Women Stage Managers of D.C.: Taryn Friend

Miss Saigon, Signature Theatre. Photo: Christopher Mueller.

A Christmas Carol, Ford's Theatre. Photo by Scott Suchman.

One Destiny, Ford's Theatre. Photo courtesy Ford’s Theatre.

JACQUELINE LAWTON: How long have you lived and worked as a stage manager in DC? What brought you here? Why have you stayed?
TARYN FRIEND: I have been in stage management in DC for about 9 years (eek) now. I grew up about an hour out of the DC area and went to college at Mary Washington in Fredericksburg and from college I got an internship in production management at The Shakespeare Theatre and made the connections to continue on into a successful career in stage management.  I’ve always loved DC the city and the theatre community is fantastic with a good deal of employment opportunities at a wide variety of theatres.

JL: What excites you most about being a stage manager? What do you feel your greatest challenges are?
TF: As we often say in the “biz” our jobs are weird.  Every show brings new excitement and new challenges.  There’s a never ending variety to your work day every day…its definitely not boring.  For me, the biggest challenges usually come from the bigger shows, making all the pieces of a show fit together is like a gigantic puzzle often times with the challenges of having 40 seconds to complete a big scene change or trying to make large set pieces fit in extremely small backstage spaces.

JL: What traits do you feel a successful Stage Manager should have to support the health and growth of a production?
TF: I believe (stealing a phrase from Mickey Berra) that “fun and flexibility” is key to a successful, healthy and happy run.

JL: Does your work as a Stage Manager pay the bills? If not, what other work do you do and how do you find a balance?
TF: Currently, I have been lucky enough to have consistent enough work that stage managing is able to pay the bills but that was not always the case.  When I was a production assistant (just starting out in stage management) I think I had about 4 jobs at once.  I would be a PA, worked at the Box Office, House Managed at Shakespeare and had an unofficial pet sitting service. Times were definitely hard back then but as I progressed I was able to subtract job by job and now I have a bit more sanity.

JL: Looking at your body of work as a stage manager in this community, how conscious are you of selecting plays by women or people of color when deciding your season?
TF: Unfortunately due to the tricky game of getting offers from theatres and aligning schedules that I don’t often have much of a choice in which shows I do and basically have to take whatever is offered!

JL: How do you feel the DC theatre community has addressed the issues of race and gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to work?
TF: I think that it very much depends on the theatre.  I know Ford’s Theatre tries to do color blind casting when the can (you can see it every year with A Christmas Carol) and I fully support it.  Obviously it doesn’t work for every show, for example in Miss Saigon it would be little strange if the refugees were color blind casting but I am happy to see more theatres starting to take that approach.  In Stage Management I feel that it is less of an issue than with actors.  There are a good number of female stage managers (I think just due to the nature of the job) but I have heard on at least one occasion of a theatre that insisted on hiring a male ASM simply because they wanted a guy on the team.  I was not up for that position so it didn’t directly affect me but the statement made me cringe.

JL: DC audiences are ...
TF: A very loyal fan base.  I’m often surprised at how often you see the same faces at different theatres, at different shows and sometimes even multiple times per show!

JL: DC actors, designers and directors are …
TF: the cream of the crop! DC based folks tend to be my favorites to work with (But I feel are often over looked if they are up against someone with a New York zip code)

JL: DC critics are ... 
TF: Are a little too powerful.  If people read a negative review in the Post or one of the other papers then a lot of times people will just write the show off and not go see it.  There have been a lot of fantastic shows that have gotten negative reviews (primarily because the reviewer didn’t like the script and didn’t necessarily review the production as a whole) and no one goes to see them!  Folks are missing out on some fantastic productions because of blind faith in someone else’s opinion.

JL: What advice do you have for an up and coming DC based stage managers? 
TF: Don’t burn bridges and try not to get burnt out.  We are putting on plays for a living not doing brain surgery.  You have to remember to have a life outside of theatre and try not to get too caught up in it all (although that’s sometimes easier than said)

JL: What's next for you as a stage manager? Where can we keep up with your work?
TF: I just closed A Christmas Carol and will be working on The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, both at the Ford’s Theatre.