This past Sunday was Katie's Christmas dance recital. For the last three years, I have been involved at Katie's dance studio, helping with shows, performing routinely, and so on. Due to my increasing time demands, I am not going to continue helping there at the same level as in the past, but I will help a little. One way I help, and I plan to continue this, is working as the stage manager for the studio's shows. I don't know how many of you, if any, have ever done such a thing, but it is a truly amazing experience. Working as stage manager for the shows always invigorates me in a very unusual way; it combines amazing summits of joy with incredible stress levels.
Every show really begins about 3-4 weeks before the actual date of the show, when the extended rehearsals begin. This turns the entire experience of the show into an amazing boot camp that takes a heavy toll on everyone involved, dancers, parents, instructors and other staff, and especially Miss Phan, who owns and runs the studio. The extended rehearsal schedule starts benignly enough; practice every night, perhaps only for an hour or two, with additional practices on Saturday and Sunday of about 2 hours each. These are just the warm-up for the main event, however; as the date of the show draws closer, the rehearsals become longer. Week-night rehearsals for any dancers 10 and older will run from about 6:45 until close to 10. Weekend rehearsals...well, let's just say that the kids may as well be working those days. Six to eight hours of rehearsal both Saturday AND Sunday are the norm. The HS juniors and seniors, college-age kids, and adults who instruct and support the dancers also put in these long hours, and indeed, even longer hours because they usually have their own numbers to learn as well as support chores to handle and classes of their own to run.
As I said before, I also danced, doing primarily tap numbers. The last few shows, I learned my numbers not over the course of many weeks like the others in my class, but over the two weeks immediately prior to the show, because I didn't have the time to go to tap class due to my own teaching job. I performed in the "Dads and Daughters" group, mostly so I could dance with Katie directly (which was the whole reason I got involved in dance at all). I also was doing some work in roles the other dads and I called "living props"; basically, we have some small part in a number as essentially live scenery moving around among the dancers. One number required me to dress like a bodyguard, carry a fake machine gun, and wander around the stage as though I were looking for someone. Another number was more of a Broadway production number (and indeed, was pulled directly from the short-lived musical version of the movie Big); in this number I dressed up like a typical office worker, had a few lines in the song, did minimal dance work, and generally played a character role. Learning all the moves and staging and lines and everything for all these numbers takes a great deal of time, and compressing it all into 2-3 weeks as I have been really wore me out.
Eventually, we reach the weekend of the show, and so we have the dress rehearsal. At the dress rehearsal they run every number, but that's where my OTHER responsibilities begin. I have to run the stage, prepare the stage and its decorations and the like, mark the stage with tape along the wings, down the center, and across the front, help check the lights, set up dressing rooms and make sure they have the correct signs, verify that the dancers and parents have everything they need, manage the props, clear the traffic areas, etc., etc., etc. Basically, the stage and backstage areas are my responsibility and I have to make sure they're ready to go for the show. Then, during the show, I maintain the running order, make sure the groups are ready for their numbers and actually go out and perform them, have the props placed on the stage and removed, ensure that the soloists have their mics for their numbers, communicate with the guys in the sound and light booths to let them know what's happening (we shuffle the running order often, for reasons I'll get to shortly), call music and light cues, and basically make the show actually run. I'm not completely alone in these endeavors, since I have 2-5 other parents to assist me with chores, but I am the stage manager and ultimately responsible for making everything work. As I said, it brings lots of joy and even more stress.
The stress comes from the constant uncertainties from having so complicated a situation as a 4-hour-long show, with a total of 50 or so numbers. Most numbers have different costumes, and each group of dancers at each age level have at least two numbers; the older groups have more so that the senior dancers might have as many as 15-20 numbers in which they perform, especially when you add in vocal or dance solos. Costume logistics are the most difficult part of making the show run, because unfortunately, no one person or group of people is directly responsible for getting costumes done and to the correct dancers. Fortunately for me, I don't have to take on that responsibility, but it can make for some harrowing situations. Quite often, we have to move numbers around in the running order so that we don't have a long pause or gap in the show. One group might be up next, only to come to me to say that two of their number do not have part of their costumes, but they're on the way. (We actually have people run over to the studio to get bits of costumes that were forgotten.) So we move another number for a person or group that is waiting backstage and is set to go into that slot, and hope that the errant bits of costume arrive in time for us to get the number in before we get too far out of whack.
Another problem is that we're rather limited on the number of dancers we have. Rather than simply reduce the total number of numbers that go into the show, Miss Phan simply puts together more numbers, making more dancers perform more often. This doesn't sound so bad, until you realize that in many cases the running order is put together in such a way that dancers might only have 1-2 numbers to perform a full costume change before they have to be back out on stage. If they have one number to make the change, and that number is a shorter one (say, it's a two-and-a-half-minute number for the 4-year-old ballet group), the dancer has two options: a) change backstage with moms standing around you to shield you, or b) high-tail it to the dressing room and change with as blinding a speed as possible, replacing tights, leotards, tops, and other accoutrements, then high-tail it back to the stage. As you might imagine, this is not always possible.
Despite all of the stress caused by all the things I have to keep under control before and during the show, there are moments that make the work truly rewarding. Sometimes an act comes up where the talent and ability of the performer radiates from the stage in such a way that everyone in the building picks up on it and everything completely stops to bask in the radiance of it. During Sunday's show, there was a pair of brothers, about 12 or 13 by my guess, who were singing together. They went out on stage with their mics, and just sang.
The chatter on my headset between the sound guys and the light guys and me came to a standstill; the audience went deathly still and quiet; the other performers milling about backstage froze and turned to the stage to watch and listen; there was no sound, no motion, no distraction from these boys singing in this marvelous, ethereal way, in perfect harmony as they sang out "Silent Night". Another dancer went out and performed a dance to a song I'd never heard, and her technique was so flawless, her emotion and passion for the number so evident, her talent so clear, that again, all activity merely stopped as though she had clicked a button on a stopwatch and made time stop around her. These performers, in the pure grasp of their art, captivating all who observe their movements, who hear their tones, transcend the mundane of the rest of the show and everything else around them, and elevate everything and everyone into a different place.
That is the biggest reason I still do it. For all the stress it brings, my contribution to making those moments happen rewards me in a way almost nothing else can.
Thanks for reading along.
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