[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]
STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape, the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the Theatre For Young Audiences industry. Every two weeks I sit down with a theatre professional to hear their pipe and drape stories. These are the stories that take place behind the pipe and drape scenery in the theatre for young audiences world. Theatre for young audiences (or TYA) inspires young minds by entertaining audiences with topics big and little in any and every setting. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan, and on this podcast we discuss the ways theatre for young audiences helps all artists and theatregoers make this world a better place. Thank you for listening with me today.
STEPHEN: Hi, everybody. I’m here with stage manager Mason Huse. After growing up and studying in the south and southwest, Mason traveled to venues across North America and China to stage manage theatre for young audiences. He has developed new work and young minds at Live & In Color and and the popular training ground Stagedoor Manor and off Broadway with TADA! Youth Theatre and Rockefeller productions. He’s hit up beautiful historic venues on tours with Rockefeller productions and ArtsPower National Touring Theatre, and today we’re going to learn all about his ArtsPower Pipe and Drape story. Mason, welcome.
MASON HUSE: Hello. Thank you for having me.
STEPHEN: You’ve really covered some ground between North America and China your touring adventures. And now you're back in New York City.
MASON: I am. I'm glad to be back.
STEPHEN: You recently finished up…you were stage managing the Off-Broadway revival of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show with Rockefeller Productions. How was that–getting back into an Off-Broadway space?
MASON: It was great. I've never thought about it as a revival, so that's an interesting take on it. I guess that's technically correct. We should talk to marketing. Um, no, it was really nice. You know, previously I had been touring and loading in and out every single day, so it was nice to just walk in, go through pre-show checks and kind of set up and just have to do that. And then, you know, we ran for five months, so it’s the first time that I've broken three hundred performances on a production, and that’s touring and Off-Broadway combined. But yeah, a fun milestone.
STEPHEN: Do you remember your first experience seeing or doing theatre as a kid?
MASON: Probably not. The first one that comes to mind is Who Framed Roger Rabbit. So my older cousin did community theatre and theatre at his high school growing up and he was like eight years older than me, so I would go see his shows. So the first one I remember is Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I am confident that's probably not the first one that I saw, and then when I got to junior high and high school, I would go to the Dallas Summer Musicals and see all the touring shows that came through. Yeah. You know, there wasn't a whole lot of theatre where I was from.
STEPHEN: Dallas Summer Musicals…are those Broadway production tours or are they like pipe and drape smaller shows?
MASON: They’re the big Broadway production contract tours. Yeah.
STEPHEN: Okay. I should know that, but I don’t. [Laughter and shame.] When did you get involved with theatre? Were you putting on shows in your basement? Were you drawing out sets on napkins?
MASON: No, you know, I really didn't start doing theatre until I was in high school, so, you know, as a little kid I wanted to be like a pop star and or a backup dancer, specifically a backup dancer. I would like choreograph little routines on my front porch. I had a staircase, so that was fun to work on. So that was my artistic beginning I guess you could say. I filmed my Beanie Babies, so there was some like documentary making as a kid, uh, but no theatre really started in high school and mostly just because my friends were doing it.
STEPHEN: I wanna know about your inspiration for your choreography on the front porch. Who were you watching to get inspiration for these dances?
MASON: You know, I don't think I was really watching anyone. I think it was just whatever I wanted it to be, you know, as like a seven or eight year old in East Texas, I don't really assume I was watching that many like MTV music videos, but I was, it was Britney, Christina, Dream if you remember them. Oh my God. It was a great little girl group. [Laughter.] Um, but no, I think I really just made it my own moves, not having any idea what I was doing.
STEPHEN: When you said “Dream,” my mind went to Dream Street, which was like a boy group.
MASON: Oh yes.
STEPHEN: With like, was it Aaron Carter in it?
MASON: That sounds right.
STEPHEN: They had this song and it was like, [Sings.] “It happens every time when I see you…” Anyway, uh…
MASON: I hope this makes the final cut.
STEPHEN: No, it's not going to. You did theatre in high school because your friends were doing it and they were performers.
MASON: Yeah.
STEPHEN: And were you a performer as well at that point?
