Arts & Entertainment

Parkway West Grad An Eyewitness to Tony Awards

Amy Gornet served as Stage Manager for "A Christmas Story, The Musical"

Amy Gornet, a 1993 graduate of Parkway West High School had more than just a good view of the action at the 2013 Tony Awards at Radio City Musical Hall earlier this month. She had something of a backstage pass. Gornet was Stage Manager for the broadway run of A Christmas Story, which was nominated for best Musical. The cast also performed during the broadcast of the awards program.

We asked Gornet to answer seven questions about how she got to Broadway, what it means to be a Stage Manager and her take on the wild opening number from Neil Patrick Harris.

Patch: When did the theatre bug bite you? Were you involved in productions at Parkway West or at Webster University? Favorite credit?


Amy Gornet: I first got involved in theatre in the 8th Grade stage managing a production of the Hobbit at Parkway West Jr. High. From that point on theatre and stage managing became a main focus for me. During high school I stage managed several shows at Parkway West, was an assistant stage manager for a production of Brigadoon at CBC High School and was a stage management intern and production assistant at Stages St. Louis for three summers. I then went to Webster University where I got a BFA in theatre with an emphasis in stage management. 

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I don’t know if I have a favorite credit during that time, but two high school experiences that stood out were stage managing a district wide production of Romeo and Juliet when I was a freshman and later working as producer/production manager of student written and produced musical at Parkway West called Tall Dark and Handsome Seeking Short Blonde and Sexy.  That was written by my good friend Andrew Ryan who is now a program host and producer for Radio Taiwan International.

Patch: How does one become a professional stage manager and what does that person do?

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AG: There are many ways to become a professional stage manager.  Some people start out as actors or technicians and then switch to stage managing at some point down the line.  More and more, people are going to school specifically for stage management.  I went to the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University for stage management.  It is a great program that is affiliated with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Opera Theatre of St. Louis.  That means that there is a lot of opportunity to work with working theatre professionals.  The best way to learn about stage managing is to actually work in theatre and to work with as many people as possible. 

A stage manager is the primary hub of communication during a production. During rehearsals, they record all of the actors blocking (movements on the stage) and pass along any notes that need to go to the designers or the production team.  They create the rehearsal schedule and make sure that everyone is operating within the union rules.  Once a production moves into the theatre, the stage manager calls all of the lighting, sound and scenery cues and maintains the show. This includes making sure that the performances of the cast stay consistent and in line with the director’s vision throughout the run of a show.

Patch: How did you get connected to A Christmas Story? 

AG: A Christmas Story, The Musical started at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle which is a theatre that I have been working for over the past 6 years.  I worked as the Production Stage Manager on that production.  The next year we did a short national tour to 5 cities.  I had no touring experience, but was lucky enough to be kept on the project as First Assistant Stage Manager.  Last year we did a limited Broadway run. This coming year the show will tour again to Hartford, Boston and then return to New York. 

Patch: What was it like to work on a Musical nominated for a Tony?

AG: It was great.  This show has grown so much over the years.  There have been cuts and re-writes.  Songs taken out and new songs added.  “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” (which was the number that we performed on the Tony’s) was new this past year for the Broadway run.  This is the longest that I have been connected with a show and the journey it has taken hasn’t always been easy, but I am very proud of the work that has been done.  It is apparently very rare for a limited run Christmas show to get Tony nominations.  It’s nice to have all of the hard work over the years recognized in this way.  It is also a lot of fun because we have so many kids in the show.  There is nothing that can compare to their excitement at being nominated for Best Musical.

Patch: What did you have to do to prepare for the event?

AG: The Tony Awards has an army of stage managers that are managing the overall award show.  My job for the awards was only about wrangling our cast and our number.  We had a week of rehearsals in New York before the show.  I was flown in from Seattle and the cast members that were in the number were flown from all over the world (including Alaska and Australia).  We rehearsed “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” for a week, making changes for the broadcast to shorten the number and to simplify costume changes and prop needs.  The kids in the cast also appeared in the opening number.  For that we had one rehearsal in a rehearsal studio at Radio City Music Hall and then a dress rehearsal on the day of the event with all of the casts that were involved.  Mostly it was a week about logistics.  Having props delivered to the rehearsal studio and then transferred to Radio City, getting costume fittings for all of the cast members (several of our kids had grown since we closed in December), scheduling haircuts, etc.  The kids in our cast also had to be tutored every day, so that was worked into the schedule as well.

Patch: From your professional point of view, how hard is it to pull off those elaborate opening and closing numbers?

AG: It’s totally crazy! Again, there are an army of stage managers working just for the Tony Awards. For the day of the show I only had to worry about our number and our tiny piece of the opening number. For our show alone we had 11 actors, 2 stage managers, 2 company managers, 1 child supervisor, 4 wardrobe people and 2 hair and make-up people. Multiply that by all of the shows performing plus the enormous number of folks working only for the Tony’s. That is a lot of people and a lot logistics. It is also a combination of a live theatrical event with a television broadcast so you have all of the elements needed for both things. I think that there were around 170 performers in the opening number.  Before the show it was this huge mass of people crowded into backstage standing shoulder to shoulder. There was no room. Once the show started everyone had to get on and offstage on cue which meant that all of the backstage movements had to be quick and precise. Once the show started, everyone backstage just started moving in sequence as a giant pack…it felt like the backstage equivalent of the running of the bulls. Luckily the kids from A Christmas Story were paired with the Annie kids so we were able to work with the Annie team “If you send all of the kids on at the upstage entrance I can catch them when they come offstage at the downstage entrance”.  I honestly had no idea what the opening number looked like until I watched in on Youtube at 3am that night.

Patch: What's next for you, how do you top this?

AG: I have been very lucky in my career and interesting things always seem to come up, so that isn’t really a worry of mine. In July I will be working as a stage manager on some Microsoft corporate events in Houston and Atlanta. In October I will head to New York for rehearsals for the A Christmas Story tour. In January I will return to Seattle to work as an Assistant Stage Manager on the 5th Avenue’s production of Spamalot and after that I will be the Production Stage Manager on a new musical at the 5th Avenue Theatre based on the E.M Forster novel A Room With a View.

 

 

 


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