any of the “wizardry” in place yet – lights, amplification, orchestra, costumes, and so on.

At this point there’s also no coherent sense of style about the production, but the same point applies – there’s a long way to go, and we have good people in charge of the process. So, onward! Act II tomorrow night!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – Act II is less complicated than Act I as far as staging goes. Basically, after a brief argument among the leading couples, a kind of “Follies” called “Loveland” begins, and a series of brilliant songs takes ironic looks at the couples’ troubles.

I wrote last night about difficulties in telling the story of the show, but tonight the principals seemed to have that under control, so that’s good. We worked our way through the act; two of the male principals, for various reasons, are still using their scripts, but I doubt that anyone is worried about either of them. The teen company of dancers and actors is terrific, and so were several of the numbers tonight.

We eight men did our dance to baffled applause. Deshja Driggs, an extraordinarily talented performer who sings the lead in the song, eyed the solid floor of the cafeteria warily as she considered how safe our lifting her into the air could possibly be (I’m not one of the lifters, thank heaven), but her life was spared, at least for tonight.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13 – I arrived a little early (always a good idea – maybe even an imperative) while some scene work was going on, and Susan, the director, came over and told me that her husband, who has been playing the second male lead, has got a role in another major show.

He’ll be “swing,” a form of understudy, for a production that starts rehearsals next Tuesday. Obviously he can’t be in our show, and Susan and Kristy were interviewing a replacement when I arrived. Susan asked me not to tell anyone else, and I said, “Tell them what?”

I was complimented twice tonight on my opening speech. Of course that was before rehearsal; I hope they feel the same about it now.

When our rehearsal began, Kristy fine-tuned parts of the opening scene, and it’s now clearer and more fun. She really is a very good director. Then the cast separated for detailed work on three smaller scenes, and finally we eight male “dancers” worked out the glitches in our number until I thought my feet would fall off, especially my right one.

A note to directors: actors are not pleased if a director, having looked elsewhere, tells them that they ought to do something they just did. Much better to ask “Did you . . ." or “Were you able to . . .? I couldn’t see.”

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – In our performance space (the Glen Ridge, NJ Women’s Club) for the first time as a cast. It’s a lovely auditorium; the stage is definitely smaller than one would imagine (I think that was true for all of us), and tonight’s rehearsal was basically dedicated to adjusting our movements to the new conditions.

The set is basically in place. There are three stage curtains at the back of the stage (“upstage”), each gathered together in the middle so the back of the wall – a theater wall, appropriate for the show! – is visible. There’s a three-level staircase, not walled in but “skeletal,” a smaller platform on the other side of the stage, and that’s it. Properly lit (we had a few stage lights already), it’s lovely.

We needed to make many adjustments to the staging in the new space, there were basically four people making the changes (two directors, the choreographer, and the musical director), and both time and patience ran short as the evening went on. (Talent is important, but patience is one of the greatest theatrical virtues.)

Our dance comes toward the end of the show, and therefore of the rehearsal as well. There were questions about its ending, lots of conversation, no decision yet . . . .

That’s when I left, because my right foot, never sturdy because of two falls on ice over the years, pretty much gave way when I twice stepped clumsily on stairs. I was limping, it’s really sore, and I need to do my best to get it in shape for the rehearsal tomorrow night.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – Although I hadn’t broadcast my hurt foot, I hadn’t kept it a secret either, and when I arrived early for rehearsal tonight Susan was solicitous, asking if I wanted to stay in the number (I did) or if I’d rather get out (I wouldn’t), although she said it would be a loss because I’m so adorable in the dance, which I’m afraid means . . . well, you can figure it out.

The actor replacing Tony in the role of Buddy was working with Kristy, Susan, and the pianist when I arrived. He looks and sounds great but doesn’t read music, so I know what he’ll be doing this weekend, or at least I expect so – listening to performances of the show over and over.

We eight male “dancers” got together to find that Emily didn’t plan to work with us, which caused some grumbling, since the very end of the routine hadn’t been staged. However, we did get her for about 20 minutes; she didn’t have anything planned but by the time she went in to work with the new Buddy there was an ending in place.

I made it clear at the start of our work that my foot was in bad shape, but I was able to do the whole rehearsal, although I didn’t push it. Our next rehearsal will be Monday night in the performance space; it’ll be a technical rehearsal, settling light cues, microphones and sound cues, costumes, and so on, and considering the size and shape of the show it’s likely to be a long and grueling evening. We shall see.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – Not a rehearsal, but a performance of the musical “Singin’ in the Rain Jr.” by Gas Lamp’s junior high school cast. (The original movie was released in 1952, the adaptation for the stage first opened in London in 1983.) It was quite impressive – close to 90 children, every one aware of what they had to do, and several exceptional voices. A good omen, I hope!

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18 – All right, class, write one hundred times, “I will not judge the show by a rehearsal.” Tonight was a technical rehearsal and those can be expected to be rough. Lights, sound, a full set, costumes . . . all new. I had managed to pull together a full tuxedo, which I’ll wear through the whole show.

The night was extremely ragged, and when we had to stop at 10 PM we weren’t quite finished with the first act. That in itself isn’t a problem; the second act, which we’ll tackle in the same way tomorrow night, is shorter and less fragmented.

My foot behaved itself, and Susan told me I was “a breath of fresh air” because “you’re so confident.” She may say the same thing to everyone for all I know, but many if not all actors thrive on praise. The music is still under-rehearsed, with some not at all helpful tempos. There was no way to evaluate the acting, which has little chance in a technical rehearsal.

There was a nice feeling of camaraderie among the cast, I thought. People seem to be having fun for the most part. “It’s such a big show,” Susan said tonight.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – I told you they were smart! We left rehearsal last night planning for a 6:30 arrival time tonight for rehearsal. Today we got an email giving specific times for groups of people between 6:30 and 7:30, with the rest of the cast arriving at 7:30.

Deduction: as I wrote yesterday, the music still needs to be settled down, and the orchestra (14 altogether!) will be there tonight, so the first rehearsal hour will be spent getting the singing and the accompaniment together. Once again, the creative team is looking at what’s most important to accomplish, and putting that first. Good for them!

I was wrong, or at least I think I was. When I arrived there were a few musicians tootling (actually only half the orchestra, the students; the rest arrive tomorrow night), actors hanging around, not much sign that anything important was happening.

Eventually we got started, picking up where we left off last night. Basically the two nights went the same: with numerous stops to set or fix things, a few actors holding scripts (including our Buddy, who of course is new) or unsure of lines . . . I kept thinking of the theatrical proverb “No matter how long you rehearse, you always need two more weeks.”

In particular I’m not sure about the musical part of the show. Some of the tempos strike me as off, usually too slow; there are clunker notes, and for several songs in this particular show, the orchestra needs to accompany the singer as they sing, not lead them – no matter how difficult this may be. It can be done, but so far, in our production, it only happens sporadically.

I added to the fun by stepping badly again in the same spot I did the other night, a setback to my ability to move. Susan was solicitous, had me put my foot up, gave me some Advil, and I was able to dance in our number, probably making no more than five major mistakes.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – The first of two full run-throughs in costume, with orchestra (complete and playing together for the first time), lights, sound, and no stops – except during “Who’s That Woman,” the most complex number in the show, where the orchestra lost track of the sudden tempo shifts.

I thought the evening as a whole did what it needed to do. Tomorrow night the transitions between scenes should be tighter, Buddy should be more secure on his song lyrics, and the cast’s main focus should be able to be on the show rather than on the technical elements.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – Final dress rehearsal, better than yesterday, the orchestra much improved. The run through wasn’t perfect, but the glitches were either song lyrics or the occasional transition. I also understand that ticket sales are good so far. I wasn’t good, particularly in the dance, but it wasn’t entirely my fault, I beefed to Emily about the spacing at the start of our number, and she said she’ll work with the dance tomorrow at 7.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, OPENING NIGHT! – I was irritated about how I was handling the short scenes where I have lines. My daughter Heather said something I agree with: she said that a monolog is easier to handle on stage than a short scene with only a line or two in it, because a monolog has a context, while a short scene can seem to pop up out of nowhere, and in Follies that’s the way they seem to me.

So I rewrote my cheat sheet of cues and lines to clarify the sequences, and spent time reviewing it, and that helped. On to the opening performance! The house was full, maybe a hundred or so people. The orchestra regressed a bit from last night, I thought; I suppose musicians get nervous like anyone else.

The audience was enthusiastic and the show can be declared a success. The people I know who saw it felt that the story was clear, and they were impressed with various things including the general talent level, the scale of the production, and of course the score of the show.