MASON: At that point, yeah. You know, I had dreams of being on Broadway, you know, as every kid does. So I auditioned for the one act play my sophomore year of high school, and that was really all we did, you know, so the junior high did their one act play and high school did theirs and it's for competition, so you have seven minutes to set up, forty minutes to do your show, and seven minutes to strike. But that was the only theatre we did. We didn't have like a theatre class. We didn't do shows throughout the year. But so I auditioned for that just ‘cause all my friends were doing it, and I got cast in The Foreigner. I played the angry, klans member [Laughter.] and then after that, that’s what I wanted to do and I probably wasn't the best on stage. And so my high school theatre director the next year made me the student director for that production. So I said, ‘Okay, that's a little hurtful, but fine,’ you know? Um, and I enjoyed doing that. And then my senior year I auditioned again, and that was kind of, I guess to prove to myself that I could go on and go to college and do this. And I did not get cast again. She made me the stage manager which, at a tiny little high school in East Texas, what I do now as a stage manager is not at all what I was doing then. So looking back, there were some roots of it, but I was kind of just corralling people, which is still a portion of stage management, but kind of a smaller one in the overarching day-to-day of it. I did that in high school and then got to college as a directing focus. So I started as a directing focus and with a double math major, and then somehow ended up with a degree in stage management. [Laughter.]
STEPHEN: What kind of math is your favorite?
MASON: Algebra, like logarithms, all that. So much fun. But I finished college pre-calc by the time I graduated high school, so I went into like my math major starting calculus as a college freshman.
STEPHEN: Did you use your math major skills as a stage manager whilst taping out sets on the floor of the rehearsal room?
MASON: No. [Laughter.] I mean, to the extent of I used like a scale rule to measure out on the ground plan. I never…there’s like a triangulation method to taping out the floor and I never really did that one. Um, no, not a lot of math really came in to the stage management side of things.
STEPHEN: Oh, wow, Okay. So pretty separate.
MASON: Pretty separate. Yeah.
STEPHEN: ASU, at least today, does have a prominent theatre for young audiences focus. Just personally, we had our TYA/USA Festival & Conference down in Arizona, and we had seven ASU students work with us for the week of the conference. They were our apprentices and all of them had a passion for and were studying TYA in school. Was that something that you did while you were studying there?
MASON: Not at all. That program existed and I remember there being a TYA program while I was there. I feel like ASU's not the kind of typical theatre program; there was a lot of TYA, there was a lot of theatre for social change, a lot of development and viewpoints and all kinds of non-traditional things, you know? Um, so no, I really didn't do any of the TYA stuff. It just didn't really lend itself to a stage management focus. I mean, I remember the program existing, I had friends who did it, but nothing I was ever really a part of.
STEPHEN: How did you find yourself in the TYA field after graduating?
MASON: So I had a friend who had done a few tours with ArtsPower as an actor. And we were at a party and she was like, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about touring?’ And I said, ‘No, not really. You know, I'm open to it, but haven't given it a ton of thought.’ And she said, ‘Oh, well, you know, ArtsPower is hiring stage managers for the upcoming season. I can put you in contact with the company manager if you wanna interview for it.’ And I said, ‘Totally,’ so maybe contrary to most people on this podcast, I never really like went into it with an interest or dedication to being involved in TYA, but then I got this contract and then for many years spent my time in that space.
STEPHEN: ArtsPower does national tours; when you are touring, you tend to pack your life into one or two suitcases and you go. What other parts of your life did you have to rearrange or put on pause when you took this first tour?
MASON: Oh, goodness. I didn't have too much going on that I had to really put on pause, you know there's the subletting your apartment and that kind of like logistical stuff. I was fortunate enough to where I just kept my lease every time I was gone and got a sublet in and didn't have to worry about fully moving out. There's always that, when it hits 10:00 PM the day before and you're like, ‘Oh, I have to pack everything,’ you know, you put your life on pause in a way, right? So like friendships and relationships and things like that kind of take a pause, and that’s kind of the like human side of touring, if you will. Um, yeah.
STEPHEN: Were you based in New York at this point?
MASON: I was, yeah.
STEPHEN: So how do you, some of our listeners don't know, how do you find someone to take over your room while you're gone?
MASON: I used Facebook almost every time. There was Gypsy Housing, which was then Ghost Light Housing, but Gypsy Housing is back again, but maybe under a different name now. But there are Facebook groups and those especially were designed for the arts community. There's a lot of two or three week sublets, there’s longer production contract nine-month sublets. But Facebook groups was really how I always found someone. And it's just kind of searching for those those arts-minded ones because then it's, ‘Oh totally, I only need five weeks. How convenient is this?’ And then sometimes you just take the hit of…you know you need eight weeks, but they're in for six weeks. And sometimes you just kind of have to take a little bit of a hit there.
STEPHEN: How do you pack for a tour that has limited space in vehicles that travel and can go all over the place with all kinds of weather and things happening?
