 Hi, I'm Mitch Loculain, and welcome to Riedel's podcast series. Today we'll be bringing you this episode from the heart of Sydney, where we'd like to shine a light on the arts and theatre industry. We will be taking a look at the role of stage manager and what exactly these highly skilled individuals bring to the arts. It's about highlighting the challenges and the most interesting aspects of this role. We are particularly honoured to have stage manager, Mary Ann Carter, an incredible industry expert joining us for this session. Hi, guys. Thanks for joining us here today at Riedel. We'd really like to just talk to you about, really, today, what you think about the theatre industry in general, about your role. But first, I was wondering if you could just give us a little bit of background into yourself and what you've done and talk us through it. Yeah, sure. So thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Mary Ann Carter, but everyone calls me Maz. I've been stage managing for just over 20 years. I work freelance. There's a lot of companies that I work with regularly, but I do a bit of everything. So, you know, theatre, comedy, opera, magic, whatever you can think of. I've done a little bit of everything. I like that. Magic's good. Is there any fun magic that you've seen that's kind of blind your mind? Magic is always fun because we don't get to tell you how, but we're quite often involved very closely in the magic backstage. So it's always it's good fun to be in on the trick. Yeah, excellent. Excellent. So let's kind of get into this. And can you describe for us what the role of the stage manager actually is? Yeah, absolutely. And it's quite a hard role to describe because it is very varied. So basically stage managers coordinate and facilitate the artistic, technical and safety elements of putting on a show. But because theatre and events vary widely, the job itself varies depending on what the production itself actually needs. So I often say, I don't know what my job is until I know what the show is. But some of the core skills that you need for the job are technical knowledge and ability to facilitate technical artistic needs as well. And you need to read music, but mostly what you need is good communication. That's probably the key quality. Stage managers definitely need the right temperament and the instinct for the work. I would say the most fun part of our job, though, and the one we tend to focus on is calling a show. And by that, I mean we create a prompt copy from either a score, a script or a running order, and we queue all of the technical elements that happen in a show. So this ranges from really simple shows where you just queue the lights on and send one person on stage to really complicated shows where you might have potentially hundreds of queues to call and you could be talking to dozens of people at the same time. So for example, I've done shows where I've had to be communicating with 20 people or more at the same time whilst watching a dozen screens. And then you've also got to be aware of and dealing with what's happening live around you as well. So it's certainly a kind of, what would we say, it's a multi-skilled juggling approach. It definitely is a bit of a juggling act, going back to your bit of magic and pulling a rabbit out of a hat when it comes to definitely communicating to a lot of people. And it does seem that that is quite a critical part of your role as well in terms of being able to make sure that you are heard and everyone can hear what's going on so that you can coordinate those people. And I guess you have to deal with a lot of talent as well. Did is that something that, you know, is quite critical in your role? Absolutely. And dealing with all different types of talent who have different temperaments, different ways of speaking to each other and different needs and sensing what that talent needs just before they walk on stage is a big part of the job because I'm there to create a world that they can perform well in. So you have to kind of sense what they need artistically and technically and give it to them in the moment so that the show is as good as the show can be. So what would you say that your most challenging part of stage management is? I would say probably the most challenging is staying calm while dealing with different personalities. So art requires people to push themselves, which means tensions can raise when people are really working hard to try and make something special. But you need to stay calm and provide an environment where everybody feels like they can do their own part of the puzzle. Yeah, excellent. And I'm sure it does get quite hectic at times when you're when you're trying to coordinate all those people. 100%. Yeah. And how do you generally overcome some of those challenges? So to, you know, to keep yourself calm and to try and project that level of calm onto everyone else that's around you when everything may not be going the way that you want it to go. For me, it's preparation. That's like my biggest tool in overcoming any challenges. The more prepared I am, the calmer I feel. And if you're prepared and calm, then you can better deal with changes on the day because there is always changes on the day. So I like to say be super prepared and then just enjoy the ride when the wheels come off. Yeah, sure. And do you think from your perspective when you're trying to, you know, understand and get across those changes as well as keeping calm and trying to find those wheels as they're bouncing down the road, do you think that having the ability to be able to make sure that everyone is aware and has that awareness of what's going on? Do you think that that makes your role a lot easier? Absolutely. And it makes everybody else's role easier too. I think lots of crew will say to you that a calm voice on comms, making everybody feel like everything is in control is what gives them the strength to do their jobs well. So... Yeah, definitely. It's almost like you need voice coaching to make sure. You