Several people I know felt that the book of the musical was problematic. I agree – it’s really an avant-garde musical masquerading as a typical Broadway show, and it seems determined to make the audience’s experience a difficult one.

My choreographer friend Colleen liked the choreography; the general feeling seems to be that the problems with the production were largely technical (some sound glitches) and orchestral.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – A two show day, one at 2 PM and one at 8 PM. Feeling that my scenes were finally under control, I spent time on two parts of the dance number that I never seemed to get right, and ended up fairly confident about them.

The afternoon show, the matinee, was splendid, with the orchestra far more together again and the performances filled with an energy that had not been there before.

Our dance, I am happy to report, was quite good, and I basically did well. A friend said to me last night, “You don’t have to worry about how the men look anyway; Deshja is so good that no one’s paying any attention to you anyway.” She really is wonderful in her role; all the principal actors are excellent, and the singing is on a high level throughout the show.

There was one incident in our dance number: one of the dancers dropped his cane, stooped to retrieve it, and missed the second “lift” of the number, when Deshja is carried from the front to the rear of the stage. However, another member of the group, seeing the problem, immediately stepped in and helped carry her, so the number proceeded safely.

The evening show wasn’t as good, for two reasons that I can identify: everyone was tired (two big shows in a day is a lot), and we probably tried to repeat the good points of the afternoon show. Trying to recreate what happened last time almost never works. The audience was pleasant but not boisterous. However, I think they still got a good show.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24 – Another big crowd for our final performance of Follies, a performance that may not have matched the spirit of yesterday’s matinee but was nevertheless fine, and our dance number finally worked the way we wanted it to.

I was so tired that I actually felt myself momentarily fall asleep at one moment in the first act while I was sitting backstage. As a result I didn’t go to the cast party that followed a brief “strike” where everything was put away; wherever I tried to help, someone beat me to it, so I finally just went home.

A few observations:

This diary illustrates something that beginning directors need to know: directing a play is not the same activity as directing a musical. A play is an artistic activity of which you are the leader. A musical is less like a play than a military operation, with intensive strategic planning, a staff, orders, placement of troops, discipline, and so on. Musicals take extensive planning. Someone must do it.

In this case the creative staff (I’m told they called themselves the “Dream Team,” and they’ve worked together on several shows) simply are first rate. They seemed to work together seamlessly, they at least visibly stay calm, and they know their stuff.

The football coach Lou Holtz (b. 1937) used to tell his teams to expect at least three times in a season when things would look bad for them. They shouldn’t be alarmed, he said; these things happen.

This production of Follies was a succession of difficulties and successes. This, it seems to me, is true of theater in general, and in life too, I suppose. Patience, as I said above, is an important theatrical virtue.

Theater has the advantage of aiming for a specific goal: the production will open on this date, regardless of how rehearsals are going. If the date has to be changed, it’s still a date, and if the production has to fold without opening, well, at least it was aiming for a date until it didn’t have one.

So in theater, which is more important, what the show is like when it opens, or how it gets to that point? There are arguments for both “process” and “product,” and they don’t necessarily conflict with each other.

Old-timers – I mean through around the nineteenth century – might have firmly said, “Theater is about what the audience gets, and that’s that.” On the other hand, many directors today, including me, would say that the nature of the rehearsal process is crucial to the success of a play. (A few directors don’t even aim to present their productions, only to work on the material. To each their own, but I don’t feel that way.)

An example of process: as I reported, as far as I know we plunged right into staging numbers at the beginning of rehearsals. Looking back, I think it would have been valuable to have had a sit-down readthrough of the show, maybe just talking through the songs, so the director could frame how the story was to be told, suggest some atmosphere, talk about the theme of the show and how it would affect the staging, and so on.

Like any work of art, a production of a musical is really a projection of the imagination, and early group work would help to have the cast sensing and feeling the same things.

On the other hand, most of my evaluations of how things were going turned out to be wrong, so maybe the lesson is that people in a show are poor judges of how things are going – or at least that I am.

The creative team demonstrated that they could be trusted. I will miss being around that skilled, stimulating group of people. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if I weren’t the only person to be inspired by their highly professional work ethic to do a little better myself next time I’m working on a show. I hope so.

[Just a reminder for readers who are just finding Rick On Theater and have enjoyed Kirk’s account if his work in this production: Kirk has written two previous pieces based on his journal entries about working in theater, “Performance Diary, Part 1” (25 August 2024) and “Performance Diary, Part 2” (28 August 2024).  I recommend giving them a read.]

Performance Diary: 'Follies,' Part 1

by Kirk Woodward 

[In a continuation of his August posts on Rick On Theater, “Performance Diary, Part 1” (25 August 2024) and “Performance Diary, Part 2” (28 August 2024), Kirk Woodward, a prolific contributor to this blog (133 posts and counting), returns with a two-part contribution on his participation as a cast member of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies. This production was mounted by the Gas Lamp Players of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, a non-profit community theater founded in 2007.

[Follies ran on Broadway from 1971 to 1972, after which there were many regional and international premières and revivals.  Because the musical’s book was problematic, there were many efforts to revise it for several of the post-Broadway stagings.  Even though the score was praised and even beloved, Sondheim wrote new numbers and revised some of the original ones. 

[The script that Gas Lamp used, rented from Music Theatre International, the rights-holder, was the one developed for the London première, which ran 21 July 1987-4 February 1989 (644 performances) at the Shaftesbury Theatre in the West End, London’s theater district.

[Goldman rewrote his Broadway libretto extensively for producer Cameron Mackintosh (b. 1946), and Sondheim also wrote some new numbers and rewrote some others.  The London production was directed by Mike Ockrent (1946-99) and choreographed by Bob Avian (1937-2021).

[According to Wikipedia, “‘. . . The (London) Times described the evening as “a wonderful idea for a show which has failed to grow into a story.”’  The Times critic Irving Wardle stated ‘It is not much of a story, and whatever possibilities it may have had in theory are scuppered by James Goldman’s book . . . a blend of lifeless small-talk, bitching and dreadful gags.’” (‘Scupper’ is a mostly British synonym for ‘thwart,’ ‘destroy,’ or ‘scuttle.’)

[Glen Ridge, a bedroom community of New York City, is in New Jersey’s Essex County, about 60 miles and an hour-and-a-quarter drive or train ride—west of the city.  From my experience and observation, Essex County has an exceptional number of performance venues and theater companies, both professional and community-oriented.  One might even say that it’s a little theater-mad, so there’s a lot of theater activity and interest thereabouts.  In addition to the adult shows it produces, Gas Lamp also has many other programs and activities for its supporters. 

[The troupe’s Follies was presented at the Women’s Club of Glen Ridge on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 22, 23, and 24 November (with two shows on Saturday).  Auditions for the production, as you’ll read, were held at the auditorium of Glen Ridge’s Ridgewood Avenue School on the evening of Monday, 23 September, with callbacks for teens on the 27th and adults on the 25th and 27th. 

[The company rehearsed on Monday through Thursday evenings, starting with the first meeting of the cast on Monday, 30 September.  The final dress rehearsal was on Thursday, 21 November, with the opening performance on the 22nd.  Kirk takes us through the whole proceedings, from audition to rehearsals to performance, making observations along the way, all drawn from his years of experience as an actor, director, composer-lyricist, dramatist, and teacher.]

Recently on this blog I posted an account of several events in the arts in which I participated (see “Performance Diary, Part 1” and “Performance Diary, Part 2”). My hope is that readers not in the arts might find an inside look into theater work to be interesting, and that those in the arts – well, we love telling each other what we’ve been through. In that spirit, here’s an account of an event that followed those in the previous articles.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – Walking through an arts exhibit with two friends, one of them, Susan Knight Carlin, mentioned that she was about to direct a production of the musical Follies for a local theater group, the Gas Lamp Players of Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She asked if I might be interested in auditioning for a small role, and I said I was.

Follies, for those not familiar with it, is a 1971 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) and a book by James Goldman (1927-1998) about a reunion of former members of a series of revues like the famous Ziegfeld Follies of the first part of the Twentieth Century.

The theater building that housed the show’s Follies in the years between World Wars One and Two is about to be torn down, and the reunion brings together many of the stars of those years. In the course of the musical we learn what has happened to those stars since the Follies ended, and see them face revelations about themselves.

Follies first opened on Broadway on April 4, 1971 (the year in which the show is set), and ran until July 1,1972 for a total of 12 previews and 522 performances, a significant number, but its enormous expenses meant it wound up losing all its investment. Its score is generally considered a treasure, with Sondheim capturing the flavor of many styles of songs from the Twenties and Thirties in brilliant fashion. (Among other awards and nominations, the premiere won the Tony for Best Original Score in 1972 and the 1971 Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics.)

