Dearest Stage Manager:

I have a confession: I am kind of in love with you. Whether I'm acting or directing, you really complete me (and the production). You're the glue that holds everything together. You're the talent that takes a bunch of really cool individual pieces and pulls it together into an art-making machine. It blows my mind everything you have to do, and how you do it, to make a production happen. And you rarely get the love you deserve, because when you're good, you're invisible, quietly smoothing the spinning wheels and cogs.

It's funny, because your job often isn't even defined by any one codified set of guidelines! Expectations of you shift and wobble from gig to gig, from theater to theater. In any relationship, that's not fair--but you take in stride. Actors are there to act, directors are there to direct, and you, you're there doing everything else.

You're also so misunderstood. I know this sounds like a bad pickup line, but really, you are. A non-theater friend of mine recently said how surprised he was that management was an actual degree and specialty you can get in theater, because you guys aren't really artists or creative at all anyway. It's okay though--I've defriended him on Facebook (and all my other social media) after giving him an earful about it.

And over the years I've known you, you've done some amazing things.

You've been like a mom to the kids at youth theaters I've worked at. You've kept well meaning but long winded directors in check and kept rehearsals running on schedule. You've given rides to the kids in my show, sometimes 30-40 minutes out of your way. You've had to retape the floor for a show a bajillion times because it was a shared rehearsal space (and actors apparently have spikes on their feet that dig up anything you try to set down). You've gone above and beyond what you've had to do and helped build sets and print programs and once, at this tiny little blackbox, had to work as sound AND light board op WHILE having to call the show backstage and in the booth because two techs didn't show up. (The way you talked and cued yourself was adorable and amazing.) Some days, it feels like you know the lines better than the actors who're calling for them do.

But, stage manager, we've had our bad times too.

There's been times when you've crossed the line and started giving direction to the actors. Some days you give actors lines when they haven't called for it, or are on your phone texting instead of listening. You've been cross at actors (understandably, sometimes we can't even dress ourselves) and cursed them out or gossiped about them behind their back (not so understandably). You've had a "I hate this" attitude and face on and complained about everything, bringing a negative energy to the whole process. And, dearest stage manager, you're at your ugliest when you're in panic, doomsday mode. You know what I'm talking about--it's when you go into the "everything is so screwed up and we're so %*!ing screwed and this is all a MAJOR CRISIS HERE OH MY GAWSH"

The secret is, although the director seems like the captain of the ship, you're the one who's firing the coal and steering the whole dang kaboodle. So when you panic and cry abandon ship, we believe it more than the captain sometimes. When you panic, everyone goes into high stress mode, and everything becomes rushed and fraught with nerves and less effective. As unfair as it is, sometimes your job is to breathe, plaster the best fake smile to your face and lie your *@! off. Make like a duck--calm on the surface, paddling furiously underneath to keep everything moving.

At times it may feel like you're not appreciated. At times you probably aren't being appreciated.

But know that you have lots of secret admirers like me. People who have tried before to fill your shoes, and know how hard it is to walk in them.

Keep being the amazing theater ninjas I've fallen in love with.

Yours,

~me