MASON: So I think the more tours you go on, the more you learn how to actually pack for tour, your first tour, you wanna take everything that you own, you want to have clothes for every occasion, you want to take your own shampoo and your own like body wash. And by the time you've done a couple of tours, you realize you're gonna wear maybe half of what you pack, hotel shampoo and conditioner is fine. Um, so I think it's really just: what are you actually gonna wear? You're gonna be in a van or on a bus and you're gonna be loading in or doing a show. So you pack comfortable clothes and realize you're probably gonna wear the same things all the time and no one really caress. But I think at the same time, you know, in other positions that I've had outside of ArtsPower, I've hired people to go on tour and they'll ask that question in the interview of, ‘Well, how do you pack for a tour?’ And I say, ‘You're, you have to lug everything that you bring in and out of the van in the hotel. So I recommend not bringing two suitcases.’ But to the point of weather, I did a tour where I was in Florida in February and went from Florida to North Dakota. So you have to pack differently for those. So in that case, I did like a full-size like check bag and like a carry-on, and then your non-seasonal clothes go in the little carry-on and that stays on the bus or in the van and you just kind of rotate what you actually take into the hotel. But I think to the point of like, ‘What do you pack? What do you bring?’ If there's something…if you use the same pillow for fifteen years, don't, that's gross, but if you have one pillow and that's Your Pillow, you take it everywhere with you, don't decide to not bring that one thing that is like your one creature comfort when you're going on tour.
STEPHEN: What was the pre-production work for you as a stage manager for this company that you were new to?
MASON: So there wasn't a whole lot of pre-production per se. When I was touring with ArtsPower, I took out existing tours. So they do one new tour every season, and then the others are existing tours. So you get the previous stage manager's prompt book with the blocking and the cues. So really you just familiarize yourself with that and then redo the book to how you want it. When I first hired in for the company, we had like an onboarding day at their office and you go and they show you how to set up the sound system so that you know how to do that. They make you drive the van around New Jersey just so you have a bit of comfortability driving the van, and that's before your first tour with ArtsPower. So for your second, your third, whatever, you don't have to do all of that ‘cause you know, the ropes, you know what you're doing. But really it's kind of just creating whatever paperwork you yourself want or need. But you know, you get the previous stage manager's book, so then a lot of times it's just fitting that to how you need it to be.
STEPHEN: And what was that first rehearsal like once you got all of the actors in the room?
MASON: So the first rehearsal is always interesting because with ArtsPower and you know, similar companies, they really encourage you to come in off book, and knowing the songs, knowing the dialogue, and then really the rehearsal process is just staging it. And I think it's a big ask to learn a show when you're not getting paid for that necessarily. But then, from I would assume the actor perspective, it's a big help when you get in the room ‘cause you start blocking the show at the top and you go through it and I had one direct one director say the track waits for no one. So that is the benefit to being off book and knowing your music is once I hit go on the track, it's, you know, full speed. We can't take it at half time or mark through things. It's just, you have to hit the ground running. And so from the stage management side in the rehearsal room, it’s making sure things are set up and you're familiarizing yourself with presets and props. And all the actors are hired as ASM, so they kind of take those responsibilities during load-in, and specifically I handled lighting and sound, but it's still just good practice that you know, where the props go even though you're not setting them up. So for me, it's just kind of familiarizing myself with that and then learning where the tracks get fired and then really taking the previous stage manager's book and figuring out how those tracks go. But I was fortunate enough, and I say fortunate, and it made my life easier, but when I started touring, it was more performing arts centers with their education series, less school libraries and gymnatoriums. So, you know, I played those, but probably 80% of my tour stops were bigger venues. So I had the luxury of not having to set up my own sound system every time I got to a venue and I could just patch into their house system and run. So that was a big part of working through my book. And you know, especially on a lot of these tours, the stage managers kind of learn lighting and sound as you go, myself included. But one thing that was really interesting was when I got my book. So the tracks are not super level throughout it, so you’re following where it gets really loud or quiet and you're making those adjustments on your sound mixer. So we traveled with like an analog mixer. So in the stage manager's book, it would say, ‘Oh, and then the track goes down to negative six decibels.’ So that's great if you're only ever using your sound mixer. But when you go into other venues, the gain is gonna be different, the output's gonna be different, all these things are gonna be different. So negative six decibels is not actually a helpful metric in terms of where you want to go. So, and I was fortunate enough to be dating a sound designer at the time. [Laughter.] But it was this process of unity. So what is your zero right in a soundboard? So at one venue unity might be zero decibels at another, it's negative ten decibels, and that's kind of your benchmark. So my rehearsal process was really figuring out what does that look like? Because there are no lighting cues, you're really just doing sound. And so it's in relation to kind of your baseline, how does this track want to get more or less volume?
