To Prompt or Not to Prompt

I 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 shame myself - my typing is disgusting - please excuse my mess.
Jeff "Missed the Keyboard" Watkins

I don't know about anyone else, but as far as I am concerned, there really
is only one answer to this question...
NO PROMPT!!!!
I liken it to a trapeze.
If you have the safety net, you are more likely to fall, but less likely to kill yourself when you do. If you have no safety net, you are far less likely to fall, because if you
do so, you know that you are DEAD!!!
I recently had a fight with someone over this during a performance. One of the actors onstage dried, someone backstage hissed over the cams
"Who's prompting".
The reply was, "We don't have a prompt"
"What happens if they dry"
"They're actors, they can get themselves out of it"
"Its better to have a prompt than have them dry"
"If there's a prompt there they'll use it"
"I'm getting the script"
"Don't you dare"
At this point the conversation became a shouting match, except we whispered the whole thing (we WERE on cams at the time).
So I'd say it boils down to personal preference, but I'd prefer not to...
Paul Treasure

A method tp prevent the percieved laziness of actors when a prompt is present is to take a lesson from the professional theatre, where the prompt is also the stage manager. We have found over many years that a fine, donation to the SM's ritirement fund of say $10 per prompt after the final dress rehearsal seems to work wonders!!
Bernard Angell

Shouldn't need a prompt.
Certainly shouldn't have a promptor.
If it goes wrong, you collectively think fast and fix it.
That's part of the delicious teamwork of doing a show.

Bernard Angell wrote:
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A method tp prevent the percieved laziness of actors when a prompt is present is to take a lesson from the professional theatre, where the prompt is also the stage manager. We have found over many years that a fine, donation to the SM's ritirement fund of say $10 per prompt after the final dress rehearsal seems to work wonders!!
--------------------------------
I seem to remember a similar clause for SM's that missed cues.
Funny. i've never heard of anyone collecting on it though.
Cheers
Grant

What about when a director has to take over a part at the last minute and goes on without the script? A prompt would appear to be helpful, almost calming, in these circumstances.

As a behind the scenes actor (read - SM) I would not be refusing finacial inducements to prompt, (personally I think $10 is far too little!!), but I think I would generally prefer to waive collection of the bribe and enjoy the on stage mayhem as actors struggle for words they have said countless times before but now seem to have vanished. Sure this does cause its own stress to the SM, but hell, we have got to have some fun!!
Clare

Grant Malcolm wrote:
-------------------------------
> I seem to remember a similar clause for SM's that missed cues.
> Funny. i've never heard of anyone collecting on it though.
-------------------------------
After all these years you should know that SM's do not miss cues.
They make spantaneous artistic decisions.
Your turn
Bernard

On Fri, 26 Nov 1999, Bernard Angell wrote:
> After all these years you should know that SM's do not miss
> cues. They make spantaneous artistic decisions.
> Your turn
hehehe and actors never dry - "dammit, that was a dramatic pause!"
Cheers
Grant
PS. just a reminder that replying directly to mail from the mailing list
does not automatically post to the message boards... be a shame for
everyone to miss out on out little bout of repartee - i might copy and
paste our comments to the boards tonight :)
which i'm doing now - apologies to list member for the duplicates!
please remember to post to the boards to avoid this problem

Grant wrote:
> hehehe and actors never dry - "dammit, that was a dramatic pause!"
Dramatic pause? Was that acting? I'm sorry I didn't recognise it.
Another thought, wasn't a Dramatic Pause one of the hits from CATS?
Should I pay royalties on that name?
Bernard

Especailly in those plays where there are only a couple of cues per act - As every one knows, we, who do It in the dark, are highly trained to control and overcome situations that arise (which of course is very rare for us to have problems) calmly and without any dramatic tantrums.
Thus, once again, bringing about the perfect and yet impossible delivered each time - while doing everthing with nothing.
How many times do we have to instantly improvise and re-organise cues to accomodate some warm props re-arrangement of the script, considering in a lot of case we are afforded only a tech 'quicky' (cue to cue is only a bonus sparing experianced) to get it on the boards in the first place.
Maybe it is because we do it with soul instead of just ego?
However, I don't agree with the Tech who suggested "that the infamous 'BOOTH' should have shot the actor instead" - even if this may have been the high light of the SM's and Crews career, at least it I would know what show was being performed when 'Lincoln' got his last comp ticket - can any one help out with this info???
Maybe we should have a 'Auto-Cue' prompter machine set in to the edge of the apron, as though it was part of 'floats' (footlights) or like the old 'shell' masked souffle (DSC) prompt position - then actors would have no excuse for fluffed lines.........
there again this would be another job for the overworked SM and/or crew ........
Naaar, let them flounder they need the practice anyway and as you said it - IT is more fun to watch!
Therefore - NO PROMPT REQUIRED - should be the catch cry to foster in our play box!!!!!!
Joe McCabe

Bernard Angell wrote:
A method tp prevent the percieved laziness of actors when a prompt is present is to take a lesson from the professional theatre, where the prompt is also the stage manager. We have found over many years that a fine, donation to the SM's ritirement fund of say $10 per prompt after the final dress rehearsal seems to work wonders!!
Paid, one assumes, by the actor who required the prompt?
D.M.

A prompt can be of great use not just to the actors but spare a thought for the lighting people who need the actors actually to say the word that cues a lighting change. Admittedly it is artistically more elegant not to need one but we live in an imperfect world. In a situation where whole paragraphs and indeed dare one say it, whole pages full of cues get dropped it is rough on the actors but the prompt people can go grey and get tendonitis flipping through the script to find where the play has gone and the lighting situation is just as bad!
Better perhaps to keep things on track as far as possible even though it may be aesthetically unappealing

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!

Joe McCabe wrote:

> However, I don't agree with the Tech who suggested "that the
> infamous 'BOOTH' should have shot the actor instead" - even
> if this may have been the high light of the SM's and Crews
> career, at least it I would know what show was being
> performed when 'Lincoln' got his last comp ticket - can any
> one help out with this info???

I've always wondered, too, so I did a bit of searching...

According to the online "Explore" Dictionary of Literature (link given below), the last play Abraham Lincoln ever saw was "Our American Cousin", by Tom Taylor. Apparently halfway through Act Three Scene Two, the funniest line of the play is delivered, and Booth chose this moment in the hopes that the laughter would cover the gunshot...

http://www.explore-reading.com/literature/O/Our_American_Cousin.html

: )

Shannyn

Nice to see someone responding to a 6 year old email. I just hope some of the original participants are still alive to read it!

Who cares? I just thought it was an interesting topic...
Besides, it wasn't exactly an urgent question, was it? I think we're a little late to save Abe's life...

; )