Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014 - 65

The Stage Manager's Toolkit
By Laurie Kincman; New York, Focal Press,
2013. 219 pp. Paper, $24.95.
Reviewed by Linda Apperson
The Stage Manager's Toolkit approaches stage
management through two key areas: communication and documentation. Laurie Kincman,
who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-La
Crosse, underscores the need for the stage manager to communicate effectively in the myriad of
situations that require it. She recommends the
most efficient way to do this based on the information being imparted. She discusses the challenges and advantages of verbal communication
and shows in great detail how to create pertinent,
useful documents for the production team and
performers. And, in doing so, she explains the
entire job of a stage manager from pre-production through rehearsals and performances.

ment using examples from specific productions
so that the reader can see why information is
captured the way it is and what each document
needs to include in order to fulfill its purpose.
By using complex shows in her examples, she
gives us a wider range of scenarios to work
through. The fundamental ideas are then easy
to apply to a simpler production. Not all plays
need a page-by-page character breakdown to
capture the flow of characters in each scene,
but by showing us how it worked for Twelfth
Night, where a scene may have multiple characters entering and exiting within it, we can easily
see how it would be more useful for plays with
that type of structure.
Particularly important is her emphasis that
every document created by the stage manager is
a building block in the complete record of the
production. That record, she also emphasizes,
or parts of it, will be shared on some level with

All about details
Stage management is all about the details and
the need to capture and disseminate them to a
wide and varied audience. Document writing/
formatting is covered for each area in the production, from contact sheets, character charts,
and rehearsal and performance reports to prop
plots and shift plots. The tips on how best to format each type of document are clear and practical. We learn why formatting matters as much as
content. It begins with the principles of document design: how to identify your audience, and
define the document's purpose, e.g., informational or interactive. We are taken through the
page layout process so that we can understand
how to highlight the most important information or how to make massive amounts of detail
digestible. Even the consideration of fonts is applicable. They need to be readable and universal
in order to accommodate the variety of devices
on which they will be read. I have no doubt I
will integrate some of her approaches into my
curriculum next year, since explaining the importance of formatting and readability in a stage
manager's documentation to my students always
seems to be an uphill battle.
Kincman illustrates each type of docu-

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Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014

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