STEPHEN: Did you connect with the theatre’s TD before you got into the space to talk about sound things or things that are unique to each space before you arrived? Or was that kind of like a you hop outta the van load and starts and someone's there to greet you and walk you through everything?
MASON: So there was always some kind of advance process with whoever was the contact at the venue. I will say I didn't follow company directions when they wanted you to call every venue two weeks out. I just, I hate getting surprise phone calls. I don't have your tech rider, I don't have my notes up, I'm driving the van. So they wanted you to call so it was more personal, but I would, if I could find an email address, I would set up a time for a call. Or with a lot of the big venues, they're like, ‘Okay, great. Nope, you've got four mics, one iPad and lights up, lights down,’ so they don't really need a lot from their end, but there was always that communication ahead of time. And then with the schools, you know, or like smaller local libraries, those types of venues, then that was always a phone call. And sometimes it was the principals, sometimes it was the…whoever was in charge of the PTA, whoever set up us coming to the school. So that was always a very important process, but you didn't necessarily get the information you needed. If you're talking to the dad who runs the PTA and you're talking about lights and sound, they probably don't know. So it's really just trying to make sure that there is someone there who can turn it on. And then I thankfully had the skillset to kind of take it from there if someone could just show me where it was and get it turned on. So yeah, that advanced process was always pretty critical, especially for the schools.
STEPHEN: Were you running the show on an iPad?
MASON: Yeah, so we ran it on an iPad with Go Button, which is like Q Lab’s iPad app. So you can only start and stop the track, which was kind of frustrating from a stage management perspective because then you are really riding the fader on the sound mixer when the track, you know, when it got recorded in 1994, gets really quiet. So you need to put more volume to it. So unlike with a real like software where you can just add in fade cues and pre-weights where you know, ‘Okay, at a minute and eighteen seconds, this track gets really quiet, so we're gonna put in a fade queue at a minute and eighteen seconds to bump it up.’ Um, that would've been wonderful, but instead it's just, me and an iPad making do. [Laughter.]
STEPHEN: What were some of the things that you encountered while loading in and patching into the system in these different venues? I mean, this across the country, there are so many really cool historic places where people can perform, and sometimes they're dusty and splintery and sometimes they have a weird parking situation, and then sometimes you're in a library and there's like security and a janitor following you telling you not to scratch the floors. [Laughter.]
MASON: Yeah.
STEPHEN: What have you encountered across the country while it's all setting up?
MASON: I mean, I've encountered all kinds of things. You know, again, in the big roadhouses, it's all pretty much pretty standard in terms of the technical side of things and what you're gonna walk into and your staffing. But when I would go to those, you still have to have fun on tour. So my questions for the venue staff were always, ‘Is your theatre haunted? I want to hear about your ghosts and what is your Shen Yun story?’ I wanted to hear all about ghosts and She Yun in the big venues. In the smaller venues, you never know what you're gonna walk into. You know, you have that conversation and say, ‘Okay, great, we need the stage to be cleared.’ And you walk in and there's chairs and music stands and gym equipment, and you say, ‘Okay, great. Hi, is there anyone who can come clear the stage?’ and we will kind of pivot around it. I played one school in New York where it was on the second floor, so everything had to go up this weird freight elevator. But I was also trying to find parking for the van in Harlem at 9:00 AM and you know, it was the whole thing. [Laughter.] And I got in and the lighting was just way too close to the deck of the stage. So we needed to fly it out and take it higher. And I remember walking over and it was a very old fly system, and the brakes on the fly system no longer worked to hold the lines in place. So they had just put bricks into the fly system to hold the ropes in place. So I had to get one of my actors and say, ‘Okay, when I tell you to, I want you to pull this brick out and I'm gonna fly this out, and then you're gonna put it back in.’ And I'm just the kind of person who in like those theatres or those venues where I'm kind of the most knowledgeable in what's going on. I'm just gonna do things and touch things and ask permission later and tell you why I did it and why it was important that I did it. You encounter some strange venues. You pull up in the parking lot and the, you know, gym door is five hundred feet away and it's raining, so you just have to carry all your stuff back and forth through the rain ‘cause they won't let you back your van down the little sidewalk through the school. So it really just depends.
