Anna Belle Gilbert Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
Glamour happens out there. Labor—with its own gritty glamour—happens back here.
“Electrics 92-GO! Electrics 102-GO! Electrics 104-GO!” says Anna Belle Gilbert with quiet authority, face lit by the glow of monitors in the dark, in an open-air booth on a rattling catwalk 15 feet off the stage floor. Intensely focused on a thick binder littered with Post-it notes that outline scene after scene, she orders cue after cue, number by number, nearly a thousand in all—lights, sound effects, video projections, hydraulic lifts—but look closely. Planted on a stool, she’s nonetheless … wriggling.
Hips are slightly twitching. Shoulders gently swaying. Arms discreetly bouncing. Dancing in place to what’s unfolding directly below.
“Sh-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ry bay-yay-beee.”
Stage manager at work. Jersey Boys in motion.
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Keith Marks Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
Taped to a wall are the affectionate nicknames—“Flip Flop,” “Pinky,” “Jamal,” “Burst,” “Bird” and “Dorothy” (the one with the sparkles)—of everyone’s true objet d’amour here amid the shadows of the stage: guitars. Carefully and rapidly, while their players change costumes, these cherished babies are fussed over—sprayed, polished, string-tightened, strap-adjusted, tuner-tested and handed off to a superstar musician like a baton at a relay race—by Keith Marks.
One glance at the set list mounted nearby—“Stairway to Heaven,” “We Are the Champions,” “Hotel California,” “Living on a Prayer,” “Highway to Hell”—explains why. As other staffers deploy lighting, “pyro” and automated video cues, Marks keeps the vital relationship—that of rock star and his beloved axe—humming.
“Play the right notes,” Marks jokes to musician Jason Boyleston, passing him the first of his seven instruments for his entrance. “Other than that, I can’t help ya.”
Stage manager at work. Raiding the Rock Vault in motion.
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Ivan Caulier Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
Speed-walking the aisles from Spain, past Norway and over to Russia—about 50 steps in all in this theater-in-the-round divided into audience cheering sections for combating nations—the show’s French-born, behind-the-scenes king keenly observes the action: Every joust, thrust, tumble, dismount and fall in the dirt arena below, by his Camelot-style cast in their knights-in-armor regalia, is scrutinized.
Amid the crowd “huzzahs!” and patrons gnawing sloppily on Cornish game hens—it’s a medieval-style dinner show (utensil-free), after all—Ivan Caulier eyes the action intently: As knights charge and swords clang, is their trajectory synced to the choreography? Are horses galloping at the correct pace and formation, rather than veering into another’s lane? Has the debris of busted swords and spiky axes been collected so as not to endanger man or beast?
“We’ve got more safety rules than other shows,” says Caulier. “I’ve got guys swinging swords at each other made of titanium or axes and a ball and chain. They create nice sparks when they hit, but we really have to pay attention to what we’re doing.”
Stage manager at work. Tournament of Kings in motion.
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Titles vary slightly—Gilbert is production stage manager, Marks is production manager, Caulier is stunt coordinator/company manager—but they’re all backstage generals tasked with ensuring onstage triumphs, night after night. Yet each has tailored qualifications for their distinctly different shows.
Gilbert, a college-groomed backstage ace, oversees a traditional theater piece. Marks, a veteran road manager for Styx, Survivor and Night Ranger, among others, supervises an all-star rock concert (plus video elements and brief comic sketches). Caulier, a veteran stunt man and horse trainer, runs a production built on fights, duels and contests, much of it on horseback.
Though there are commonalities in their job descriptions, they face unique challenges.
Anna Belle Gilbert Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
“The analogies I’ve heard for me is that I’m like a conductor and a fireman,” says Gilbert, who describes one of her vital missions as maintaining the original director’s vision of the show—she regularly evaluates the production and gives notes—but acknowledges the pressures. “There aren’t that many people in the world who enjoy doing this. It’s all on your shoulders if something goes wrong.”
