The Essentials: Things You Should Know and Things You Should Own
Every theater in the world is different, but some things never change. Here is a short list of essentials that every person backstage should know or own.
Things Every Show Person Should Know
• Stage directions: Onstage, directions are always from the actor’s perspective, not the audience’s. That is, if you, the actor, are facing the audience, Stage Left is to your left and Stage Right is to your right. If you really want to talk about things from the audience’s perspective (when you are talking about seating arrangements, for example), you say House Left and House Right. As far as the other dimension goes, upstage is away from the audience, downstage is toward the audience. (In the early days of Elizabethan theater, the audience sat on a flat surface, and the stage was pitched to allow the actors to be seen. Hence, when you moved away from the audience, you really were moving “up.” Nowadays, the audience is generally on a sloping surface and the stage is flat, but the term persists.)
• “Heads!”: No doubt about it, backstage can be a dangerous place. This is particularly true when one person is working over another person’s head. Fingers get sweaty, people get careless, things get dropped. If you do drop something, don’t swear, don’t berate yourself for being a clumsy oaf, don’t do anything except yell, “HEADS!” Heads is the all-purpose, look-out-or-you’ll-get-socked-in-the-head shout, and if you are going to be hanging out backstage, you should begin to train yourself to yell it whenever you see danger coming from above. Any other word might not do the trick. Of course, if you hear someone above you yell, “Heads!” get away quickly. Do not look up. Do not ask questions. Run. If you are onstage, and the call comes from above, head for the wings. You are almost always safest against a wall. Besides using “heads” in emergencies, technicians will sometimes use it in calmer situations to alert people on stage that something is about to be lowered. In this case, they will follow it with the name of what is coming down, as in “Heads up! Ballroom drop coming in!” Pay attention to these calls. They are made for your safety.
• Where the callboard is: In theater, communication is everything. The primary way that technical people tell nontechnical people things (and vice versa) is by posting them on the callboard. Find it. Read it.
• How big ten feet is: I have been involved with a lot of conversations about how big something should be, and most people have trouble visualizing a dimension. Once, when doing a show with an extremely polite director of Kabuki theater, we translated his beautiful watercolor renderings into shop drawings by asking him repeatedly, “How tall is this one? How about this one?” and studiously writing down the heights he called out. Once the entire set was built, he came to the shop to see it all set up. He smiled graciously, looking carefully at each piece we had built. “Very nice,” he said, smiling politely, “It’s very nice, but it should be much bigger.” He gestured up towards the shop ceiling, three times as high as the scenery. After he left, we built him a new set that reached the roof. We grumbled, of course, but we did get a good catch phrase: “Very nice, but much bigger.”
Ten feet is a good baseline dimension to begin visualizing size. If you have a feel for ten feet, then you can judge larger distances by multiplying it and smaller distances by dividing it. Find something in your life that is ten feet long, like your dining room, a hallway, your car, anything you are familiar with. Then, when someone says, “Hey, will five feet be enough?” you can think, okay, that’s half the length of my dining room, and you will have a handle on it. It’s also useful to find a couple of measurements on your own body. I know, for instance, that if I stand and reach up, it is exactly eight feet to the last knuckle on my middle finger. It may sound trivial, but you have no idea how many times that distance has come in handy when I needed a rough measurement and I didn’t have a tape measure. Another good one is a dollar bill, which is just a shade over six inches long.
If you are lucky enough to live somewhere that uses the oh-so-practical metric system, then substitute three meters for ten feet.
• The difference between an ellipsoidal and a fresnel: These two lighting instruments are the basis of almost every light plot in the theater, and you should be able to tell them apart. The ellipsoidal (often called a “Leko” after one popular brand) is the one that puts out a sharp-edged light that can be shuttered and shaped. The fresnel puts out a soft-edged light that cannot be shuttered but blends more easily. The fresnel can be spotted by the circular ridges on the lens. Ellipsoidals have smooth lenses.
• The difference between a flat and a platform: Flats are walls, platforms are floors. Mixing up these two is the quickest way to show your amateur stripes.
Things Every Show Person Should Own
• A mini-maglite: The toughest, brightest small flashlight made. Forget about all the little colored lenses—they’re a pain to put in and you’ll lose them anyway.
• A Leatherman: This is a folding tool set that includes, at a minimum, various kinds of knives, various kinds of screwdrivers, and a pliers. Leatherman is actually a brand name, and there are many others available, but as with Kleenex and Aspirin, the brand has become the term. Note that you should always pack the Leatherman in your checked luggage. I have now lost six of them—SIX!—at airport security.
• A tape measure: At least sixteen feet long, longer if you don’t mind carrying the weight around.
• An eight-inch Crescent adjustable wrench: The one essential tool for doing lighting. I highly recommend putting a coiled cable with a snap hook on it, so you can clip it to your belt when working overhead.
• A clipboard with a pen attached: Put your name on it, or kiss it good-bye.
• A set of black clothes including black tennis shoes: Essential for fading into the background backstage.
Things Every Theater Should Own
• A roll of black, two-inch-wide gaffer’s tape: A cloth-based tape that has held more sets together than I can count. Don’t let them sell you “duct tape.” It has a gooey adhesive that stays behind when you take the tape off. Black masking tape is also insufficient—it’s just not strong enough. Go to your theatrical supplier and pay the extra couple of bucks for the good stuff.
• A Mikita cordless screwdriver: There is a time for brand loyalty and this is it. The Mikita is the ultimate stage tool—strong, light, and adaptable. The Jeep of the modern theater.
• Phillips-head drywall screws: Drywall screws go in and out of wood quickly, and they are quite strong. Keep several sizes around, like 1¼ inches, 15/8 inches, and two inches for use with the Mikita cordless.
• A fifty-foot tape measure: Or longer. You should be able to measure all the way across your stage diagonally.
• A roll of one-inch-wide white gaffer’s tape: The best way to make things visible in the backstage area. Phosphorescent or “glow” tape will work on the stage itself, but behind the scenes it will not get enough light on it to “charge up.” Use white tape backstage to mark pathways, obstacles, and stairs.
• Aluminum utility lights covered with blue color filters: For “running lights.” Sprinkle them around the stage to light prop tables, walkways, and exits. Make sure you take a look from the audience during a blackout to see if the light is spilling on stage.
• A callboard: A bulletin board where the performers and technicians can look to see schedules, announcements, phone numbers, and maps to the opening night party. Everyone should get trained to look here for info.
• Tie line: A black, cotton/polyester line about the thickness of a shoelace, but stronger. Use it to tie up cables, draperies, rope, and everything else.
• A hot glue gun: The props coordinator at Seattle Rep once told me, “If I can’t fix it with hot glue, tie line, and gaffer’s tape, it wasn’t built right to begin with.”