Stage Manager
General Information 2024

Please Note: The Stage Manager must have a car.

Overview

The Camden Shakespeare Festival is a professional, non-profit theatre committed to producing Shakespeare’s plays chiefly in the Camden Amphitheatre. At the core of our mission is a passion to make Shakespeare’s plays accessible to contemporary audiences. Yes, we are concerned with illuminating the text, but we also focus on physicality, music, and spectacle as crucial aspects of performance.

We are a non-Equity Theatre. Although we have hired Equity artists in the past, we have no current plans to do so. And as we are non-Equity, we do not give EMC points.

This summer we are producing The Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare’s hilarious farce about two sets of twins who end up in the same town, each unaware of the others. (No play contains more comedy, or more errors…) This show will have a lot of music, singing, clowning, and the best aspects of great physical theatre. It is probably Shakespeare’s most fun show to perform (and least “Shakespearean.”).

We chiefly perform outdoors in the Camden Amphitheatre, a 200-seat venue that is a national historic landmark. Camden is the quintessential Maine harbor village, which Forbes magazine listed as one of the 25 most beautiful towns in the country.

Rehearsal and Performance Schedule

Our 2024 rehearsal period is from June 21 through July 9. We generally rehearse 8 hours a day, six days a week. Our typical rehearsal day is from 11am to 9pm with a two-hour dinner beak.

The Comedy of Errors opens on July 10 and plays through August 4. We play 5 shows a week over the course of four weeks, for a total of 20 performances. There are no two-show days.

We do 16 performances in Camden, but the show will also perform in Bath, Monson, and Bowdoinham.

The entire commitment with rehearsals and performances is from June 21 through August 4.

Set up and Strike

The Stage Manager will supervise set up and strike, before and after every performance and the entire company will take part in this. This takes about 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the performances. A typical schedule on show days is:

4:00 Set up.
4:30 Fight call and warm up
5:00 Break or individual preparation
5:30 Half hour for costumes.
6:00 Curtain
7:30 Show end and begin strike
8pm Finish strike

Travel

We generally reimburse for travel to and from Maine, up to a total of $300, irrespective of the mode of travel.

Housing

Out-of-town actors are generally housed in a single room in the house of a local host, who is a supporter of the theatre. Actors have access to a kitchen and a laundry, but are responsible for their own food. We encourage all actors to bring a car if they can (although it is certainly not a requirement). If an actor is without a car, they will carpool with the Stage Manager.