how close is too close?

How close is too close when you are in a leading position. If you are too much of a friend do you loose your authority? If you are too strict will they hate you? How do you gain respect? As a stage manager these are questions I have often thought about. When you are the new guy and everyone else already knows each other you want to be liked. This is the situation I came into this summer everyone had done shows with each other before and were all good friends. Being the new guy I wanted to fit in and be liked but I also knew that since I was going to be in charge I must earn respect in order to gain authority. With my previous experiences stage-managing and by working with other stagemangagers I have learned that if you become to much of a friend with the actors, if you joke around and act all buddy buddy with them, then they will not respect your authority. They will think of Nick does not really care or Nick will get over it, they will think that they can walk over you. Also if you start off as a friend it is near impossible to work your way to being respected. On the other hand if you start off too strict and you make the actors dislike you might end up with a mutiny on your hands. You have to find the happy medium. My experience this summer has been just that. What I did was communicate heavily with the director so that I understood their vision of the show so I could help them to make it come to life, also if I knew exactly what the director wanted then I could speak on their behalf in their absence. I started off strictly business, the director and myself laid out ground rules at the beginning of rehearsals and I enforced them, the key was to be reasonable. As rehearsals went on I started to hang out with the actors more and become good friends with them, this worked very well since I commanded respect from the beginning and demanded professionalism on their part I was able to still maintain their respect after we became friends. Professionalism is key.

Other very important relationships are the ones you have with the producers. This summer is my first experience working with, under and along side the producers of a theater. Obviously it is important because the producers are the head honchos but also you can learn so much from them. They two producers I work for are jacks-of-all-trades they are knowledgeable about all aspects of theatre and they have taught me so much. Like with the actors it is very important to maintain a high level of professionalism in the relationship. I recently learned this because one of the producers and I have become very good friends and we joke around a lot with one another but the other producer did not appreciate our joking and said that he was glad that I had become a good friend and appreciated that I was comfortable around them but that I should not be so free in my speaking. The one producer and I were joking around and I called him and asshole and the other producer reminded me that I should not call my boss and asshole. Needless to say I was very embarrassed and I was mad at myself for not watching myself. The good thing was that he said he was not angry but he let me know that if it was anybody else I would not have gotten off so easy. Learn from my mistake, you can be friends with your bosses but never forget they are your bosses.