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The position of "X Manager" in an organisation like
MUGSS is both enjoyable and challenging. You are
working with a group of volunteers, some you will
initially barely know, some will be your friends; some
will be vastly experienced, some will be starting out.
There is pretty much only one certainty - that you will
make a mistake. But, mistakes are not the end of the world,
they can be learnt from and the show will go on. MUGSS has
not made it through 50+ years without learning some things
the hard way. Here are some suggestions from past show
management. Some will apply, some won't. It's up to you.
Notes
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Prepare as much as you can.
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You can't prepare for everything. But a lot of
things you can. But by preparing for what you can,
you'll be less stressed and better able to deal with
the unexpected things too.
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Get to know and work with your fellow management people
from as early on as possible.
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Understand what you need to do, and that others may not
be as reliable as you would like them to be.
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Students have deadlines, essays, projects that
sometimes you won't be told about because it's
information that's forgotten to be passed on or
it's become more time consuming than expected.
When you ask someone to paint the candlestick
you've created, they might be more busy fixing
the structure of the set. Communicate, be
understanding and try to work something out that
everyone can agree on.
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Go and work in other theatre environments if possible
before show week if you've never done this type of
thing before!!!
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Make sure somebody turns up to
set-building/costuming sessions/meetings when
they're announced to start, even if it's just to say
that the session is
going to be starting a little late.
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This way, new people who have come along
might actually come along again rather than not
bothering a second time round.
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It's boring as anything but do plan things, especially
if they look
like they're going to go pear shaped.
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Properly planning and organising a 20 minute
set-change got it down to 8 minutes
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See what you can blag/get cheaper.
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If you pay full price, you're not trying hard
enough. MUGSS buys things in huge bulk a lot
of the time and companies are very much
willing to offer discounted rates.
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Morale is vital.
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Simple things like putting a sign on the arch saying
where we've gone to lunch, announcing when we're having
crew/training sessions in rehearsals, and making
sure
everyone feels welcome and useful.
What it boils down to is that 3 people cannot carry a
piece of steeldeck up 3 flights of stairs when everyone
else has got pi**ed off and left.
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Don't be afraid to ask someone else to do a job that
they can do better.
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They will be flattered, it will probably take them less
time, and be much better than if you had tried to do
it. The worst they can do is say no.
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If you have loads to do, ask other people for help. Don't wait
until you're really stressed and shout at them for not
helping.
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We're not just talking MUGSS here. If there's
something come up elsewhere that means you can't do
MUGSS stuff, just let someone know before you get too
stressed about it and they shout at you for not doing it!!
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Some people would rather talk about your work than do
their own.
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Just because someone is talking about how
they could do something better, does not
mean that they would do it better. It doesn't
even mean that they would do it at all.
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