A Stage Management team consists of the Stage Manager (SM), the Deputy Stage Manager (DSM) and the Assistant Stage Manager (ASM).
With a large number of skilled people in a small backstage space, everyone knows what they need to do and where they need to be at any given point in the show. The Stage Manager co-ordinates the various staff working on a show backstage - technicians, actors, director, designers - into a cohesive team.
On an ordinary day, the Stage Manager's main role is to communicate, schedule and facilitate, acting as a link between the company and the other departments at the RSC; scheduling rehearsal calls with actors, arranging costume fittings and specialist training such as fight and dance calls.
Like many departments, the Stage Management team are constantly working to anticipate any problems that might occur. RSC Stage Manager Richard Clayton likens himself during a performance to "a coiled spring", waiting for any situation that might arise.
Incidents occur in a dazzling array of new and unexpected ways; in one performance of Cymbeline a leading actor sustained a serious injury moments before his next appearance on stage and the understudy had to make a flying entrance two minutes later.
Deputy Stage Manager is there principally to make sure that, as the actors and Director develop the production through rehearsals, every change - whether artistic or technical - is recorded in the prompt book.
Most RSC productions are actually rehearsed twice, once with a principal cast and then again with an understudy company, cast from within the company itself. In the case of illness or accident, the understudy will perform instead of the principle - making use of the information in the prompt book to ensure that the change of actors causes as little disruption as possible to the rest of the cast.
During the show, the DSM follows the text and, using a specially designed prompt desk with red and green lights, cues all the technical aspects of the show such as lighting, sound, flying pieces and traps and even, with the aid of infra-red monitors, many complicated scene changes.
The Assistant Stage Manager is the most junior member of the team. This position has overall responsibility for processing important information from rehearsals. On larger productions there may be more than one ASM in the team.
Production transfers often present new challenges for the Stage Management team. When a production moves to a new venue, scenery, entrances and exits may all have to change depending on the theatre configuration and size - which mean new rehearsals for the company and making sure that everyone working on the production is familiar with its new surroundings - whether in London or as far afield as Japan.
