Pretty Fire - Stage Management

"Pretty Fire" by Charlayne Woodard was the first show in our 2021-2022 Season at NCAT. This also happened to be our first show back after being sent home due to Covid. This was a very new type of show for the actors, and myself, to work on. "Pretty Fire" was designed to be a one-woman show to tell the story of Charlayne Woodard's childhood.

The director, Gregory Horton, turned each scene into its own monologue for a different actor. There were a total of 5 scenes with a different actor for each, the show ended up being double cast due to the length. The five scenes were titled "Birth," "N*gger," "Pretty Fire," "Bonesy," "Joy." Each pair of actresses were tasked to work on their own and together to find an understanding of the text and tell the true story. It was very interesting to watch as everyone grew with each rehearsal. They found new parts of the text to emphasize and explain with the words they were given. I was insanely proud of them for learning 9 - 15 pages of a monologue with all of their blocking.

For me, this was my first show as a collegiate stage manager. This was a different show for me as well. There were only three set pieces that never moved, only one person onstage at a time, and very minimal lighting and sound cues. We were very focused on making sure all of the blocking made sense and worked. For each scene we had to make it very clear what areas of the stage were considered different places from each other. We ended making sure they took the same route to and from certain areas to help cement the idea of where different characters lived on the stage and the different locations.

This show ended up encountering quite a few problems along the way. Our biggest one at first was the fact that we couldn't get into our theater, and we didn't know when we would be able to! The floors of the theater were being redone and all of the seats had been pulled up and were sitting on the stage and behind it. We were sitting in limbo, not sure when or where the show would even go up. The show date ended up getting pushed back two weeks at two different times, so we would be able to perform in the Paul Robeson Theater.

The tech team was able to get in on the Saturday before we opened on Thursday to be able to start getting light cues together. We spent all day moving lights, replacing bulbs, and setting cues for the show. This was very interesting because I'd never really worked with lights at this point. Due to the fact that the show got pushed back, the director was unable to make it to the tech rehearsal because of prior commitments. I had to go through the script with the technical director to figure out what the show would look like. I really had a blast figuring it out and learning how to use our lighting system.

Right before our opening show on Thursday, our lights starting flickering on stage. All of the lights were going from 100% to 0% and back. We were so confused and concerned with what was going to happen. They stopped flickering right before the show and then started back up right before we were going to turn the light board up. This continued to concern us for the following show. On Friday night, the lights picked up flickering again. It wasn't as frequent, but we knew we might have to operate with just the work lights above the stage if things started to get too crazy. We warned the actors about the lights before the show started, but unfortunately they did continue to flicker. The actors did an amazing job pushing through and continuing through the chaos. At the Saturday matinee show, as the director is giving the curtain speech, the technical director made the executive decision that we would not be running with the light board during the show. We wheeled two very large follow spots into the booth and got them plugged in. The TD showed the light board operator and a stagehand how to work them, and that's how we ran the show. I had to come up with new cues on the spot; when to turn the work lights off, when to turn them down, when to change the colors, etc. Because this was all on the spot, I couldn't write anything down and we never knew if we were going to run with or without the light board until we turned it on. Unfortunately, for the rest of the shows, we had to run with only the spotlights. It was a truly crazy experience.

As NCAT does every year, we compete in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). We got to take the show to regionals and the respondents loved the show so much, they told us they were going to figure out a way for us to take the show to Detroit for the Black Theater Networks event. And that's exactly what they did. At the end of July, we got flown out to Detroit to perform at Wayne State in their Maggie Allesee Dance Theater. We got to meet some amazing people while we were there. I got to meet Phillip Hall, the Assistant TD there. We knew each other from participating at the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas. He was amazing to work with! He was able to take my cue sheet and create all the lighting on the stage from scratch. It was really cool to watch it come to life all over again.

In August, we got to the show yet again! We participated in the National Black Theater Festival in Winston Salem next. We got to work with another group of amazing techies. Of course a couple were from North Carolina Central State University, so we had to bully each other (since we're rivals). But everyone was so great to work with and truly talented at what they did! I got to work more intensely with a full tech group in Winston Salem and create the light cues... again! I got to work with the light board and learn more about how to program the cues and fix things as we were working through our tech rehearsals.

Touring as a stage manager was a very unique experience. I know what we had to do was probably very unorthodox from what it is normally to like to travel and tour with a show. I truly value all of the knowledge I gained and all of the people I got to work with. "Pretty Fire" was an incredible show to work on, and I'm so incredibly proud of all the progress I got to see from the actors from September 2021 to August 2022. They grew so much and the show only get better and better with each performance. Thank you to everyone I worked with through this entire process, you were all incredible!