STEPHEN: Do you have a ghost/Shen Yun story that has stuck with you?
MASON: So the Perot Theatre in Texarkana, Texas is very haunted. And this is not on an ArtsPower tour, but you could like feel cold spots backstage and you know, where the sound booth was, where I was calling from was way, way, way at the top of the balcony. And this was built a hundred years ago, but that theatre was like, just super haunted, super creepy. I've never dealt with a ghost on tour, unfortunately.
STEPHEN: I wanna know about the hotels that you all were staying in ‘cause you're only at a venue for one day. And so you're, you're doing the hotel hopping gig. What kind of hotels were you in and what was that life of packing up, arriving, going to sleep? Was there breakfast? Were there hotel ghosts? It’s the ghost podcast. [Laughter.]
MASON: We stated very few Red Roof Inns. I know that's a theme in this podcast. We had a couple, but mostly we were at the like Quality Suite brand of hotels. So it was like your Quality Inn, your Sleep Inn, your Comfort Inn, so run-of-the-mill hotels, nothing extravagant, but you know, they were fine. And our company manager, she really did try to put us in nice hotels and she would go back and if the price dropped she would rebook it because the way it worked was: you get a larger per diem and you pay your own hotels out of your per diem. So if she could get us a cheaper price, she would so that we saved money. So like that was a really great thing that she would take the time to do for us. Most of them had breakfast. If not, they had little like to-go bags. I personally was a Get Outta Bed Fifteen Minutes Before Van Call person, so I never really partook in breakfast. You get your occasional pool, your occasional hot tub if you can swing it with company management. And our company manager happened to love Disney, so anytime she could put us by a Disney Park, she would. Very fortunate to have someone like that booking the hotels who tries to make your process cool because it can get grueling pretty often. Um, the occasional bedbug encounter, which you know, is fine. It's gross, no one likes it, but like it's bound to happen in all the hotel rooms that you're staying in.
STEPHEN: How did you deal with bedbugs on the road?
MASON: So you just go to the front desk and you say, ‘Hey, we have bedbugs, can we switch rooms?’ And you take all your laundry down and you run it through the dryer that kills them and that would come out of your tour petty cash, right? So that was always something that, you know, it would never get it “approved” ‘cause it was 10:00 at night as we were getting into the hotel and all of a sudden, oops, you've got bedbugs. So that was a company expense; they’re putting us in this hotel. So, it was never really a like Change Hotel Situation unless it was like multiple rooms. It's just go to the front desk, switch your room and then throw all your laundry in.
STEPHEN: Since you were staying near Disney Parks as a former Disney cast member, did you indulge in visiting your best friend Mickey Mouse?
MASON: Absolutely. With ArtsPower specifically, it's paid…you’re salaried, but then you get like an overtime rate if you're working x number of hours in a day. So, when you get in the van in the morning and it's when everyone in the company is in the van so someone's late that delays your time and your pay. But it starts when everyone's in the van and it ends whenever you pull into the hotel at the end of the night. So there was one time we had a show in Miami and we were going up to like Jacksonville, Florida maybe, and I was like, ‘Look, we're gonna lose money on this one, but we're gonna call the parking lot at Disney World end of day.’ So we truly loaded out the show just as quick as we could–bring the curtain in, get the kids outta here, we're gonna start loading out as quick as we can and probably sped a little but just booked it right to Disney. And you know, in this industry everyone knows someone who works at Disney. So we all got like main gate guest passed, so we're like, yeah, between the five of us we can come up with five tickets. So we absolutely stopped in the parks.
STEPHEN: That’s good. We love those perks of the industry.
MASON: Absolutely.
STEPHEN: How did you budget yourself on the road so that you can do all those fun things like going to Disney and getting the Mickey waffles?
MASON: So I am not a person who's super budget-conscious and I'm kind of…if I want to do it, I'll do it. But I was fortunate enough to be able to sublet my room so I'm not paying rent back home, right? So my only expenses really were cell phone and health insurance. So I didn't have a ton of expenses to where I was able to spend my money on what I wanted when I was on the road. But you get a daily per diem for food and it's never enough. So you take all the snacks in the meal from the theatre when it's catered and you steal things at breakfast and [Laughter.] kind of hoard things. I had one actor who traveled a hot plate with her and made what she calls “suitcase food” and banked all of her per diem. But if I wanted to do it, I was gonna do it. You don't have a ton of days off, even on days that you are not performing, you're traveling and that’s, somewhere between a four and an eight hour drive. So there's not a ton of recreational time to stop and do things. So when there was, I was super willing to spend money on that 'cause you know, how often are you gonna be in these places realistically? Like what are your chances to go to the Grand Canyon? Probably not often. So I again like financially was in a good spot where I didn't have to think about budget. Just those little like steel food when you can moments, you know, add a little bit back to your pocket.
