You Say I'm a Bitch Like It's a Bad Thing...

When I started stage managing and production-assisting at the Lyric, I got adopted by my two big sisters, Flawn Barber and Lisa Anderson Bongers. I was twenty-five, and they called me "The Baby" (they're five-foot-ten and five-foot-twelve, respectively, and had lots of fun high-fiving over my head). I made rookie mistakes, tons of them, but I fixed the mistakes and learned.

In stage management - any management, from what I hear - you can't give everyone what they want all the time. If you see a behavior that's hurting the organization and/or the production, you have to do something about it. Being nice and accommodating, excusing the behavior, deferring to (for example) a heavenly vocal talent that happens to belong to a total scrote-bag... all of it only compounds the problem. And when you do something about a problem, someone's going to think you're a Bitch, because someone isn't going to get to do whatever the hell they want anymore.

Flawn and Lisa, though never bitchy, were The Bitch when it had to be done, and we all drank a lot of wine on those nights, because nobody ever wants to be The Bitch. For a naturally nice person, it's a little traumatic. And I knew I'd grown up, and learned to stand up for myself and work for the good of the production, when they started calling me "Baby Bitch." It was a badge of honor.

There were a couple instances when I tipped the scale a little too far, and threw what could only be called a Crazy Screaming Bitch Fit. In public. At the workplace. Not the proudest moments of my life. That sort of thing doesn't say "respect my authoritah." It does indicate that things have gone too far, and something should have been changed before that point. And eventually, I found balance (which, technically, must be found at every moment, but I don't want to get into metaphysics just now).

Fast-forward to 2009. Baby Bitch is a baby improviser, in a troupe with nobody in charge. I don't want to be in charge - I'd rather focus on learning the craft and having fun (which is an important part of the learning, too). It's not fun to be in charge. The worst thing about stage managing was having to be The Bitch when everyone else was having fun. "Sshhhh!" "You missed your costume fitting." "Please don't eat the props until we've gotten through the scene they're in." "When you peek through the curtain, the audience can see you. I know you're the lead tenor, and they're here to see you, but right now you're in a cell waiting for the guillotine."

Side note here: 9:KCiF will probably be the most fun I've ever had as a stage manager, and I can't wait! The best thing about stage managing is that you get to make a show run smoothly for amazing people.

Anyway... nobody in charge. Not fun to be in charge. Then some problem starts, nobody deals with it, and it reaches a point that makes everything else less fun. I wasn't the only one to recognize it. So, The Bitch paid the troupe a visit this week. She'll probably hover nearby for a while to gently point out problems at an earlier stage next time, so they can be fixed and we can move on to the fun.

I miss Flawn and Lisa, and I want some wine.