Say, the night Jersey Boys could have been called on account of rain—backstage. “We had a rainstorm outside,” she recalls. “The theater doesn’t have leaks, but the way it was coming through the air conditioning vents, it would hit the beams, but not in drops. We were like, ‘It’s raining back here.’ We’re running around with towels trying to dry the sets.”
Fortunately, she only wrangles two-legged staffers. At Tournament, the four-legged employees are more prone to jitters, as on one night, when the czar of Russia conquered the king of Spain in a joust, and the latter’s cheering section was particularly piqued. Patrons are encouraged to react—their energy is part of the show—but this reaction gave one horse a panic attack.
“The horse’s behavior can be affected by something the audience is doing,” Caulier says. “The whole section started throwing dozens of these white towels or handkerchiefs at the czar. We’d never had that before. I knew what was going to happen and I started running to the front of the section to make the (actor) aware. He’s like, ‘What are you doing here?’ The horse had no idea what was happening. The arena is like a second home to him and he was spooked. He backed up like he was stepping in boiling water.”
Unlike his colleagues whose shows enjoy exclusive venues and permanent setups —Jersey Boys at Paris Las Vegas’ Le Theatre des Arts and Tournament of Kings at a self-titled arena at Excalibur--Marks and his backstage crew start from scratch nightly. At the Tropicana Theater, The New Illusions Starring Jan Rouven, a magic production, precedes them onstage.
“The biggest challenge I have is 20 minutes to completely change from a dead stage to the ‘rock vault,’” says Marks. “That’s a lot of (stuff) to move. But in 20 minutes we’re ready to rock. For that alone, for 500-and-some-odd shows, to not have any failures—pretty darn proud of that.”
Keith Marks Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
Once Rouven brings the curtain down, Marks’ crew is off like a shot: Guitar-stuffed trunks, platforms and banks of amplifiers are rolled into place. Keyboards arrive on one riser, drums on another, while the titular Rock Vault set is locked into place. Striding through, tattooed show star Robin McCauley nods and smiles—the rock vibe is rising.
Up at the microphone, Marks—a musician himself—tests a guitar by going on a solo tear that blasts through the amps he inspects daily. Satisfied, he smiles. “It’s all about pre-production,” he says.
Speaking the tech lingo is a must for Gilbert, who acted in school—“I was awful, dreadful,” she declares—but fell in love with the backstage world when she was assigned to handle props in one production. Quickly and permanently, she segued to the wings, smartly schooling herself on costumes, sets and lighting design as well, even though she didn’t want to specialize.
“You have to know all aspects,” she says. “When something goes wrong, you can speak their language, you’re not clueless. When I figured that out, I went to college for it. I have a B.F.A. in stage management, which virtually no one has because it’s not necessary. But that’s what I wanted. Nobody has any idea what I do, but that’s fine.”
Coping with payroll, administrative duties and box office issues can be part of stage managers’ responsibilities to varying degrees, but scheduling—juggling principal cast members, ensemble performers and understudies through vacations, sickness and personal emergencies—is a crucial task. “It comes in waves because everyone in this company has kids, so suddenly everyone is sick at the same time,” Gilbert says.
Ivan Caulier Photo by: Christopher DeVargas
“It’s certainly exciting because you’ll have to throw somebody in who has never rehearsed that part. We don’t do that with the principals, but with the ensemble it’s been known to happen, like: ‘OK, you’re familiar with the show, you’ve just never done this scene? Don’t worry, it’ll be great.’”
Beyond emergencies, scheduling is as much a matter of practicality and preservation at Tournament of Kings, as Caulier calculates the physical toll on his performers. “It’s part of my job to make them last,” Caulier says, noting that each spot in the show puts a strain on different body parts.
“The king of Ireland jumps from the castle. When you do it three times a week it’s fine. When you do it six days a week, your knee is going to suffer. When the czar of Russia does an axe fight, the impact of the axe on the shield creates vibrations. If you do that all the time, you’re going to have a big tennis elbow after a month, and then you’ve got a problem.”
Also vital to Caulier’s playbook is matching the same riders and horses as much as possible, so they develop an instinctual bond and sense of each other’s movements. Switching is a recipe for injuries when the performers jump from them and execute falls, the accident coming down to a “butt” issue.