The “book” or script of the musical, on the other hand, has frequently been considered problematic, and Goldman tinkered with it for several revivals of the show. Its central concept, regardless, is remarkable: each of the “original” Follies characters is shadowed by a version of their younger selves, who contrast and eventually interact with them. The show has been revived in major productions several times, often with rewrites to the book. (Despite the book’s problems, Goldman was nominated for 1972’s Tony for Best Book of a Musical.)

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – As it turned out, the audition Susan described was the following night, and I couldn’t go, so using my phone I taped a video of myself singing the Gershwin song “Love Is Here To Stay” to my own piano accompaniment, and emailed it to the theater, attaching my acting resume, which I hadn’t looked at in a while and which was much shorter than I’d remembered.

I was invited to a callback night, and I was available for it, so I went to the school auditorium where the company customarily works. I knew a few people there; most were strangers. Susan spoke briefly, but the evening was primarily led by the pianist for the evening, a woman named Kristy Graves, and I wondered if there was some kind of competition between the two, since Susan had told me she was the director.

I read for two characters, in very short scenes – the musical is mostly music, with relatively few extended spoken sections. I was pleased not to be too anxious about the audition – “audition nerves” are common – and I actually got a laugh on one line reading, which pleased me no end.

A day or so later I was offered the role of Dimitri Weismann, the producer of the long-gone Follies and organizer of the reunion that makes up the show. It’s a small part and a well-written one. I accepted the offer by email and was impressed by the efficiency and organization shown by Gas Lamp’s communications. They left few questions to ask; mailings included a contract and a first week rehearsal schedule, all professionally presented. A good sign.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – First rehearsal. Some productions of musicals begin with a read-through of the script, but the script of Follies is hardly the focus of the show, so we didn’t. The school auditorium where we’ll usually be rehearsing is enormous, something like 800 seats, and I felt intimidated as I entered. Once more I knew only a few people in the room, and I got the feeling that others were in the same shape.

We began with an introductory talk, mostly details about organization. I realized the answer to my curiosity about direction – Kristy introduced herself and Susan as co-directors, because Kristy was also going to play an important role in the show, and it’s difficult (and usually not a good idea) to direct oneself. Susan, a professional actor herself (as was Kristy), would work mostly on acting issues. (Kristy was not the musical director for the show, despite her playing piano for the auditions, and very well too.)

As we got started, I thought to myself, “I haven’t done a big musical like this for a long time.” (That was in fact a major reason I’d been interested in auditioning for the show.) Then I realized that I had never been in a big musical like this before! All my experience in musicals had been on small stages with minimal sets and small cast sizes, none of it recent.

I couldn’t help laughing at myself. I also began to realize how out of practice I was as an actor. For example, most musicals, and certainly one on this scale, rent scripts and scores (sometimes contained in one book) from a publishing company, in this case Music Theatre International, which understandably doesn’t want to get its scripts back with writings in pen all over them. Actors learn to bring pencils. I had forgotten.

I decided I had better pay increased attention to what was going on. (A good thing too, because before I was supposed to enter a scene I found my zipper was down.)  

After the opening talk, the group divided in two, with dancers on the stage and singers in a music room, where we began to learn the parts the chorus would sing. (Unlike many musicals, this one doesn’t have a separate singing-and-dancing chorus; the whole company sings the group music, and there isn’t much of it – most of the songs are for small groups.) Another “big musical” feeling – I had flashbacks to Army training, where a number of us would sit in a classroom while a colonel lectured to us.

Actually it wasn’t really much like that – the choral teacher was quiet and very nice. She familiarized us with some of the tricky bits of the vocal lines – since Sondheim wrote the songs, it makes sense that there’d be tricky bits, because his melodies and harmonies are often complex, but as I said the chorus parts are mostly unison, so we’re all in it together.

At exactly the scheduled time, we reassembled on stage to begin work on the opening scene, the most complicated in the show, in which most of the characters come onstage in small groups and have a moment to identify themselves, both in the scene and for the audience’s benefit. Kristy staged this scene; she talked it through, arranged the actors in their opening places, walked them through the music slowly, repeated the process until it was secure, and by the end of the rehearsal the scene was staged. Presto!

I watched this from behind the upstage curtain (at the back of the stage) – my character comes on late in the opening, and we didn’t quite get there. No problem, I’m sure.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1 – The stage manager sent me an email in the morning that refined the time I’d be expected for rehearsal – another sign of efficiency. I have been trying to figure out what time to leave for rehearsal. Last night I barely got there on time; tonight I was half an hour early.

Susan directed the two short opening scenes in which I have lines and did fine; she has a good eye for staging details. I got almost no direction, but then my two speeches have a total of nine words in them. One actor asked Susan a lot of questions about costumes, on the “Have you considered this?” angle. Susan was polite, but I had the impression she was thinking, “My friend, you have no idea how competent this group is.” Of course it will have considered the costumes, and will have a plan for them too.

Susan had originally said the show might be double-cast, with two actors for each role, but as it turns out only one role has two actors, and they both worked with me on the scene with Solange, so when we were finished I asked, just making small talk, “Is it weird to have a double?” One of the performers said, very frankly, “I have epilepsy and it makes me feel much better to know that someone else can do the role.” So interesting – we often don’t know what someone’s story is.

One more sign of the group’s organization: the stage manager, in the auditorium, sat at a table with someone next to him. I don’t know what his function is, but I’ll bet he has one. That theater means business.

Besides my two short lines, I have one longish opening speech. It’s lovely, and I’m working on memorizing it by reading it aloud over and over, relishing every word.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7 – I was unsure whether I was called for rehearsal tonight – the schedule said “Adult Male Ensemble,” and I didn’t know whether I was included in that group, and couldn’t get clarification. However, I showed up, and it was my worst nightmare – a two-hour dance rehearsal for a big dance number!

I don’t know that I’ve ever done any extended show dancing. I’m certainly not a dancer – very much the opposite. I’m also anything but young and anything but limber, and I have a weak right ankle. No matter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained . . . it’s always darkest just before the dawn . . . to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield . . . Insert your favorite motivational saying here.

Actually I could have used a motivational saying or two – my main difficulty was the voice in my head saying, “You can’t dance worth anything,” followed immediately by my brain, my legs, and my arms shouting, “You’re right!”

There were six of us (there will be eight in the number altogether), none of us young and no more than one or two of us in good shape, but I felt that everyone picked up the steps faster than I did – there are a couple of sequences I never did correctly all night. I have none of what dancers call “muscle memory,” when the body makes the correct moves automatically, and I didn’t demonstrate for certain that I have memory of any kind, actually.

Emily, the choreographer, was cheerful, positive, and has the gift of paying no attention to anything people say along the lines of, “I’m awful with this.” She occasionally corrected but never criticized. She had worked out choreography in advance, but she said to us, “If you don’t like it or it looks silly, we’ll change it,” and I’d say she made up between twenty and thirty percent of the dance (as far as we got tonight) on the fly.

The saving grace is that at the end of the rehearsal she led us in making a video recording so we can work on the steps for next time, which will be next week. No more rehearsals for me this week, but plenty of work to do.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15 – We got the following email today:

We are writing to let you know about some changes made to our Follies production team effective Monday, October 14^th.

Susan Knight has agreed to become sole Director, and Kristy Graves has agreed to step down as co-Director. Kristy will continue to be a member of the cast and the costumer of the show. This change was made to address logistical concerns and potential conflicts of interest.

We expect that these changes will not cause any disruptions to production, but we wanted you all to be aware.

I’ll probably never know what this is all about, but it doesn’t seem to me to have been written in a spirit of joy. A friend of mine ribbed me, “They were doing fine until you got there!”

I’ve since heard that the email was the result of conflict in the theater group’s board. Not surprising, but not great either. NOTE: As things turned out, Kristy and Susan, who had worked on shows together successfully for years, pretty much worked on Follies the way they’d planned to, despite the ultimately meaningless change in titles.

Meanwhile my friend Annie wrote me:

DANCE REHEARSAL!  Still laughing at the panic emanating from those typed words.   It makes me think of something an acting teacher said when assigning some seemingly impossible scene work . . . . you know, one of those things that you think you could NEVER pull off . . way beyond your capability. The student says, “I can’t.” The teacher respectfully accepts that and asks, “Can you try?”

