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Written by: Dominique Morisseau
Stage Manager: Noah Checketts
Design and Tech Team
Director: Nicholas Newell
Assistant Director: Gabby Burton
Scenic Designer: Markus McGriff
Costume Designer: Ashlynn Kirkland
Props Master: Hannah Murdock
Lighting Designer: Rob Fulton
Sound Designer: Rob Fulton
Stage Manager: Noah Checketts
Assistant Stage Manager: Koldyn Swift
Production Assistants: Alice LeVan and Seth Plant
Scene Change Table.docxScene Change Table
One challenge that Detroit '67 brings with it is the massive prop list and the number of things that must change between most scenes. Because of this, ensuring that scene changes happened quickly and efficiently was a huge priority for me. In order to clearly lay out what needed to happen during each scene change, I created the scene change table to the left. Each crew member was given one color, as shown at the top of the page, and each of them did everything that their color had listed. During each scene change, they would start by bringing on what they needed to set, then moving anything in the middle section, and finally by exiting with anything in the strike section. Since it proved to be so useful, I made sure to keep it updated and even made sure that any non-scene change duties were added to it so that everything could be easily found in one place. This actually worked so well that by the time we added costumes the crew needed to slow themselves down so that the actors were ready to enter by the time the crew left the stage.
Blocking Notation
As a fairly new stage manager, this show is only the second time I've taken blocking notes. For the last show I worked on I had just borrowed the notation from a textbook about stage management a friend has given me, but going into this show I knew I wanted to create a system that worked better for me. Many things have remained similar, but it has given me liberty to create symbols for things that aren't common in other shows, or to phrase things differently than another stage manager might.
Blocking Script.pdfThe 1st page is on the left side of the binder, with the 2nd page (script) on the right
Blocking Notes
Although this is only the second show I've taken blocking notes for, I've begun developing a system I use to take them that works quite well. On the right page with the script, I put a number in a circle to indicate when an action takes place comparative to dialogue. Then on the left page with the ground plan I draw where the actor moves to and what they have done in the blocking notation show above. This is often as simple as saying Bunny crosses to Lank (the first movement in the example). A huge improvement I have made since the first show I worked on is that now I don't allow two actor's movements to be correlated to the same number, so if two actors move at the same time I will write two numbers to the left of the script and describe which one moves in my description below the ground plan.
Call Script
One of my favorite processes as a stage manager is figuring out how to call a show. I love the puzzle of figuring out how early a stand by needs to be called or how to most quickly get information across to the board operators. The first couple pages of the Detroit '67 script have so many cues that I learned I had to give a large standby before the show begins in order to keep up. This first stand by covers the house to half and pre-show announcement cues, all the way to the record skipping, getting fixed three times, and Chelle eventually turning the music off once Bunny enters. This was definitely the most interesting section to call because of how much stuff happened so quickly. Although we were unable to finish our cue to cue, there were no other sections of the show difficult to call, so Hurricane Helene managed to not heavily impact my learning to call the show.
Call Script.pdfPre-show Checklists
On this show I had a relatively small crew that had to handle a lot of props and different things to preset. As much as I trusted them, it is a situation that reasonably could have, and for past shows has, led to props breaking, and I wanted to make sure I was available to keep everything going smoothly before the shows. One day a whole line of Christmas lights died and we had to replace them. If I wasn't available, this easily could have meant we didn't have the lights for that performance, but instead it was just a minor inconvenience to figure out what happened and how to fix it.
Copy of Tech Schedule.docxSchedule
One of the biggest challenges this production faced was Hurricane Helene. It led to us having to push back the opening night by eight days and losing a lot of momentum. There were 11 days in a row that we could not meet on campus for a rehearsal, and we didn't even get all of that time back through delaying our opening, meaning on our first day back we had to run the whole show without having finished the cue to cue, while adding costumes for the first time, and having someone take pictures for our press night. In order to preserve as much momentum as possible, I hosted the cast at my apartment one night to read lines to keep them fresh in everyone's heads. Despite the challenge, we were able to come back thanks to everyone's dedication and still managed to create an amazing show that I'm incredibly proud of!
Crew Challenges
Other than Hurricane Helene, the biggest challenge I faced was keeping crew members on my team. Since everyone who volunteers to work on the show is a student, it can be difficult to make sure that everyone that's recruited will be able to stick around, and when there are personal emergencies and a hurricane thrown into the mix it gets even more difficult. This is one of the reasons that I am so thorough in assigning duties and clearly lining out what each person does and where everything gets preset. When we had someone get replaced, even if it was right before tech started, it was relatively easy to bring them up to speed on what they needed to do since I had such clear documents.
Production Meeting Report Sample.docxReports
Reports are one of the areas I've seen the most improvement since my first show as a stage manager. I've had issues in the past with the reports I write being too vague or not striking the right tone. For Detroit '67 I really focused on brevity and clarity within the reports. Instead of asking if "can we add sleeves for .45s", I instead say "add sleeves for .45s". This is quicker and easier to read while also being more clear, since it isn't actually a question, but a statement about what needs to change.
YouTube Music Playlist
Although Detroit '67 is not a musical, the music is very important to the world of the play. Very early in the rehearsal process I created this playlist and began to bring a Bluetooth speaker to rehearsals so that I could play the songs for the actors and they could get used to working with the music. This was especially useful for when we worked the dance section with "Ooo Baby Baby" by Smokey Robinson since it allowed the actors to feel confident in the scene even before working out the specific details. It was also very helpful for me because it meant that I had a much better idea of how exactly to call the cues for the music since I had already been practicing it for so long. My director even discovered a few things about how he wanted the music to skip around that the sound designer later implemented. For "It's the Same Old Song" by the Four Tops, my director really liked it when the skip caused the track to repeat the lyric of "It's the same old song" which the sound designer later made sure would happen thanks to how he programed the cues in cue lab.
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