STEPHEN: What was your favorite hotel food item to take?
MASON: I was just like a classic banana and peanut butter. Um, again, like I really am not a huge breakfast person, so usually I would just take a banana and peanut butter. Very boring.
STEPHEN: Can you walk us through that Rolling Out of Bed Fifteen Minutes Before Van Call time to getting to the theatre, setting up, leaving, and then setting van call for the next day?
MASON: Yeah, so you know, the actors typically would get up earlier ‘cause they'd wanna do their makeup or their hair in preparation of arrival. We really would get to the theatre usually ninety minutes to two hours before the first performance. So they didn't have a lot of time to do hair and makeup, so they would certainly get up earlier to do that. If you're going on tour, invest in an eye mask if you're sharing a room, ‘cause they're gonna get up at 6:00 to do their hair and makeup and I'm rolling outta bed at 6:45 for a 7:00 van call. When I would set van calls, I would typically try to organize a week of my tour in advance so I know what time we're getting up, what time we're leaving, looking at the, you know, GPS from the hotel to the venue and giving yourself some buffer time for traffic for people being late to van call, anything like that. And then you hop in the van, you head to the theatre and then you start loading in. So we, I would always call, van pack and unpack. So I would, you know, lead that process and the actors who were all hired as ASMs would move everything onto the stage or into the library, whatever venue we were at. And then once everything was in, we'd kind of break off to our respective departments. So I had two actors typically who were on scenic, one on props and one on costumes. So then I did Are You My Mother? And that was very light in props. So then that person would jump in with scenic and help them. And then someone also typically costumes would set up the mics in the dressing rooms. So then while they're doing all of that, I'd partner with the lighting and sound crew at the venue or whoever was in charge if it wasn't a performing arts center. And I would get all of our mics patched in, we'd get the iPad patched into the console and then we’d set our lighting looks which were, you know, bright sunny day and transition blue. And you'd get some really good people who would like, ‘Oh I did this and isolated…I gave you specials on all your little pop-up banners,’ ‘cause they're just bored, you know? So you load in, you do the show, sometimes you've got a one-off, sometimes you have three in a day. It kind of just depends. And when you finish the last show, you load everything back out, you pack the van and then depending on your travel schedule, you're either going back to the hotel where you were at that morning, so you're staying in town for the night and doing maybe a big travel day the next day. Or if you had, you know, a 10:00 AM show you're probably heading to the next city. So you get in the van, you head off to your next city, you stop for lunch at some point or dinner and then you get to your hotel, I would send out a group text of, ‘Okay van call for tomorrow is whatever time.’ And then rinse and repeat.
STEPHEN: [A slight southern dialect.] How did your cast, [A thicker slight southern dialect.] how did your ca– [Laughter.] which one is that? [Regular, which is American Standard with a twist of Delaware County/Philadelphia.] How did you and your cast decide where and when to stop for food, snacks, bathroom sightseeing when you were between venues?
MASON: So really it was kind of group consensus. We technically operated still on like an Equity schedule of a five minute break every fifty-five minutes or a ten minute break every eighty minutes. So in terms of travel days, you're stopping roughly every like eighty to ninety minutes if someone needs to pee. Obviously if you don't need to stop then why stop, right? So we drove through a lot of those breaks and as someone who will just down two or three sweet teas at lunch and then has the bladder of a six year old, I was always of the mindset of like, if you have to pee, I'm not gonna make you wait, if you need to stop, we'll stop. It's not a huge issue. So really it was kind of just stop as needed. And then when it came to meals on most of my tours, I was fortunate that no one had any weird dietary restrictions. Everyone could pretty much stop wherever. So we kind of just said, ‘Oh okay, there's these things on the signs, right? Let's stop at somewhere and eat.’ Or it's, ‘Okay great. So there's a subway in twenty miles and we're in West Virginia and that's probably the next place to eat for an hour/hour and a half. So does Subway sound good to everyone?’ We technically had a rule where if one person wanted to go to the hotel rather than stopping to see something or going to dinner, then you had to go to the hotel, ‘cause that was technically official company policy. I was fortunate enough to typically have pretty easygoing cast who were up for things. So really it was just kind of what's the vibe? Majority roles. We did have one incident, not an incident, but you know, we have five people in a van and it's just the first two seats and we were driving and we were gonna be in Chicago and the cast wanted to go to brunch in Chicago and it was Cinco de Mayo and there was a Google Doc started for brunch restaurants. [Laughter.] and it's, you know, three of my actors in the backseat just like talking through the Google Doc as they're sitting next to each other, like the pros and cons of every restaurant. And I was like, I just just wanna listen to my murder podcast. I can't deal with the Google Doc for brunch. But typically much more easygoing than that.
