Assistant Stage Managers

I have been working on the North American premier of Testing the Echo, a British play by David Edgar. Tomorrow after an 8 week process it finally opens at Grinnell College. I am the Assistant Stage manager, and in charge of all the backstage business. Today after a bit too much stress I broke down and the actors saw me cry. I am embarrassed about it now, but I don't think any of them will say anything about it.

During this whole process I have been reading quite a bit of Theatre theory. Frances Harding has an article titled Presenting and Re-presenting the Self: From not-acting to acting in African Performance. I have been reading about African performance lately on my own accord because I think that I want to spend the rest of my life working with it. Re-Presenting the Self resonates with me especially now because it talks about the stage-hand as a performer who is support of the central character/charters. This performance role is a fully functional balance between acting and not acting. As the assistant stage manager I am performer the role of backstage mom, making sure that the actors do not worry about timing, costume, or other technical aspects of the performance. This is a very necessary role to have performed during any show, yet is the least recognized.

I have come to terms with the fact that an assistant stage manager's duties are invisible yet valuable. Harding say it better than I when he writes about stagehands, "in spite of the deliberate absence of visual signals (costuming, behavior, etc.) the stagehand is drawn into the "informational structure" of the performance. It is because they are invisible that the show is able to be experienced in its entirety. I wish I could thank all the invisible assistant stage managers of the world for the hidden magic they bring to the stage.