I didn’t like that teacher, but that teaching has stuck with me all these years and it’s gotten me through so many times when I thought I could never do something.  Because it gives me something beside “can I or can’t I.” It gives me “I can try.” Heck, I can always try - that much I can commit to.

And then, of course, the shock is finding out I can do so much more than I thought. Even if not perfectly so . . . . the main key to even a dance performance is the feelings and energy you bring to it. So try to conjure fun and joy and that will translate accordingly.  It’s called a play for a reason . . . . so give yourself permission to play!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18 – Second dance rehearsal, quite different this time: we were in a cafeteria rather than on stage; most of the rehearsal was spent on cleaning up what we’d learned last time; and the atmosphere was more informal than previously.

I had always thought that basically a choreographer was an unchallenged leader, at least when choreographing. At this rehearsal there was a great deal of back and forth (not with me!), even at moments when Emily was actually working out choreography (she revised some steps when necessary).

I had worked literally for hours on the dance as seen in the video of it, and although I doubt if I looked much like a dancer tonight, at least I looked like I’d been to the previous rehearsal. A couple of the men in our group told me they didn’t watch the video at all during the week; I can’t imagine that, but I never looked, or tried to look, at how anyone else was doing – I had my own problems.

By the end of the rehearsal we had at least seen all the steps that will make up the routine, and we’ll have new videos, or I hope so. All in all, I didn’t have too much of that going-down-with-the-ship feeling I had last week. A great relief.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 – After Susan made a speech telling us it was all right that Kristy was still doing the staging, Kristy dictated to us the remaining moves we made in Act 1. It turned out that I have more lines in the act than I had realized – good grief!

Also I did a spectacularly poor job of writing down the blocking as she gave it, because I found it hard to locate myself in the script, which of course alternates between dialogue and song lyrics (with the music in a separate section at the back of the book). I got some of it clearer in my mind when we walked the scenes, although I had to be coached a great deal; I asked a question afterwards, to clarify one bit; and my next job at home is to work it all out in a form that makes sense for me. Busy busy busy!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24 – As I was cramming for tonight’s dance rehearsal, my son Craig said to me, “Each time you do it, it’ll be better.” That was exactly what I needed to hear, and it’s true, although I forget it when trying desperately to keep up.

Actually I’m hardly alone in this – none of us in the number are trained dancers as far as I know or can see. I know I look like a guy trying to dance. But it’ll get better, and it did tonight, too.

Emily had to leave for a while in the middle of the rehearsal for a family errand, and while we waited for her to get back, the eight of us worked on the number very slowly, and when she got back she seemed to be pleased with what she saw.

Susan, our director, watched the last run-through of the number and seemed delighted, but when I talked to her I was surprised to learn why. “Usually you’d expect this number to be performed by young professional dancers. It’s so much fun to see a group of older men doing it!”

Not exactly high praise, and I wouldn’t want to use her comment as an excuse not to at least try to do a good job . . . but she’s got a point. My friend Colleen, a choreographer, has also pointed out that an audience almost always cheers a group of men trying to dance, pretty much no matter how they do.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30 – I wasn’t sure why I was at tonight’s rehearsal, and neither was anyone else. Susan staged a scene in which I had one line, at the end of the scene, and then everybody decided I could go home.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31 – Halloween, and driving to the theater in the dark was a perilous adventure, with children all over the place. This was a dance rehearsal, and my advice to myself for the evening was to think, not about what I knew at the start of the rehearsal, but of how much more I’d know at the end.

As it turned out, we started with four of the eight men in the dance, a number that later swelled to six. Emily wasn’t there, and Kristy led the rehearsal, moving slowly through the sections of the dance and “cleaning up” bit after bit. It was two hours of steady work. At first I was mildly irritated that Kristy was working the number instead of Emily – what if she told us things Emily didn’t want? – but she did an excellent job. Is there anything she can’t do?

Midway through the rehearsal I decided to imagine that I was Mikhail Baryshnikov (b. 1948), the great dancer. I have no idea if I moved any better as a result, but I felt more comfortable and had more fun.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – The best laid plans . . . tonight’s rehearsal was supposed to start at 6:30, but a school age production by the same company rehearses in the same space and ran late, so we didn’t get all the way through Act 1 tonight. The creative staff didn’t seem stressed, though.

The movement in Act 1 is complex, lots of people on stage for substantial parts of it, and although I had notes on my movements, tonight was the first time I’d actually done them. The directors, again, were patient. I’d been told that I enter with my (character’s) granddaughter; I met her tonight, a lovely, personable woman. Weismann (my character) must have been quite a charmer in his youth.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – The day after the election, and Kristy brought in about six different chocolate desserts, which went fast. Yesterday the non-musical scenes with the eight principals rehearsed; tonight was for big group numbers, and for those of us who haven’t seen them practicing, the effect was like a magic act – suddenly there are all these people on the stage doing intricate dance steps and singing like crazy.

Eventually we men (we call ourselves the “Poor Lost Souls” after a line in our song) got to do our dance number – not that we’d expected to – and then we went into the hall, worked our way through it bit by bit, and I’d say got pretty sharp with it. Emily, when she came out to watch, seemed pleased. A relief – I no longer feel I’m hopeless.

My discovery tonight was what a difference a wig makes. The two women in the “Buddy’s Blues” number wore wigs with long curly brown hair tonight, and both seemed utterly transformed. Ah, theater!

The junior show (“Singing in the Rain,” it turns out) has the auditorium tomorrow night, so we were going to meet at Kristy’s house, but at the end of tonight’s rehearsal Kevin, the stage manager, announced we’d be off until Monday. Okay! More time to get things solid. I almost have the group songs memorized, and I noticed that a number of people were still reading them from the script, so that felt good.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – Kevin, the stage manager, sent out a request for hands to help move pieces of the set into the theater (the Glen Ridge Women’s Club) where we’ll be performing, so I went over to help. Most of the dozen or so people there are old hands with the theater – a real ”community” theater. It was fun to hang out with the “in group.”

A note on my character in the show and how I approached it: the script suggests that Dimitri Weismann is 80, and I’m close to that age. I started with an image of him – authoritarian, maybe with an accent acquired from his immigrant family, a real boss.

Eventually I remembered that beginning an acting role with an image is a terrible idea; it channels you into working for effects rather than working from the inside of a character. I couldn’t think of any reason Weismann shouldn’t be like me – I’ve led theater companies, I’ve put on numerous productions over the years, I’ve directed.

So I allowed Dimitri to behave as I’d naturally behave, rather than the reverse, and apparently that’s fine. I did buy black-rimmed glasses (with clear glass lenses); letting my hair go grey, I looked a bit like a Cary Grant (1904-1986) imitator. Nothing wrong with that.

[Since it covers the entire preparation and performance period of Gas Lamp’s Follies, Kirk Woodward’s “Performance Diary” is too detailed and comprehensive to be accommodated in a single post.  Therefore, Kirk and I have agreed to split it into two installments for publication on Rick On Theater.  “Performance Diary: Follies, Part 2” will be published on Wednesday, 18 December 2024.  Please return then for the account of the final days of the Gas Lamp Players’ Follies.]

"How Do You Manage?"

by Angie Ahlgren 

[Angie Ahlgren’s article on stage managers appeared in the Fall 2024 issue (volume 41, number 1) of American Theatre; it was posted on the AT website on 2 December 2024.  AT has published previous articles on stage management and other backstage work: “Managing the Stage, and Managing Expectations” by Jerald Raymond Pierce (29 September 2020), “Take the Hell Out of Hell Week” by Pierce (23 October 2018), and “‘10 Out of 12’: How the Other Half Techs” by Diep Tran (15 June 2015).

[I like to post articles that define, describe, or explain the work of theater pros which isn’t generally known or understood by non-theater people (whom one of my teachers liked to call “civilians”).  On 14 January 2014, I posted “Stage Hands,” “Two (Back) Stage Pros” on 30 June 2014, and “Stage Managers” on 30 January 2017.

[I ran articles that profiled theater photographer Teresa Castracane, set designer Eugene Lee, and wig-designer Paul Huntley; on 28 November 2015, I posted “Broadway’s Anonymous Stars,” an article about actors who replace original stars on stage.  On 9 March 2016, I ran a collection of pieces about “swings” and on 22 August 2018, I posted an interview with Tony Carlin, a Broadway and Off-Broadway understudy or stand-by.

[I ran a whole series on lighting designers and their work called “‘Light the Lights” in October and November 2018, followed by a series on arts administrators in December 2020 and one on sound design in March and April 2021.  There’ve also been others over the years.