STEPHEN: Did you find yourself as stage manager…there is “manager” in the title, doing manager duties that are more typical to office jobs? I hate using that term “office job.” But things like conflict solving between company members or discipline if necessary?
MASON: Yeah, I maintain the philosophy that stage management is not management, they're labor. You manage the stage but you don't manage people necessarily. But you know, on these smaller tours you're really playing company management-light. In all of my touring we had company managers at home office who are company managing all of the tours concurrently. So they're booking hotels, they're running payroll, they're doing those company management things. But then you are really the one day-to-day who is handling any issues that arise. You know, if you get to your hotel at 10:00 PM and they don't have rooms for you, there's only so much that your company manager back in New York can actually do, so then those responsibilities do fall to you. And there is certainly an aspect of people management, conflict resolution, things like that. I think one thing you learn quickly in that position and you know as a company manager is, ‘Do you need to solve my problem or do we need to solve this problem? Or do you just need to talk about it?’ Right? Because oftentimes they just need to vent and then that gets a little grading and wearing as the stage manager or the company manager, that you're then managing emotions as well. But you know, it happens and hopefully you have a good cast who gets along and likes each other. And then disciplinary action was never really something we had to deal with. We obviously would give a note if needed or something like that, but if it became a true disciplinary action, you know, we would just report that to home office and then company management would take it from there. So, I never had anyone fired from any of my tours, but it happens. But in that instance, you know, company management would fly out and fire the person. So I was always grateful that that was not ever expected of me as it's really doesn't fit into other duties as assigned. [Laughter.]
STEPHEN: I’m glad that you had great groups with you. Yeah. On the road, in addition to jumping place to place with all these people, you're also having to think ahead as to where you are jumping next after this job. Because one of the beautiful but kind of scary things about this industry is that there is an end date. The paychecks will stop coming and you have to think ahead to, ‘Well, what is next for me? Where am I going to be? What am I going to be doing? How am I going to pay for fun stuff to do?’ What was it like looking for that next thing while on this job?
MASON: Yeah, so with with ArtsPower and you know, with most theatre companies, if you get hired into them and they like you, they typically wanna keep you around. So I did a couple of seasons with them and I got to the point where their rule is: once you're in, if they want to bring you back, you get to choose your next show based on seniority. So at one point, I got after two seasons to the point where I was the most senior stage manager with them. So if I wanted the big nine month tour, I could have it. And I had recurring contracts, I went back to Stage Door Manor, so I was fortunate enough to kind of find recurring contracts or companies that had multiple contracts that I could go back to. But yeah, you certainly look at, ‘Okay, we've got six weeks left, it's time to start sending out resumes again as you're trying to kind of piece together what your year looks like and try to be employed as many weeks as you can.’
STEPEN: What was that interview like for ArtsPower?
MASON: So it was, you know, kind of your standard interview. It was the company manager, assistant company manager, the two owners and the director of my first tour. He had been with them for a long time, he wasn't necessarily the artistic director, but he directed lots of shows. It was a five person interview. So I had the in from my friend who had done it, who had kind of, you know, talked to me up. So you love when that happens. But it was your classic kind of, ‘What is your training? Can we see some paperwork? Can we look through your scripts, tell me about a time when something went wrong and how to do solve it,’ you know, very standard interview. But it was my first touring interview, so then there were, you know, can you set up a sound system and can you drive a van? And I was like, well, nope, but I could if you teach me how. But you know, in this very current moment, no. But you know, it went well. And I did the interview, I sent my thank you email and when I was interviewing, they were interviewing for five or six tours that they had out that season, but I was already booked on a couple of other projects, so I could only do one specific tour where I had the dates available. So I sent my thank you email and the company manager emailed back and said, ‘Hey, we loved you, we would love to bring you on, but that one show that you can do, we've already hired someone for it. So, you know, we will circle back next season when the spring tours go out. And we'd love to get you into one of those, but we just already have someone hired for these and if the dates don't work, they just don't work.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you know, totally, I'm very limited in what I'm actually able to take on at this point.’ So then, you know, a few weeks later the company manager called me and she said, 'Hey, the stage manager we had for this tour just took their Equity card for another project so they can no longer do this. Do you wanna leave in three weeks?’ And I said, ‘Sure, sign me up.’
