Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2021 - 32

owners, producers, union leaders, creators,
and collaborators to develop
an extensive agreement of new standards.
It's no wonder that one of Black
Theatre United's founding members is
Broadway stage manager, Lisa Dawn
Cave.
These programs, agreements, and
the many discussions our community
has been having will give stage managers
more tools and better language to
emerge from the shutdown as better
leaders, allies, and advocates for this
new age. These new skills that apply to
race also apply to gender identity.
Efforts toward equity also apply to
gender identity, another area where
the leadership of the stage manager
is important. Incorporating respectful
use of pronouns allows a stage manager
to set a tone of inclusion. A colleague
keeps the book A Quick and
Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns
by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan
Jimerson on their stage management
table. Company members would be curious
and ask about it. This educates
company members and sets an important
example. Leadership helps bring a
better understanding of diversity, in all
its manifestations, to our industry. The
theatre should be a welcome and safe
place for all, and stage managers set
this tone with their actions.
In the new era of stage management,
stage managers can become important
allies and advocates by engaging in
self-education, welcoming challenging
discussions, listening, learning, and creating
an equitable and safe space for the
creation of theatre.
Climate Crisis
Even before the pandemic and shutdown,
the climate crisis was an important
issue. The introduction to Congress
of the Green New Deal spotlighted the
United States' great challenges and opportunities.
In the theatre, we've been
moving slowly toward greener practices,
yet the intensity to implement new
sustainable ways to work has been invigorated
during the shutdown and the
time we've had to reflect and envision
our post-pandemic return to work.
The Broadway Green Alliance (BGA)
has been around for decades and has
made many strides to help our industry
work in a more sustainable way.
32 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | FALL 2021
During the shutdown, Director Molly
Braverman, along with many other
theatre makers, created the Green ReOpening
Toolkit for theatre artists and
stage managers.
" As we consider how to reopen our
theatres and return to work, we have
the opportunity to further integrate sustainable
solutions into our protocols.
Prioritizing health and safety does not
need to come at the expense of the environment.
In fact, the COVID-19 crisis
shines a spotlight on the inextricable
link between the health and safety of
our people and our planet " (Banta et al.
2021).
During the shutdown, BGA produced
a webinar, " It's Possible: Sustainable
Stage Management (www.youtube.com/
watch?v=vE_qQfXJyQk), which featured
stage managers discussing greener practices
that can make a significant impact
in our world and our lives. For example,
stage managers traditionally use a lot of
paper: in/out sheets, daily and weekly
printed schedules, monthly calendars,
daily report, etc. All of this paper could
be eliminated with programs like Virtual
Callboard, Propared, ShowBuilder, Cue
to Cue, Stage Doc, Scriptation, Stage
Write, Theatron, and more. Numerous
technologies can help stage managers
and production managers be more efficient
and greener at the same time.
The Broadway Stage Management
Symposium has featured these companies
and more in the webinar series
SM Tech Friday (www.broadwaysymposium.com/sm-tech-fridays)
to help us
use our down time to learn new technologies.
Green practices also took
center stage at three different sessions
at USITT this year: The Sustainable
Production Toolkit, Climate Crisis and
Theatre, and Sustainable Solutions for
Reopening Theatre. The BGA was also
featured at the 2021 Broadway Stage
Management Symposium.
Stage managers are embracing sustainable
practices and demonstrating
to producers and employers that green
practices can be economical as well as
environmentally friendly. You can learn
more about the Green Re-Opening
Toolkit
at www.broadwaygreen.com/
greener-reopening-toolkit and join the
growing movement to bring greener
practices into the new era of stage
management.
Caring for People
The role of the stage manager includes
tracking and noting the many changes
that occur throughout the production
process. During our industry's shutdown,
stage managers have still been
managing change, but of different type.
The world is different than when we
went into the shutdown in March 2020.
This new world requires new tools for
stage managers to lead the way into this
new era.
Stage managers can advocate for
COVID-19 safety supervisors and a
fresh look at our schedules, as well as
a better understanding of company and
our own mental health. Stage managers
can re-evaluate their practice, remove
racist language and harmful practices
from use, educate ourselves on how
white supremacy culture may be embedded
in our practices, listen and lean
into difficult conversations, and incorporate
more stage managers of color into
our networks. Stage managers can also
incorporate greener practices and use
more efficient technologies to reduce
carbon footprints, waste, and harm on
the environment.
In the Art of Leadership, Donald
Walters writes, " Genuine leadership
is of only one type: supportive. It leads
people: It doesn't drive them. It involves
them: It doesn't coerce them. It never
loses sight of the most important principle
governing any project involving
human beings: namely, that people are
more important than things " (Walters
1987).
Stage managers know this well and
the new era of stage management is
based on this universal theme. Stage
managers will continue to care for people,
but now with eyes and ears more
open, with more knowledge, and better
tools to address the challenges the pandemic
has revealed.
Matthew Aaron Stern is the
founder of the Broadway
Stage Management
Symposium, the annual
conference for stage managers.
He has Stage Management credits on 20+
Broadway productions including: Finding
Neverland, On The Town, Doctor
Zhivago, Side Show, Spider-Man: Turn
Off The Dark, Death Of A Salesman, An
Evening with Patti LuPone & Mandy
© Cherie B. Tay
http://www.youtube.com/ http://www.broadwaysymposium.com/sm-tech-fridays http://www.broadwaysymposium.com/sm-tech-fridays http://www.broadwaygreen.com/
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