To Prompt or Not to Prompt
Fri, 19 Nov 1999, 11:40 amLabrug18 posts in thread
To Prompt or Not to Prompt
Fri, 19 Nov 1999, 11:40 amI have never liked prompting. Ihave been in very few shows that have used such a device. The only time I welcomed a prompt was when it was used as a comical occurance throughout the show - Prompt walks on stage and bashes actor who can't get his lines right, etc.
I have recently be distracted by many things occuring in my life and recently dropped a line on stage. Fair enough, my cue line was missed or not given, but that really is not excuse. I should have been paying enough attention to the dialogue to realise what had happened. As it was, there was an uncomfortable pause before a whispered voice jolted my memory and feed me my line.
My first reaction was to quickly pick-up where'd I had left off, but I was resentful that I had needed prompt, then I mental-bashed myself for being so distracted.
It was later, after the show that I realised that I had become lazy by the very fact that there was a prompt there. I have missed cues before in other plays but have always been able to improvise a quick come-back and get myself back on track. In these shows, we had not prompt and we knew we had to rely on ourselves.
Can it be that the knowledge that a prompt is present (stage left) will encourage laziness in the performers?
Jeff "Missed" Watkins
I have recently be distracted by many things occuring in my life and recently dropped a line on stage. Fair enough, my cue line was missed or not given, but that really is not excuse. I should have been paying enough attention to the dialogue to realise what had happened. As it was, there was an uncomfortable pause before a whispered voice jolted my memory and feed me my line.
My first reaction was to quickly pick-up where'd I had left off, but I was resentful that I had needed prompt, then I mental-bashed myself for being so distracted.
It was later, after the show that I realised that I had become lazy by the very fact that there was a prompt there. I have missed cues before in other plays but have always been able to improvise a quick come-back and get myself back on track. In these shows, we had not prompt and we knew we had to rely on ourselves.
Can it be that the knowledge that a prompt is present (stage left) will encourage laziness in the performers?
Jeff "Missed" Watkins
RE: To Prompt or Not to Prompt
Tue, 31 May 2005, 08:17 pmWalter Plinge
Thank God for all the understanding and compassionate stage managers! Lets not forget that by the time the actor has had his two to five seconds of hell, the lighting crew have scattered the LX pages accross the gantry (creating a kind of lge confetti effect over the stalls), THE DIRECTOR (seated in 'the gods') is having a stroke and a coronary, has poured his glass of pinot down the back of the old chook in the next seat, and is ready to send in a promt by parachute if necessary because the $10 bribes haven't worked!
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