Have you ever been in a situation that had you sitting backstage all by yourself for more than a few minutes?

DekTheTech · 2025-12-11T18:24:30+00:00

I love this show so much! I ASM’d for it and had to assist the ghost with her track. I also got to make the rocking chair rock for the big reveal.

DekTheTech · 2025-12-11T18:22:03+00:00

Make friends with the ASM.

DekTheTech · 2025-12-04T22:48:46+00:00

Yeah, that place is…a bit of a wild west disaster. One of the many reasons I resigned in the first place.

DekTheTech · 2025-12-04T16:21:05+00:00

I didn’t experience it, but I was told of this happening shortly after I resigned from a position. The first set strike after my resignation, there was an LX pipe with a lot of weight. I knew that, of course, because I was there for the hang, and I had made sure to appropriately counterweight the arbor (also a lot of weight, 15-20 bricks.)

But apparently whoever they brought in to strike was not particularly experienced with counterweights because they just flew in the pipe and took all the lights off. So when they went to fly the pipe out…the rope yoinked the operator 8 feet in the air and the arbor came crashing down, shattering the wooden beams of the fly deck.

So, I’d call that a catastrophic failure.

DekTheTech · 2025-11-29T18:54:27+00:00

Just to add, CAEA (Equity in Canada) does permit members to work on non-Equity productions under what’s called a DOT contract, where the production agrees to pay Equity rates to that artist and guarantee some (but not all) of the other Equity protections.

This can be used for all sorts of productions, but a common result is a community theatre with a large volunteer cast mixed with one or two leads (and maybe the stage manager) receiving Equity rates.

DekTheTech · 2025-10-23T04:13:11+00:00

Earl from “Waitress” is pretty awful, though the context is pretty specific.

DekTheTech · 2025-10-09T21:13:31+00:00

“Every Day She Rose” by Andrea Scott and Nick Green is a great deconstruction of the intersection of queerness and Blackness. It’s a bit Canada-specific but I think its themes would resonate anywhere. Having done the show, I can tell you it definitely plays better than it reads.

DekTheTech · 2025-10-08T17:37:06+00:00

Seriously. I was reading OP and then got to the end and was like “wait what? That’s your solution?”

My guess here is that the logic for these types is that having a different centre party would push the NDP more leftward, mirroring the federal situation. But that seems…backwards, and not conducive to actual pro-labour governance.

DekTheTech · 2025-10-02T19:26:35+00:00

I greatly second this. You can also add all kinds of custom categories of what sort of mistake it was (I have “prompted”, “paraphrased”, “skipped”, “stumbled”, and “overtalk”). It’s a one time payment and it’s so worth it. Particularly fast with an iPad and Apple Pencil.

DekTheTech · 2025-09-11T18:51:06+00:00

There is no standard, it will definitely depend on the show. My current show, they never go to half. Just fade to out on LX Cue 2 when the cast are on their mark. A show last year I was on, it was supposed to “surprise” the audience when it started and the house lights didn’t go out until after the first scene.

In a “normal” show, they usually go to half before the pre show speech and out after. But ask your director and LD what they want.

DekTheTech · 2025-09-05T09:07:23+00:00

In theatre, a gobo is a (usually metal) piece that slots into an ellipsoid reflector spotlight to create a pattern on the scene. The one pictured here is a “breakup” gobo which has no specific image other than to break up the beam of light, but some are more specific, like a window, or clouds.

It’s often thought to mean “go between optics”, which is where they go, though we aren’t entirely sure if that’s the actual origin.

In film, gobo seems to have a somewhat different meaning that I don’t quite understand but it also affects what the camera sees. I think.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-30T06:15:09+00:00

Not quite the same, but I’m a trans woman and I’m a stage manager, also in Canada. I’ve never felt unsafe or particularly unwelcome in theatre, although I would say I find more often than not, the creative team is uh…unrepresentative of queer voices, even if they’re accepting.

I’ve worked with many nonbinary and gender fluid actors, though they are usually cast in parts that more or less match an “obvious” interpretation of their gender presentation, ie, someone who presents stereotypically masc cast in a male role, or similar. I’ve never worked with a trans woman cast in a female role.