“The horse could move his butt, which could cause an accident when (the rider) falls because he usually jumps from a horse that is not moving his butt at that moment,” Caulier says. “Same thing for a guy just riding a horse during the javelin game and from 20 feet away they throw a javelin to try to hit a bulls-eye. Usually the horse stops at the same place, but the rider might surprise the horse and turn a little sooner, and the horse was expecting to turn 5 feet farther, so the horse could twist his leg.”
Did we mention impromptu peeing and pooping (the horses that is)? Though the animals are well-trained and fed on a schedule that should minimize showtime concessions to nature’s calls, well, stuff (shall we say) happens. Stagehands with forks and buckets are sent forth to collect the poop, especially if it’s the spot where a performer is scheduled to fall. Peeing, however, presents more of a danger.
“It’s extremely rare, but it makes a big puddle and a horse or performer can sprain their ankle or spin and twist their leg. And you can feel if it’s going to happen. The horse isn’t going to start peeing when he’s running. It’s when he’s standing still and starts to park himself, the back legs are going a certain way, so you bring him back by pulling on the reins, and the horse thinks, ‘Oh, OK.’ But we did have a couple times when the stagehands came with a shovel and dug and removed the wet dirt and put dry dirt in there.”
Presumably, that isn’t an issue with the stars of Raiding the Rock Vault (otherwise, they’d require a staff urologist). And while timing is critical to every show, here it is also flexible. Musicians wear earpieces linked to a click-track machine Marks keeps an eye (and ear) on. “It’s a click that sounds like fingers snapping, so it’s the meter of the song and sets up the next song, that’s how they know when to start,” Marks says.
“We don’t run a time code, which a lot of shows do. We do it on the fly. But with a rock show, anything can happen. They might jam a little bit longer, or not realize they’ve played an extra chorus, interact with the audience, and you have to think on your feet. This track allows us to stretch. We can fade out the click-track or adjust it for delays.”
Most nights are glitch-free, but for those that aren’t, Marks maintains backup scenarios. “I’ve had some equipment malfunctions that we have to do quick work-arounds on,” he says. “(Star) Howard (Leese) blew up an amplifier one night—bad tube or something. So we have redundant systems. If wireless goes down, I can put him on a cable. There’s always a B-plan to go to.”
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Stage manager at work. Raiding the Rock Vault in motion.
In the darkened wing, Marks’ cell phone lights, alerting him to an email—from the sketch actor who just exited the other side of the stage, and who’s plenty upset. Apparently, people in the front row were talking loudly during his comic routine, usually a pocket of decorum in a show otherwise rocked by crowd exuberance.
“These people have seen the show, like, a hundred times, and they’re always in the front row,” Marks says with a sigh. “I need to take care of this.”
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Stage manager at work. Tournament of Kings in motion.
In the dirt-covered mouth of the arena beneath the audience, site of every entrance of every knight, king, czar, dancing wench and prancing steed, a rider approaches Caulier, complaining that his horse is showing biting tendencies. Sympathetically, he nods, but says little.
“It’s actually his fault,” he confides, out of earshot, explaining that the performer, while faux-fighting, isn’t paying enough attention to manipulating the reins, impacting the horse’s movements and behavior. “Now isn’t the time to tell him, while the show is going on.”
Back in his office, post-show, he does tell him exactly that, in a teaching—but never scolding--voice. Then he’s off: another set of actors to coach through a roaring, King Arthur-style clash for tomorrow’s show. Again. And again. And again.
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Stage manager at work. Jersey Boys in motion.
Actors trample past the booth en route to their stage entrances, shaking the catwalk. Gilbert shakes with it, unruffled. “100 on the blue! 200 on the yellow!” she calls out for lighting, her cues obeyed, as witnessed by the multiple monitors glowing in the darkness before her, revealing the stage from numerous angles. Only around 800 more to go tonight.
“When I started, I was calling cues in my dreams,” she says, planted firmly on her stool. Suddenly, the hips subtly wriggle, the shoulders gently jut forward, the fingers softly snap.
She’s dancing again.
