Stage Management

Tonight, my daughter was a stage manager for her 6th grade class play. Which meant that last night, she was scrambling to find or make the props that had somehow fallen through the cracks during the weeks of rehearsal. And that this morning, we were discussing how she could follow her school uniform requirements and still wear the "show black" befitting her stage manager position.
 
A few weeks ago, as I began to think about how I would get to the show, which started earlier than many local working parents could make and MUCH earlier than a working-in-a-different-state parent could ever HOPE to make, I resigned myself to the fact that I could try to do it, but that between work schedules and train schedules, I would likely arrive huffing and puffing, and I would just as likely arrive late.
 
And then, everything changed. With the early taping hiatus in Stamford, my days became shorter and my time more flexible. And I was able to be back in the city with enough time to make my way to the far reaches to get to the school. Basically on time. Which made me realize that the current shifting of work is really just a temporary stage, one that, at least today, turned out to be useful.
 
So, while my daughter was stage managing, I got to thinking about stage management too--for me, the managing of the stages of my work and family and career. Even when I was in the same workplace for years, there were different positions, different producers, different dynamics, each of which created a different stage that I needed to manage. Just like the cues my daughter executed to enable tonight's play to succeed, I change up the cues every day to match the situation. It's all about assessing the needs and gathering the resources. And making the daily "performance" a success. It's just a question of managing the stages. Stage management, that is.