[I’d like to remind ROTters that in a recent post, I remarked: “Just about the only theater worker who can get a gig for the asking, I’d guess, is the stage manager.  The need’s so great for a good one who’s willing to work Off-Off-Broadway, that when a theater manager or director finds one, she’s snapped up faster than a New York minute.  The only problem is keeping her.”]

Who better to take the pulse of a changing industry than with the folks at the hub of the wheel: stage managers.

In November 2022, Lisa Smith [b. 1968] was weighing whether to continue stage managing or to scale up her part-time job at a gardening center into a full-time gig. She’d been stage managing in the Twin Cities for 20 years, 15 of those as a member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA [the labor union representing theatrical actors and stage managers in the United States]), when the forced break of the pandemic [12 March 2020] reminded her what a full night’s sleep felt like. When theatres opened again [14 September 2021] and she returned to stage management, she grew wary of some companies’ plans for reopening and their failure to create contingency plans for any personnel but performers. Understudies are great—but what happens if the stage manager gets Covid and there is no backup?

“We literally can’t call in sick,” she said ruefully. “We’ve all done shows puking in the booth.”

As the theatre industry has begun to recover from the pandemic, workers on- and offstage have been questioning the punishing norms built into the profession. As Jesse Green asked in an August 2022 article in The New York Times headlined “Shutting the Door on the Hard-Knock Life,” “Can the theatre . . . find a way to uphold [its workers] more holistically as humans, even as they continue to gut themselves every night?” [This article is reposted on this blog as “‘The Reformation’ – Article 3,” 29 September 2022.] Bound up in this question are legacies of racism and sexism that have always been part of the industry but which got a fresh spotlight after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 [25 May; asphyxiated by a Minneapolis police officer] and the aftershocks of the #MeToo movement.

Stage managers often spend more time in rehearsal rooms and theatres than other workers, and it is their job to handle myriad interpersonal issues. Mythologized as unassailably capable people, stage managers have plenty to say about burnout, overwork, and the state of U.S. theatre in the post-Covid-lockdown era.

In conversations with 10 stage managers from around the country over the course of a year, they spoke about their career trajectories, working conditions, and the unique challenges of labor that’s not only invisible to the public but can also be opaque to those they work alongside. [“Invisible labor,” a term coined by sociologist Arlene Kaplan Daniels (1930-2012) in 1986, is work, most often done by women and racial minorities, that, though essential, is unseen, unvalued, or undervalued.] For some, the pandemic halted just-blossoming stage management careers. For others it meant choosing to leave solid careers in New York for more affordable cities. For a few, like Smith, the pandemic lockdown gave them a tempting glimpse of less demanding career paths. All found themselves reflecting deeply on the demands of life as a stage manager and its sustainability as a long-term career.

Evolution of a Job

Stage management as we now know it began to take shape only about a century ago. According to Jennifer Leigh Sears Scheier’s 2021 history of the profession, up until the late 19th century, directors and prompters guided theatrical productions in the United States. As theatrical styles shifted toward realism, the director began to assume more aesthetic control over productions, and the stage manager emerged as a figure in charge of technical production elements. Prompters continued to supply lines in rehearsal and call cues for actors in production. Eventually the director and technical director became distinct positions, and the stage manager assumed some of the prompter’s duties, along with production management.

Tracking changes in the stage manager’s title and job duties from the 1870s through the 1980s, Scheier’s research shows that while the role evolved significantly over a century, the job has always been ill-defined and nebulous, with the stage manager taking on duties that don’t strictly fall to anyone else. She attributes this in part to a historical lack of formal professionalization for stage managers, who are organized with Equity (a vestige of the days, nearly a century ago, when they also frequently performed as actors in shows they were working on).

As productions became more technically complex over the 20th century, stage managers took on more responsibility for calling a larger number of cues and managing teams of workers. Stage managers once called shows from the wings, whereas many are now stationed in a tech booth, where they can see more of the stage picture.

The work didn’t only get more technical in this time, Scheier [assistant professor of stage and production management, Point Park University, Pittsburgh; freelance AEA and opera stage manager and stage management historian; b. 1986?] notes, writing, “The labor moved beyond technical know-how to a position where emotional intelligence became paramount to a job well done.”

Up until some time in the first half of the 20th century, stage managers were also predominantly men. It’s not clear who was the first recorded woman to serve in the role, but we do know that as late as the 1950s, female stage managers on Broadway were still rare enough to be newsworthy. Ruth Mitchell’s work on West Side Story [1957-59] was widely publicized in the New York press, though she already had more than a decade of work under her belt at that point [Broadway managerial début: assistant to the director, Annie Get Your Gun, 1946]. Coverage was also unsurprisingly sexist, with papers reporting information about her marital status, beauty, coloring, and weight.

Along with Mitchell [1919-2000], other notable women, such as Elaine Steinbeck [1914-2003], made careers as Broadway stage managers. Mitchell went on to become a prominent producer, working alongside Harold Prince [director and producer; 1928-2019] on his projects until her death in 2000. By the early years of the 21st century, the vast majority of stage managers were women—a heartening development, though it brings with it new issues. Is it any surprise, after all, that a role often defined by its invisibility, and by catch-all job duties designed to help other people shine, has increasingly fallen to women?

Emotional Labor

“I am not your mother” was a resounding theme in the interviews I conducted. Even male-identified stage managers I talked to acknowledged that the job comes with the expectation of caretaking labor often associated with women.

Today stage management is one sector of the performing arts dominated by women, who made up between 66 and 71 percent of respondents to David McGraw’s Stage Manager Survey between 2006 and 2023, with those identifying as nonbinary hovering around 10 percent once the survey moved away from collecting gender data on a binary basis. In terms of backstage labor, the percentage of woman-identified workers is rivaled only by costume designers and technicians.

This trend only solidifies tropes about the job and perceptions of feminized labor. Stage managers are expected to withstand social slights and have the flexibility to maintain composure in unexpected situations. As “professional problem solvers” and “the hub of the wheel” of the production process, stage managers encounter a huge range of human behaviors from people in different parts of the theatrical hierarchy.

In the 1980s, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild [b. 1940] coined the term “emotional labor” in her book The Managed Heart [The University of California Press, 1983] to describe the work of flight attendants, identifying it as work that “requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.” Emotional labor, in other words, is the work of producing (usually positive) emotional performances, which may be at odds with true internal emotions, for the sake of those being served. Not coincidentally, flight attendants at the time were almost exclusively women serving largely male clientele.

Some stage managers I spoke with specifically invoked the term “emotional labor,” while others discussed the way gender dynamics influence their work. As one gay man of color from Minneapolis told me, stage managers are sometimes relied on implicitly as quasi-therapists or mental health experts, roles for which they are not trained.

“Everybody likes a lady who has a lot of good ideas but doesn’t need to be in charge,” is how Victoria Rayburn (not her real name), a Washington, D.C., stage manager, put it. She even noted how her socialization as a woman has contributed to her success as a stage manager. “As a woman, personality management is built in—‘Like, oh my gosh, a man with an ego?!,’” she joked. “That’s absolutely part of everyday life, in all aspects of my life. It’s not just that I learned that at work; I learned that in my house with my brother!”

Lisa Smith also described her style as motherly, explaining that rather than using conflict or confrontation as strategies for getting people to do what she wants, she leverages “guilt and disappointment.” She never yells at people if they’re late; instead, she expresses concern and asks what she can do to help next time.

While this may be a successful approach to working with actors, Smith said she has encountered blatant hostility from backstage workers simply for being a woman in charge. On one show, she recalled, an all-female stage management team encountered a troubling degree of resistance from the all-male union backstage crew. Of one man in particular, she said, “I would speak to him and he would talk to someone else to tell me something—truly, a grown-ass man in his 60s who wouldn’t regard me as a human being.”

She laughed as she related this story, but noted more somberly that she regrets not reporting the behavior. (Both of her fellow stage managers did.)

Stage Management as an Art

But stage managers are not simply glorified babysitters or under-compensated human resources professionals. Most enter and remain in the field because of their affinity for the work onstage. As Smith put it, stage managers now “are not just a stopwatch.” As technology and culture have shifted over the past 30 years, “what a stage manager has to do has become more graceful. It is an art to do it well.” Said Rebecca Skupin, a stage manager in Houston, “I definitely consider myself an artist.”

Certainly stage managers need to understand basic dramaturgy, lighting, and theatrical timing to rehearse and call shows, but seldom are their artistic abilities recognized publicly. This may be changing: In 2021, Minneapolis-based Elizabeth MacNally [b. 1979] won a prestigious McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship for her work as a stage manager—the first time the organization has recognized stage management as an artistic practice in its own right. [The McKnight Foundation is a family foundation based in Minnesota that supports programs in the arts, sciences, and the environment.]

