Big Talk
By Armand Thomas, KÀ Stage Manager
In the cigar factories of Havana, a man sits at the head of a large room, reading a novel into a microphone. Facing him, a small army of workers at tobacco-strewn desks cut leaves and roll the famous stogies, their daily toil numbed and productivity raised by the soothing, dulcet tones of the storyteller.
In cueing KÀ, I too talk a lot in front of a large room. I do hope it's a pleasant and informative chatter. But here the similarities with the cigar shop anecdote end.
KÀ is a busy, complex spectacle with as much, if not more, going on backstage, understage and in the wings as in plain public view. Some 100 stagehands are required to operate the show-another 60 are assigned to day maintenance-and along with the six stage managers, it becomes utterly imperative that clear communication be maintained on the headset.
If pride for a stage manager comes with being organized, the thrill of the job comes with calling a good show. It's an esoteric art: no hard-and-fast boundaries, no single way of being efficient. Much has to do with the nature of both the person and the show. But one thing is essential on the airwaves: precision.
The calling stage manager sets the tone for the work and the mood "on the air"; it's crucial to establish talk protocols, maintain the rhythm of the show and ensure that the lines are clear for the necessary cues and safety measures. With so many hydraulic stages, automation axes, gravity-defying tilts, pyrotechnic effects, rigging points, cables, winches, airbags, wires, safety nets and labyrinthine accesses to all parts of the theatre, KÀ quickly becomes a nerve centre of information circulated within departments on separate channels or, more commonly, intertwining on the same channel. The calling stage manager acts like the moderator of a talk show, or a talk-traffic cop, dispatching information, inviting input, squelching trivialities and maintaining general decorum for the show to be successfully pulled off. This is one place that silence is by no means golden. For nearly every major scenic cue change in KÀ, there is a lead carpenter or rigger that must provide an audible "clear" before anything moves. This usually involves hard physical work and dizzying headset exchanges that, if done well, the public cannot fathom. Sometimes, sitting behind my microphone in the control booth looking out, I have visions of the control tower at O'Hare Airport on a foggy night.
It's a far cry from the mind-numbing Cuban book reader.
Indeed, so much time is spent on the airwaves, especially during creation, that it becomes a quasi-location; "See you on headset" is a common meeting point; we live our days together yet apart, having each other's ears at our fingertips. Given the perils of the show, even some artists wear in-ear monitors beneath their wigs and costumes in the event that they may need to be cued or informed of changes that need to occur during the act.
All this makes first-rate cue calling not only an essential tool, but a gratifying experience. I am certainly not averse to humour and expression; well-timed banter boosts the troupe's morale and produces dividends in effort and performance. We've proven it's important to be loopy in order to remain sane, especially when madness lurks behind the magic.