Changing Roles & Scaring Highschoolers

Working in Production as the Production Management Intern, I’ve always thought I was missing something because I’d never been a Stage Manager. That’s how most people end up doing what I’m doing. I’ve dabbled in almost every other area of theatre, but never Stage Management. So it came to me as a great surprise when I found myself fulfilling the role of Assistant Stage Manager for the Roosevelt Playwriting Project.

The Roosevelt Playwriting Project is an annual class we do at Roosevelt Highschool in which three highschoolers write ten minute plays and three Seattle Rep teaching artists direct the playwrites’ classmates in the plays, culminating in a performance on the Leo K. I started out as the Production Manager for this project, planning and running production meetings, writing the tech schedule, and even making some props.

And then Friday, December 10th came. What’s inherently fun and stressful about the Playwriting Project is you do everything from focusing the lights, to programming cues, to teching the shows, to dress rehearsal to performance in less than twelve hours. It is a great view into the process of putting on a show in an Equity house. Now, Production Managers normally don’t do a ton of hands-on work during a day like this. They are there in case something goes wrong, but this project is an exception. Goodbye Amy Beth the Production Manager, hello Amy Beth the Assistant Stage Manager and child student wrangler.
Assistant Stage Managing was much more instinctual than I thought it would be. But it was surprisingly the child wrangling that turned out differently than I expected. Apparently I accidently frightened the students early on. During their initial tour I stressed to them that when onstage they could not move sets or props unless it was during their scene or they were instructed to do so as a scene change by the master carpenter. I guess I stressed it a little too much, because the students were so incredibly careful they even asked about picking up their own personal items when they were in the rehearsal hall! But the entire project went without any big glitches, and their was overall much laughter. And maybe it’s not a bad thing to scare a couple of highschoolers every once in awhile.

-AMY BETH, Production Management Intern