Evolution Meets Stage Management

This week's blog prompt of connecting evolution to our art got me thinking. How, if in any way, can this biological phenomenon link up to stage management or anything similar. I turned to Google to look up a definition to get started.

"the gradual development of something, esp. from a simple to a more complex form."

Well then! That is something I can work with. You see, evolution is a process. It is all about how something developed from point A to point B. It is about how a simple and easy thing becomes a complicated being. Through changing, shaping, and molding the little 'thing' becomes a beautiful and phenomenal 'thing'. This is the basic idea of evolution and how it works. 

Evolution is very similar to the performing arts process. When starting to work on a production, you receive the script and begin to analyze what the playwright is trying to say. Exploration of the text becomes coherent through discussions and collaboration. Once the script is analyzed, rehearsals begin where the director molds and shapes the production. Ideas and thoughts of how actors will deliver their line, how they will walk, etc. is explored during that time. It is up to the stage manager to guide the director and actors in making certain everyone stays on schedule and everything happens when it needs to. It is also the stage manager's duty to record all movement on stage in order to be a fountain of answers as various people need information for a specific scene. 

Similarly, designers work with the director to come up with the environment in which the characters of the story live. All designers go through an evolution process as they come up with new ideas for how to portray a specific scene. While working with the director, set, costume, lighting, and sound designers are able to create the space for the production. It is because of the discussions of the text that makes the evolution process  thorough and complete. 

A stage manager is responsible for ensuring the evolution process of the production to be well maintained. The stage manager is part of the process from the early stages of preparation through the closing of the production. It is part of the stage manager's responsibility to maintain the the gradual development of the production especially from a simple to a complex production.