MacNally worked frequently with the late director Marion McClinton [1954-2019] at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis. By her account, McClinton’s approach to directing was to get out of the way of the story, and MacNally said she similarly sees herself “as a stage manager of the story. Are we getting in the way of the story? And if we are, how do we get ourselves out of that and get back to the story? The last thing we want to have happen is the audience gets smarter than us.”

Rosey Lowe [b. ca. 1995], who had been working in Minneapolis and Chicago when we spoke, came to stage management from an acting background. They joked that rather than run a tight ship as a stage manager, they prefer to run rehearsals like a “very functional loose canoe.” The artistic process needs flexibility, she explained, because “you sometimes can’t plan for when a breakthrough is going to happen.”

Out of the Shadows

Still, aesthetic or otherwise, much stage management labor goes unrecognized.

“I am perfectly happy working in the shadows,” said Lyndsey Goode [b. 1979] of Arlington, Texas, “except to the extent that networking is how you get your next gig.” Rayburn concurred on the double-edged sword of invisibility, saying, “If you are in theatre and you don’t know what a stage manager does, or at least what your stage manager does, you’re not appreciating the people you work with.”

Invisibility can also translate to monetary devaluation. As Goode pointed out, “A stage manager is never going to sell a ticket,” and on Broadway name recognition comes with more power to negotiate a contract. Ultimately, she said, any producer can decide “if you’re not going to take it for minimum, they can find somebody else who will.”

This may be why, partly enabled by Zoom communication, some stage managers have spent the past four years building collective knowledge and power. New York-based stage manager Amanda Spooner [b. ca. 1985] started the Year of the Stage Manager project in 2020, and the connections continue via a Facebook group.

Meanwhile there has been material progress: Houston’s Skupin, elected as one of Equity’s Western Region Stage Manager Councilors in 2022, sounded hopeful when we spoke in 2023, noting that contract negotiations included a number of gains for stage managers, including more ASM [assistant stage manager] contracts, reduced workweeks and increased rest hours, and better overtime policies. Additionally, according to a request for proposal from 2023, the union is also taking steps toward a name change “inclusive of all its members.”

From their unique position as conduits, funnels, or hubs, stage managers naturally accrue responsibilities and knowledge. They are therefore ideally positioned to advocate for the culture of rehearsals to change.

In the meantime, they must also advocate for themselves. Goode left for the Dallas-Fort Worth area when gigs in New York dried up during the pandemic, eventually landing a job as a company manager for a ballet company in Dallas [Texas Ballet Theater], a position in which she utilizes stage management skills and continues to work in the arts. MacNally left Pillsbury House Theatre for a position as the associate director of event production at the Walker Art Center, also in Minneapolis.

For her part, Smith is still on the fence about how much of her professional life she wants to devote to the theatre. She has stage-managed one show a year since we spoke in 2022, and is trying to strike a balance between work that simply pays the bills and work fueled by passion and creativity. She said she is working with a career counselor to help her sort through these decisions and launch her into her next chapter.

Whichever path she chooses, it will be her own.

“I can’t fix this industry,” she said. “There’s not time in my lifetime to make this better.”

[Angie Ahlgren (she/her) is a writer based in Duluth, Minnesota, and owner of Ahlgren Consulting, LLC, a consulting and coaching business for academics in the arts.  She started out as a stage manager at Minneapolis’s Theater Mu in the late ’90s, and her academic research has focused on stage management, gender, and invisible labor.

[Ahlgren’s writing has appeared in Theatre History Studies, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Women and Music, and she’s the author of Drumming Asian America: Taiko, Performance, and Cultural Politics (Oxford University Press, 2018). 

[Research for this article was supported by a faculty fellowship with the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and a short-term fellowship from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.]

The 24 Hour Plays

 

[On 6 February 2000, Kerry Eielson, a freelance writer who wrote about the Off-Off-Broadway theater for the New York Times, published the following description:

By 10 o’clock on the night of Jan. 22, 47 people had gathered at the Chopin Theater in Chicago.  A fireman, a lawyer, a journalist and a candy store clerk were among them.  Each had brought a prop and costume, knowing that in less than 24 hours he would be performing before an audience that had paid $10 apiece to see theater.  Some of those present had never been on a stage before.  No one had learned his lines.  No one knew what part he was to play.  As a matter of fact, none of the roles had been created.  The plays had yet to be written.

No, this wasn’t Ionesco or a nightmare.  It was preparation for what are called “The 24-Hour Plays.”  Actually, it takes 24 hours to create, cast and rehearse them; performances last 90 minutes or so.

[This is The 24 Hour Plays seen from the ground level.  (The official, trademarked name of the company has no hyphen.)  This event took place in Chicago, but it’s the same process in New York City, Little Rock, Dublin, London, at a high school in Portland, Oregon, or a resident theater in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

[It sounds hectic and haphazard—and it is.  “‘I have participated in the 24 Hour Plays three times as a writer,’ said one of the participants [at the Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken], Susie Felber, this week.  ‘It is scary, stressful, and so wonderful I would do it every day of my life if I could.’  She summed up the experience: “The 24 Hour Plays is 100 percent high wire act."

[The concept, borrowed by The 24 Hour Plays founder Tina Fallon from an idea cartoonist and comic book-maker Scott McCloud came up with, is meant to stimulate creativity without the self-censorship or -editing of over-thinking.  As playwright Warren Leight, author of 11 24 Hour Plays since 2001, put it: “The beauty of having to create something overnight is even if, like, say, hypothetically, you procrastinate . . . you have to come up with something.”

[As the tech director of my college theater liked to say, “Necessity is a mother.”

[The performances are usually a little rough and raw, and the plays often don’t come out quite the way the writers imagined.  Lee Sutton, a young playwright at a 24 Hour Plays event at London’s Old Vic, recounted:

"Looking back," he says the next morning, surprisingly together, "I can see so many little mistakes and decisions I'd avoid if I did it all again.  This is by far the strangest, most chaotic, random piece of work I've ever written, but I wouldn't change a second of it."

[This year’s 24 Hour Plays on Broadway was just last 21 October.  The phenomenon intrigued me, so I thought I’d read up on it.  Here’s the result of that reading.]

The 24 Hour Plays is a New York City-based organization that brings together artists to create plays and musicals within a 24-hour timeframe.  The 24 Hour Plays was founded in 1995 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan by Tina Fallon (b. 1969), an independent theater producer who resides in Brooklyn. 

Fallon served as the Executive Director of Creative Affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America from 2016 to 2020.  She’s been a presenter at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and The Association for Theatre in Higher Education, a judge for the KCACTF Irene Ryan Awards (which presents scholarships to outstanding actors who participate in the Festival), and a teaching artist at the Educational Theatre Association conference. 

Fallon stepped down as Artistic Director of 24 Hour Plays after almost 10 tears of guiding the company’s operations.  She remains on the board, succeeded as the organization’s head by the current AD, Mark Armstrong, who’s had a long history with 24HP, starting in 2003 as a frequent director of productions.

Fallon’s tale of how the concept of The 24 Hour Plays came about starts when she graduated from Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate, liberal arts college of The New School in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.  That was at the beginning of the 1990s and she kicked around the Off-Off-Broadway theaters trying to get someone to hire her to direct plays. 

As anyone who’s started out in that arena knows, that’s a hard thing to do; it’s the same for directors, actors, designers, and even dramatists (good plays are always in demand—but there are a lot of wannabe writers sending in scripts). 

(Just about the only theater worker who can get a gig for the asking, I’d guess, is the stage manager.  The need’s so great for a good one who’s willing to work Off-Off-Broadway, that when a theater manager or director finds one, she’s snapped up faster than a New York minute.  The only problem is keeping her.)

So, Fallon did what a lot of self-starters do: she started her own company.  She produced plays in whatever spaces she could find and even did some of her productions in Los Angeles.  On either coast, that meant, even as producer, she sold refreshments at intermission and served as a stage hand.

Back in New York City, she was directing one of her OOB shows and her leading man dropped out a week before opening.  She doesn’t say why, but it’s a frequent occurrence when there’s no contract and an actor gets a paying job.  You can’t hold him; it’s part of the ethic.

Fallon says she took a lesson from comic book-writer and graphic novelist Scott McCloud (Zot!, 1982-94; The Sculptor, 2015), who came up with the notion “[t]o create a complete 24 page comic book in 24 continuous hours.”  McCloud’s idea was: “The less you plan, the less likely you are to get frustrated.”