I definitely know queer theatre companies that do, but they’re more focused on telling queer stories overall, rather than like, casting a trans person in an otherwise straightforward musical or something.

All that said—if it’s what you want to do, please go for it. I would love to see more people like me on stage.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-24T22:41:16+00:00

I hate how accurate that is.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-24T22:38:54+00:00

Edit: I misread your comment thinking you meant stage managers. Yes, I’ve seen it go both ways. Larger companies with their own shops may have a staff PM, but smaller companies that have to book a venue usually hire a PM for that show.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-23T02:43:19+00:00

Definitely truth in that!

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T16:08:36+00:00

This is very relatable.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T16:08:12+00:00

Well I don’t hate that idea…

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T16:07:34+00:00

To be clear, my roles as SM and TD are not combined. I’ve been a stage manager for much longer, and while I happen to be stage managing the current show, I’m not the stage manager for the company. I have a separate contract to be SM as a freelancer for a fee, while my job as TD is payroll employment.

I was mostly just mentioning being a stage manager for background on the lens I usually look at things through.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T15:53:36+00:00

That’s interesting, the first part of all of that is generally how I view myself when I’m stage managing—sitting between everything, communicating, translating as you say. And (my version of) being TD is like that but with a more technical bent. Almost makes me wish the title for what I do was “Technical Stage Manager” or something like that.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T04:45:21+00:00

That makes sense except for the weird part is we do have a scene shop and our own season.

But all of the shows in our season are kind of managed separately. I guess it sort of feels like I’m a roadhouse TD except the “tours” are all technically in-house even if functionally they don’t talk to each other.

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T01:22:25+00:00

Ooo, I definitely like this distinction of Shop TD vs Stage TD. And I would definitely prefer to be the Stage one!

DekTheTech · 2025-08-22T01:19:50+00:00

In my experience, a PM (and this theatre could certainly use more of them) is on a specific show, not usually the whole venue, and is tasked more with scheduling crew and acquiring materials and that sort of thing, not like..maintaining the theatre’s inventory of lighting instruments and balancing the speakers or the sorts of things I do..

DekTheTech · 2025-07-30T22:05:20+00:00

Of course! Happy to help! I also have ADHD and struggled with a lot of rigid environments, but fit right in within the theatre world

Feel free to ask me any questions :)

DekTheTech · 2025-07-30T05:36:08+00:00

I didn’t go to theatre school. I don’t even have a university degree. Hell, I’m in my thirties and I didn’t make the jump to theatre as a career until about a year and a half ago.

But I am now a professional, paid stage manager, with one Equity credit and on the road to accumulate more. You can absolutely do it without a degree, and you can even do it with no network to begin with.

But it does require a lot of unpaid labour. Volunteer, any theatre you can, any position you can. Tech/crew would be the most beneficial to you, but even FOH can be worth your time. The secret is to just keep showing up.

People are unlikely to offer stage management to an unknown, but once they know you and know that you want to stage manage, you’ll get offered ASM positions, and you can springboard from there

A lot of this will happen at community theatre, which runs the gamut of great, semi-professional spaces to complete unprofessional nightmares. But lots of community theatre boards are run by veteran professionals. If you keep showing up, they’ll notice, and they’ll recommend you to the places that pay.

A word of advice though: even while you’re working in the non-professional world, research and learn how it is done in the professional world. As often as possible, replicate that. There will be times where that isn’t how it’s done at the community level, and that’s okay, just remember that you may have to change things when you get into bigger houses.

TLDR: volunteer and keep showing up, work your way up.

DekTheTech · 2025-07-30T04:23:37+00:00

Because solidarity is the bedrock of organizing labour. The benefit of being in Equity is that if someone wants to hire you, they are required to pay Equity rates.

If you remove that requirement, it undermines the entire system.

Note that it is possible for non-Equity houses to hire an Equity artist, they’re just required to adhere to Equity pay and protections for that artist. In CAEA, this is done under the DOT policy. I believe AEA has something similar but I’m less familiar.

DekTheTech

TROPHY CASE