If you have not already heard, 2020 is the Year of the Stage Manager. Why is that? Because 100 years ago, ActorÕs Equity Association, the union for actors and stage managers, first recognized a stage manager as part of the organization. As we have been celebrating the anniversary of women getting the right to vote in 1920 in the Women and the Vote class, I found it very interesting that 1920 is also significant for stage managers. This intrigued me and I thought I would do a deeper dive into the history of stage management. 
      On February 16, 1920, ActorÕs Equity Association changed the language of their contracts to include stage managers and assistant stage managers
This was due to an assistant stage managerÕs contract being violated by a producer. The ASM petitioned that his contract had been violated because he was not given two weeksÕ notice before he was no longer needed for a show that closed and an arbitration case was settled. In response to the case, the AEA council carried a motion that stage managers and assistant stage managers were to be considered regular members of the company and be written into future contracts.
	Before I go into the past of stage management, I wanted you to first have an understanding of what stage managers do today. I took a screenshot of some examples of stage management duties from a website called the American Association of Community Theatre because I think they captured the main duties of a stage manager. Stage managers also create a lot of paperwork to organize every aspect of the show. These include reports about every rehearsal, call sheets for actors to know when to arrive, rehearsal schedules, props tracking, contact sheets, character/scene breakdowns, and more. The paperwork and script are all combined into what is known as the prompt book. I included a picture of pages from my promptbook for Balm in Gilead. On the left, you can see the script and my cues for performances. On the right is the blocking, which corresponds to the numbers on the left side, along with ground plans of the set.
	Before 1870 in America, the prompter performed duties similar to what stage managers do today, like notating blocking in the promptbook, scenic changes, and prompting actors when they forgot their lines. During performances, prompters had a prompt corner near the stage where they could help out the actors if they needed lines fed to them. Before 1870, the stage manager performed the role of what we would consider the director, and was known as the actor-manager. They oversaw casting, decided blocking, and managed everything onstage. As the name implies, they also acted in performances. The image on this slide is an example of a prompter in their prompt corner during a performance. 
	The term director was introduced in the late 1800s. The stage manager slowly moved into more of a technical director role, building sets and finding props. The prompter remained part of the show. The second industrial revolution allowed for great technological advances in theatres, which increased the need for the stage manager role. The image on this slide is from a prompt book of an 1838 production of Othello. 
	The stage managerÕs duties in the 20th century begin to look more like how we see them today. The stage manager no longer acts in the shows, and the role of the prompter changes to become assistant stage manager. Technology is drastically impacting how stage managers perform. With the typewriter and now the computer, it is easier for stage managers to do their work and communicate with production teams. 
	Since Women and the Vote focuses on womenÕs rights, I wanted to research women in stage management. Women outnumber men in the stage management field, but they are still getting paid less than male stage managers. On Broadway, women make up 37% of Equity stage manager contracts according to a study done by Actors Equity Association between 2013 and 2015. Executive Director Mary McColl said that Òwomen and members of color have fewer work opportunities, and when they do get hired, they often are hired on lower-paying contractsÓ. People of color have even more of a disadvantage. The same study reported that female stage managers of color earned 6% less than the Broadway and production tours contractual salary average and 12% less off Broadway. 83% of stage manager contracts went to Caucasians. This study that AEA did shows how women and people of color are still being discriminated against 100 years later, just like during the suffrage movement. This is why the Year of the Stage Manager is important to increase appreciation and reduce bias for stage managers. 
	With a technologically savvy world, it is becoming much easier to create stage management prompt books and paperwork online. Stage Write is a software that was launched in 2012, created by choreographer and director Jeff Whiting to document stage blocking and choreography. It makes it easier to document blocking changes and you can import a set design to draw on either on your computer or iPad. I have been experimenting with this app for this class because I was trying to come up with a way to showcase my work and the movement of actors and audience members if we were to do the performance in Alexander Black House, which was the original plan. I ended up making ground plans on Stage Write for each Virginia Tech studentÕs monologue. I used the image of the house that is part of the website design to figure out where I would put the actors and the audience members. My Stage Write work is being showcased on this website, so if you havenÕt already, please check it out. It is a really cool software and I am glad I was able to learn a new way of making stage management paperwork. If you have any questions about this presentation or about my ground plans, please feel free to email me at sgehl27@gmail.com. Thank you for listening! 













References
Actors' Equity Releases First-Ever Diversity Study. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.actorsequity.org/news/PR/First-EverDiversityStudy2017/
Scheier, J. L. S. (2017, January 23). Why Stage Managers Are Included in the Actors' Union. Retrieved April 22, 2020, from https://stage-directions.com/all/theatre-blogs/sm-kit/why-stage-managers-are-included-in-the-actors-union/
Scheier, J. L. S. (2017, November 7). A Crash-Course in American Stage Management History. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://stage-directions.com/all/news/theatre-buzz/a-crash-course-in-american-stage-management-history/
Scheier, J. L. S. (2017, December 5). A Crash-Course in American Stage Management History. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://stage-directions.com/all/theatre-blogs/sm-history/a-crash-course-in-american-stage-management-history-2/
Simonson, R. (2013, December 16). Broadway Choreographer Starts Revolution With Stage Write iPad App. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.playbill.com/article/broadway-choreographer-starts-revolution-with-stage-write-ipad-app-com-212597
Stage Manager. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2020, from https://aact.org/stage-manager