do, I bet, you know, and that voice coaching is just like 10, 20 years of experience. But the calmer they sense your voice is, the more that they will trust that the show is going to work. Yeah, definitely. And I know from being out on some of those shows that they don't always go to plan. And there is a lot that you have to be able to, you know, work on your feet to get happening and trying to keep a lot of those people calm who just may not know that what's going on and certainly being able to have one of those nice calm voices is nice to hear at the end of the day over the end of the comms. So as a freelance stage manager, how has the development of communication technology improved your workflow and the workflow within the theatres for where you work? Well, being able to communicate well is an absolute must for a smooth running of a show. When crews can work as a team and communicate well without hindrance or frustration from the column system, you've already won half the battle of putting on a really smooth show. Theatre comms, when I started out, used to be very, very simple, but as theatres evolved and become more technical, the comms have had to evolve to meet that demand. So I would say the biggest change in all of that was latency. When that came in, that was a really big change for everybody. So it's certainly an excellent thing that companies like Redell are leading the way in kind of producing that latency over digital comms because it's a big thing for our industry and for my job particularly. So you have to understand the core part of my job is precision in timing. So there's nothing more important to me than the timing on the comms. So that's why that change was such a big thing for our industry. There's several layers of complexity when you're calling a show. So I have to hear what's going on on stage. I take a millisecond of response to that and then I say the word go. Somebody else has got to take a millisecond to hear that and then they've got to spend another millisecond reacting and pressing the go button. So calling a show, it's more of an art than a science and the better the comms system is, the better the art that we do with that comms system is. So when I hear about comms systems that have super low latency, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I think, great, that means we can do our job really well. Great. And you were talking about team and so obviously the production staff are a team and there's various teams within the production staff itself. So whether it's lighting, it's audio, mechs and so forth. So who do you consider from a stage management perspective as your team? Everybody's my team and I'm part of everybody's team and we're all a team working for the show. And it really is one of those things when we're your stage managing, sometimes one department will feel like their need is a little more important than somebody else's need but essentially we're all just working on the show and I feel like sometimes I'm the captain of going, no, here's what the show needs right now. Yeah, that's right. So it's never kind of about who gets to win an argument. It's really about what is the show need in this moment. And that's correct. That's definitely right. And you want to get it done and you want to get it done right. And as you said, that comes down to not only the fact that sometimes, yeah, the theater comp show that need to be complex but from a user perspective, they need to be simple as well, right? Which is really what you've stated. And what do you think makes them simple? Like for you as a user, what do you think that in theater communications, I should say in general, but what do you think makes it simple for you? I really like when you meet a new system when you can very quickly simplify the system to what you need. So if you don't want to be hearing a lot of things and you can quickly turn them off, that's always great. But if it's a complex show, of course, you need the opposite of that. So a flexible system is really important because like my job, I don't know what it is till I know what the show is. You don't know how complicated you need the system to be until you see what the show is. So... Yeah, definitely. Are there any disadvantages to a, you know, maybe a more complex system that might not be as easy to handle? Look, if it's complex, the only disadvantage is usually the squiggy organic thing at the end of the system. And by that, I mean me when I'm being an idiot and it's not working very well. You know, for example, I was watched stage managing for a major orchestra and I had completely and utterly forgotten that they had routed the comms down to recording studio in a completely different set of the building. So I got on comms and started saying to the lighting operator, God, I'm so bored right now, I could absolutely. And then I put in a lot of colourful language and forgot the artistic director for the orchestra was downstairs listening in. So, you know, that's not the fault of the comm system, but you do sometimes when they're complex comm systems, forget about these things. And it's, you know, if it's a complex comm system, you can make it do whatever you want. It's just sometimes we forget what it's capable of doing, I think. Yeah, definitely. And I've certainly had those experiences relate to me previously when, you know, and coming from a bit of a broadcast background as well, whenever you see a comms panel and a microphone, you just assume that it's on and you don't say anything, you don't want anyone else to hear. So that's, it's certainly always interesting to be at the end of a comms panel and, you know, a communications belt pack. And certainly performing your job, it does make it very, very simple for you and for everyone else when you're able to be able to talk to anybody that you need to talk to. All right, man, thanks very much for joining us here today. It's been a pleasure to have you on. We hope to see you out in theaters soon and have a fantastic day. Awesome, thanks very much.