(McCloud also wrote a series of books about the comic medium and business in comic-book form: Understanding Comics [Tundra Publishing, 1993], Reinventing Comics [William Morrow Paperbacks, 2000], and Making Comics [William Morrow Paperbacks, 2006].)

As applied to theater, Fallon’s version of the lesson was: “Too much time and money is wasted.  This is a production manager's dream.”  It took her a few years to work out the practice, she says.

24HP‘s first showcase was mounted at the La Tea Theater on the Lower East Side in 1995.  Fallon’s intention was to do a one-time event, but the idea caught on, and what became the nonprofit 24 Hour Plays had an unsalaried staff, all friends of Fallon’s who liked her idea, no office, and no actual infrastructure.

The resulting performance company consisted of 45 unknowns and they charged $45 admission.  In 2001, 24HP was still operating and the participants were . . . well, better known.  As the New York Times reported Fallon’s account:

Billy Crudup committed first, then enlisted his girlfriend, Mary-Louise Parker, who brought in Rosie Perez, who suggested a charity, Working Playground [now Urban Arts Partnership; an organization that brings arts education into New York City classrooms], to benefit from the event, and recruited Marisa Tomei.  Factor in Liev Schreiber, Brooke Shields and Philip Seymour Hoffman (he attended the same upstate high school as Ms. Fallon), and The 24 Hour Plays annual benefit achieved sufficient cachet to move to Broadway.  Bloomingdale's and Details magazine are picking up the tab and throwing the post-show bash; but the creative process remains, she swears, unsullied by sponsors (Robin Finn, “PUBLIC LIVES; A Broadway Baby Without a Minute to Spare,” 10 September 2003, Section B [“The Metro Section”]: 2; link above).

Since 1997, the 24HP concept is being licensed to schools and community theaters around the country and theaters abroad have taken up the program.  Today 24HP events have taken place in the United States in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, and San Francisco, among other cities.  Abroad, theaters in cities such as London, Dublin, Athens, Mexico City, and Florence have mounted 24 Hour Plays programs, as have venues in Germany, Finland, and Denmark.

Two books of material from The 24 Hour Plays have been published: 24 by 24: The 24 Hour Plays Anthology, edited by Mark Armstrong and Sarah Bisman (Playscripts, 2009), includes the work of celebrated theatrical voices such as Tony Award-winner Terrence McNally, Adam Rapp, Tina Howe, Will Eno, David Ives, and Theresa Rebeck, collected from performances of 24HP, and The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues, edited by Howard Sherman (Methuen Drama, 2020), features a collection of over 50 original monologues by writers such as Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lindsay-Abaire, Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Jesse Eisenberg created during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 2003 New York Times profile of Tina Fallon cited above refers to a “TV pilot,” a “24 Hour short film,” and a “24 Hour music video,” but I wasn’t able to identify any of those projects.  There were, however, two TV segments that aired in New York City.  The first was “‘The 24-Hour Plays’ and The Agony & Ecstasy of Writing Negative Reviews,” an episode of the interview show Theater Talk which was broadcast on WNET, the New York City Public Broadcasting Service outlet (channel 13), on 6 April 2018 (and was syndicated nationally in PBS stations). 

The second part of the episode title is an unrelated story, but in the relevant segment, actors Richard Kind and Gideon Glick join Roundabout Underground Artistic Producer Jill Rafson to talk about the 2018 edition of The 24 Hour Plays she produced that spring.  (Roundabout Underground is the Roundabout Theatre Company’s home for new plays by emerging writers.  It’s housed in the Black Box Theatre in the basement of the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, the former American Place Theatre.)  Theater reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli, former New York Post review-writer (and current New York Times contributor), guest co-hosts with Susan Haskins. (The video is available on YouTube.)

The second TV show was “The 24 Hour Plays Viral Monologues,” broadcast on Working in the Theatre, the American Theatre Wing’s documentary series, shown on CUNY-TV, the cable outlet of the City University of New York, on 24 September 2020.  The segment showed members of The 24 Hour Plays cohort sharing how the Viral Monologues came to be, how their development shares many similarities to 24HP’s previous programming, and what challenges and changes they've experienced.  (A video is available on the American Theatre Wing site.)

The format for The 24 Hour Plays is pretty simple.  The process beaks down into six steps.  The performances are usually on a Sunday evening, so the process starts at about 10 o’clock on a Saturday night.

First, the participants meet for an introduction session.  There are six playwrights, 24 actors, and six directors.  The 24HP artistic director has selected the writers and directors as well as the pool of actors.  

   The actors are photographed and then introduce themselves, accoutered with what American Theatre senior editor Allison Considine called “preposterous props and costume pieces” that they brought with them, and explain their special abilities and artistic wishes.  

   When the introductions are done, the costume bits and hand props are tossed into a pile in the middle of the space so anyone can use them for inspiration.  It sounds a lot like an acting exercise of Michael Chekhov’s that I described as “instant character.”

   Artistic director Armstrong sees this as a reversal of the usual casting approach: “Rather than the traditional formulation, where writers—and directors like me—proclaim to the actor, “Here’s what we’re looking for, can you do that?,” this approach asks the actor to declare to the writer, “Here’s what I can do and here’s what I dream of doing—what can you do with that?”

Second, the participants sit down and brainstorm ideas for the plays, informed by what the director and playwright have learned about their potential cast.  The actors and directors go home.

Third, in what seems like a sports draft, the AD divvies up the actors, using the photos (they were Polaroids back in the early years), among the directors.  If a director wasn’t assigned an actor she or he had wanted, the pix are traded like baseball cards.  

Fourth, the writers stay up all night to compose the plays.  (The venue becomes a writers’ room.)  They write for the actors in their casts, which fits in exactly with Mark Armstrong’s comment.

Some playwrights work through the night, but like some others, Warren Leight, the veteran of many 24-hour plays since 2001, says that last year, he slept until 6 a.m., wrote his play in an hour, went back to sleep, and then “tried to tighten it up later in the day.”

Fifth, at 6 the next morning, the writers return with their scripts and the directors vote on the three plays they’d like to stage.  The AD makes the assignments, trying to accommodate the directors’ wishes.  The playwrights go home.

   In the afternoon, the actors return and each cast rehearses in the performance venue.  At the end, each cast get 15 minutes to rehearse the tech.  No delays or extra time.

Sixth, the performances of six 8- to 10-minute plays are presented, starting at 8 p.m.  The plays must be acted as written (no improvising).  

   Mistakes will happen, of course, and the participants just have to roll with the punches.  Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, veteran of 13 years of 24 Hour Plays, recounted a mishap when one of the actors forgot a line, “and each of the actors onstage thought it was the other person’s line. ‘From the audience, I yelled out the line, and got the biggest laugh of the night!’ said Lindsay-Abaire.

   All the plays must be performed regardless of how the cast or director feels about the result (no drop-outs).  Actors in the casting pool may be cast in more than one play, but may only have a major speaking role in one.

There are variations on this schema when The 24 Hour Plays are presented in different locations.  At London’s Old Vic in 2011, for instance, there were seven plays and 52 participants, and the performances started at 7:30 instead of 8 p.m.  The rest of the procedure was the same there as in New York City.  

At the Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock, the performances started at 7.  Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon, a participant in The 24 Hour Plays since 2016, gave their performances on Saturday rather than Sunday.

The 24 Hour Plays, which started as an Off-Off-Broadway event in venues like the La Tea Theater on the Lower East Side, the New School University (now just called The New School) in Greenwich Village, P.S. 122 (now known as Performance Space New York) in the East Village, and the Present Company Theatorium, also on the Lower East Side, soon branched out into a multi-faceted operation. 

In 1997, The 24-Hour Plays ran around the clock for 10 days in a row (“The 240-Hour Plays”) at the New York International Fringe Festival (13-24 August; the inaugural festival) and 53 new plays were created in 10 days.  Fallon acknowledged that the effort was too much, both emotionally and physically, so it was not attempted again.

Since that year, as I mentioned earlier, 24HP franchised the program and licensed it to schools, colleges, and community groups worldwide.  The company has laid out both the rationale for producing The 24 Hour Plays in one’s community and the procedure for obtaining a license on its website.

But there have also been other developments and expansions of the franchise.

Within a year or two of initiating the licensing venture, the company began working with organizations of all kinds, such as professional theaters, arts organizations, and community groups, to produce The 24 Hour Plays in theaters all around the world.  These partners have brought together local arts communities from London to Los Angeles, Dublin to Minneapolis, Finland to Mexico, and more for a 24 Hour Plays event.  

