intervals

I agree with this, often new directors (who are usually actors and not familiar at all with how crews work) leave the SM or stage crew to figure out best striking methods, and quite often, especially in amateur or fringe shows, the crew have no idea how to do this efficiently. I would though like to point out a slightly off topic but relevant idea: there are cases where I've worked with actors who weren't particularly (for lack of better phrasing) bright. A specific case I remember was a senior citizen who couldn't remember where the wings were and so we had to have low level blue lights (the 'dressing room' didn't actually have a work light) so she could see where to go. Sadly, she also not only couldn't see, but couldn't remember which side of the stage to exit/enter, and ended up having to be escorted by one of the crew between scenes. A couple of times she tried to help strike the set herself, despite being clearly and repeatedly told that that was someone else's job. Often meaning pacing was lost, along with the 'prettiness' of the scene change and the efficiency of the crew. I think perhaps that we forget that there are times when there's only so much we can do to make scene changes smooth and as unobtrusive as possible. Puppets and patterns at Puppets in Melbourne