POLAROID STORIES
Directed by: Lavina Jadhwani
By: Naomi Izuka
Rehearsals: August 2022
Performances: September 30-October 10, 2022
My first assignment this semester was serving as one of the ASMs on Polaroid Stories. I was really anxious to begin working on this project as it would be all of our first time working together back in person, as well as my first in-person show that I was assigned to work on. Plus, we were working with an outside SM, director, sound designer, fight/intimacy choreographers, so there was a lot of going on right at the top of this process and I wanted to make sure I was going everything I needed to make myself and our team succeed.
While I was a bit nervous at first, it was quickly resolved working with Lavina, Gianni, Alex, and our entire cast and crew. I feel really honored to have been able to work with so many incredible artists on this project, and I learned valuable resources about intimacy and fight coordination that I will take with me forever. I think everyone really benefitted from working together, and while there were some issues regarding understudies and the overall time pressure we were under, our rehearsal period was really successful and a fun time for all.
I took the lead on creating our shift plot, and it was interesting to see how our tracking changed from zoom shows back to in-person. We had to track a lot of different entrances and exits, as well as all our different fight and intimacy moments. We had lots of choreographed movement that we had to keep track of, and it was cool to see how movement and other elements of a show outside of traditional props and costumes are managed by SM teams. The shift plot evolved a lot, especially as we got into tech, but the finished product was a detailed and thoroughly organized body of work.
One of my biggest goals while working on this show was to gain an understanding of what an in-person tech is like and how the whole process actually happens. While zoom tech was helpful in being able to understand what tech actually is, it is no comparison to what happens on an in-person show, and I wanted to use Polaroid Stories as a way to ease my way into running a tech room as I would eventually have to know for my future projects. Gianni lead an incredibly smooth tech and I learned what an ASM's role is during tech and how to be an active member of the room for the SM. Being able to watch Gianni was really beneficial to my overall knowledge about stage managing, and even getting to shadow them was a really fun opportunity as I really saw how SMs open, close, and maintain the space throughout tech and performances.
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Photo Credit: Joe Mazza @Brave Lux
I was so excited for us to finally open the Newhart back up and get this showed on its feet! We ended up having a tremendous run, and I was even able to call one of the shows during the run! This experience really was invaluable and I felt really positive and confident about how the show went that night from a calling perspective. We also had an understudy fill in for our second weekend of performances, so it was another strong learning opporuntiy for our team about incorporating an understudy in our performances. Overall, I had the time of my life working on this show and learned so much about myself as a person and stage manager and could not have done it without Gianni and Alex. It was a dream to get to work with them again and I feel honored that we we grew a close cohort together. These stories were polaroided and I am so blessed to have watched this show come together.
Photo Credit: Joe Mazza @Brave Lux