Some of these partners include: 

New Victory Theatre: The Broadway house on 42nd Street which operates as a children’s theater collaborates with The 24 Hour Plays to include families and young people in their efforts.  New Victory presents seven young playwrights, New York City students in grades 5-12, as they collaborate with professional actors and directors to stage their own original works, written and rehearsed over a single day and night, live.

The Sands College of Performing Arts at Pace University: Steps from City Hall to its north, the downtown college, one of the top 10 most represented colleges on Broadway, partners with The 24 Hour Plays to produce The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals (see below).

Broadway Advocacy Coalition: A Tony Award-winning (2021 Special Tony Award for providing a platform for underrepresented members of the theater community), nonprofit arts-based advocacy organization dedicated to the use of arts and storytelling to build a more equitable society, BAC is a partner of The 24 Hour Plays.

Dublin Youth Theatre: Committed to producing theater at a high artistic standard that’s relevant to the lives of young people, DYT is a partner of The 24 Hour Plays.

The University of Minnesota - Duluth: Mark Armstrong, Artistic Director of The 24 Hour Plays, was raised in Duluth and is a theater alumnus of UMD, a partner of 24HP.

Savannah Repertory Theatre: South Georgia’s “flagship regional theater” is a partner of The 24 Hour Plays and declares that it “intentionally produces vibrant works of modern theater and is compelled to create space for a new generation of storytellers.”

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: “Cincy Shakes,” a partner of The 24 Hour Plays, asserts that it participates “in the global dialogue by producing the classic canon, commissioning the next generation of classics, and engaging the artists, schools,” and its community.

Other partners include the Lymphatic Education & Research Network (New York City), The Lillys (NYC), InterACT Theatre Company (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Communities United for Police Reform (NYC), The Fled Collective (NYC), Asian-American Justice Center (Washington, D.C.), Nicosia International Festival (Nicosia, Cyprus), Gilda’s Club (NYC), Developing Artists (NYC), Biennington College (Bennington, Vermont), National Queer Theater (Brooklyn, NY), New Sanctuary Coalition (NYC), INTAR Theatre (NYC), STLFringe (St. Louis, Missouri), Atlantic Theater Company (NYC), New 42 (NYC), The Dramatists Guild (NYC), The Rockefeller Foundation (NYC), and many more.

In 2001, The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway began with the writing of plays at Town Hall the night before the annual gala.  The last iteration was on 21 October 2024, when stars from Broadway, film, and TV gathered to write, rehearse, and perform six new plays. 

Past participants in The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway have included Jennifer Aniston, Jason Biggs, Wayne Brady, Anna Chlumsky, Michael Cerveris, Billy Crudup, Alan Cumming, Hugh Dancy, Peter Dinklage, Rachel Dratch, Jesse Eisenberg, Gloria Estefan, Edie Falco, America Ferrera, Greta Gerwig, Aasif Mandvi, Tracy Morgan, John Mulaney, Cynthia Nixon, Lynn Nottage, Anna Paquin, Amanda Peet, Rosie Perez, Chris Rock, Sam Rockwell, Wallace Shawn, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Sarah Silverman, Marisa Tomei, Naomi Watts, Vanessa Williams, and many more.

Tickets for the 2024 edition of The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway began at $50, plus a voluntary donation if desired.  Proceeds support 24HP’s non-profit activities, including education programming with students from middle school to college and professional development for emerging artists.

The 24 Hour Musicals began in 2006.  Artists—actors, directors, writers, composers, choreographers, and a live band—create and perform four 15- to 20 minute musicals in one day, “a feat of artistic agility,” says Playbill. The event takes place at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater, the East Village home of the Classic Stage Company (CSC) on East 13th Street in Manhattan. 

This year’s edition was held on 10 June 2024.  The process is essentially the same as for The 24 Hour Plays, except, obviously, instead of a lone playwright, there’s a dramatist-composer team, and the director is paired with a choreographer.  There are only four musicals instead of six for the straight plays—because the musicals are about twice as long.

This year’s artists included Angelique Cabral (actor; Life in Pieces [sitcom]), Will Frears (director and scriptwriter; Misery [Broadway play]), Kirsten Guenther (musical librettist; Benny & Joon [regional musical]), Dylan Guerra (writer; The Other Two [sitcom]), Jakeim Hart (actor; Hell’s Kitchen [Broadway musical]), Leigh Ann Larkin (actor; Gypsy [Broadway musical]), Ryan Scott Oliver (composer and lyricist; 35MM [Los Angeles musica]), Carolyn Cantor (director; Sell/Buy/Date [Off-Broadway musical]), Jesse Eisenberg (playwright; Happy Talk [Off-Broadway play] – actor; The Social Network [film]), Kathryn Gallagher (actor; Jagged Little Pill [Broadway musical]), Josh Koenigsberg (writer; Orange Is the New Black [TV comedy-drama]), Gabrielle Ruiz (actor; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend [TV musical comedy-drama]), Heath Saunders (actor; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 [Broadway musical]), George Abud (actor; Lempicka [Broadway musical]), Sherz Aletaha (actor; Merrily We Roll Along [Broadway musical]), John Carrafa (choreographer; Urinetown [Broadway musical]), Kayla Davion (actor; Tina: The Tina Turner Musical [Broadway musical]), Olli Haaskivi (actor; Oppenheimer [film]), Emily Xu Hall (composer and lyricist; Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile [film]), Andrew Leeds (actor; Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist [TV musical comedy-drama]), Ryan Jamaal Swain (actor and dancer; Pose [TV drama]), Will Swenson (actor and singer; A Beautiful Noise [Broadway musical]), and Natalie Walker (actor; White Girl in Danger [Off-Broadway musical]). 

The 24 Hour Musicals also partnered with Tony-winning designer David Rockwell and the Rockwell Group for scenic and video design.  The creative team also included sound coordinator Kai Harada, lighting designer Elizabeth M. Stewart, costume designer Katja Andreiev, and props design by Courtney Kupferschmidt.

There’s a documentary film from 2011 (eight years after the New York Times article that mentions the other media products).  Directed by Trish Dalton and Elisabeth Sperling, One Night Stand records the 2009 24 Hour Musicals event that featured the creation of four musicals in a 24-hour period.  The stressful undertaking of the creation of the four mini-musicals is captured in the 73-minute behind-the-scenes documentary.  (Viewer reviews appear on IMDb and the blog J.B. Spins.)

The film had its World Premiere on 24 July 2011 at the NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival (21-28 July 2011, Film Society of Lincoln Center) and features Cheyenne Jackson, Mandy Gonzalez, Roger Bart, Rachel Dratch, Alicia Witt, Richard Kind, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, among others.  One Night Stand won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.  (A video is available on YouTube.)

The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals—the program for artists 25 and under—has been cultivating the future of theatrical talent since 2013. 

Each summer, 24HP brings together a group of talented early-career theater artists for a free professional intensive in partnership with New York City’s Pace University.  Participants, who also receive a $200 participation stipend, are invited into a weeklong experience in the City featuring workshops, master classes, panel discussions, career development, community building, and more.  The program culminates in a production of the resulting 24 Hour Plays in an Off-Broadway theater.

This year’s Nationals ran on 15-22 July 2024, with the performance night at 7:30 p.m. on 22 July at the CSC’s Lynn F. Angelson Theater.

Alumni of The 24 Hour Plays: Nationals are employed in the entertainment industry from on and off Broadway, to television and film, and in the leadership of theaters here and abroad.  Past participants include playwrights Bekah Brunstetter, Ken Greller, Laura Jacqmin, Mike Lew, Liliana Padilla, Andrew Rincón and Celine Song; actors Pico Alexander, Satya Babha, Elizabeth Lail, Naomi Lorrain, Bobby Moreno, Ebonee Noel, Coral Peña, Brandon Scott, Chris Smith, and Natalie Walker; producers Shariffa Ali, Kelcie Beene, Carly Hugo and Patrick Anthony Surillo; and directors Jake Beckhard, Miranda Cornell, Ryan Dobrin, Colette Robert, and James Dacre.

The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues were created during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020.  To keep theater alive during the shut-down, the 24HP community of artists connected through safe, socially-distanced, new collaborations, the company gathered artists virtually to create monologues in 24 hours.

24HP returned to in-person programming in 2022, two years after ceasing live events.  The Viral Monologues continued, however, and are accessible on line.  On the designated day of the performances, one video is released every 15 minutes on Instagram and YouTube starting at 6 p.m. (Eastern Time).  There’s an archive of all past monologues on The 24 Hour Plays website. 

The latest episode of The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues ran on 23 May 2023 in support of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (2 May-27 September 2023).