STEPHEN: And then, and then you packed and then you…[Laughter.]
MASON: And then I packed and I went on tour for the first time ever not knowing what I was doing.
STEPHEN: But you did, you had that training.
MASON: Yeah, yeah. I knew how to stage manage, I knew how to do that. It was just learning, you know, loading in and what it means to be in a different venue every day and their little, you know, idiosyncrasies.
STEPHEN: What are some of your favorite mishaps, but also kind of funny things that happened that are specific to this style of touring?
MASON: So there was one theatre…we’re there and it’s, you know, the PTA dad had set everything up, so that's who I talked to when I had my call with him. And my thing in those types of venues is I need someone there who can like turn on the lights and the sound if you have it. So we get there, you know, I've just driven around for probably forty-five minutes trying to find street parking in New York City for this van. And I get back and I'm trying to set up my sound system and it's brick walls in this auditorium, so everything's just pinging around during soundcheck and the maintenance person comes on and turns on the dimmers to give power to the lights and it's just a very red wash on stage. So we're doing Are You My Mother? t's a children's book. Red is really better for Sweeney Todd than Are You My Mother? So it's fine if that's what it is, it's, it's fine, you know, and the PTA dad comes over to me and it's like, ‘Oh, you know, how's everything going?’ And I said, ‘You know, if there's any other option besides red for these lights, I'd love to see it. If there's not, it's perfect. It's beautiful. I've never seen better lighting in my life.’ Um, but they were able to get me, you know, the theatre teacher came down and like turned on the board, which, you know, then you can control things. But you know, we almost did that show with a very Sweeney Todd style lighting design. I remember we were in somewhere in Florida in like a local community library and Are You My Mother? the baby bird is born out of this egg. So we had this big egg that is held up in front of the bird and then it splits down the middle and breaks open. And this audience was probably fourth or fifth graders, which is just too old for the story that we're telling. And again, when they're in school groups, they wanna show off for their friends. So the egg breaks open and this kid in the audience goes, ‘You break it, you buy it.’ Um, so yeah, that was not a fun one. I was doing one show in Jersey, so it was a local runout. So you meet at the van at 6:00 AM you know, like 163rd Street and Amsterdam, and we’re there waiting and I'm just waiting on one actor and it's, you know, 6:00 AM then it's 6:05 and I send him a text and then it's 6:10 and I call him and clearly I just woken him up and I was like, ‘Hey, you're ten minutes late. We are supposed to be in Jersey in an hour.’ And he was like, 'Okay, well should I get up and head that way?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, you should. You absolutely should get up and head this way.’ And he lived way out in Brooklyn. I was like, this is gonna be a nightmare. So then I had to call the presenter and be like, ‘Hey, we're gonna be late. What can we do about show times?' And thankfully it was just a run out so we could push them to the school's availability and it delayed our day. But it was fine. I think it was my second tour with ArtsPower. There was a giant hurricane coming for Panama City, which was our first tour stop. [Laughter.] Um, and you know, with ArtsPower, we would rehearse for eight or nine days in the city and then we'd go to a local school in Jersey and practice loading and unloading the van and setting up and do a couple of, you know, dress rehearsals in a real theatre. And we would always go to lunch at the diner with company management afterwards. And we're sitting there and we're getting ready to leave and I look at the company manager and I say, ‘Hey, so like, what's the plan for the hurricane?’ And she's like, ‘What hurricane?’ I was like, 'There's a hurricane headed just right for Panama City and that is where we're playing our first tour stop.’ And she's like, ‘Oh, I didn't know about that.’ I was like, ‘Well, it's like a category three now and they're expecting it to be like a category five by tomorrow.’ And she was like, ‘Okay, well I don't know, we'll probably still have you head that way and we'll just like assess.’ So I had one actor who was meeting meeting us there, she had a wedding to attend, so she didn’t need to be on the three day drive down to Florida. So it's the day that we're leaving for tour and the hotel called the company manager and was like, ‘Hey, um, the hotel doesn't exist anymore, so we're gonna refund the three you.’ [Laughter.] So you know, the company manager calls me and is like, ‘Hey, have you talked to the venue?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ And she was like, ‘Okay, let us be the ones to reach out as home office as the producers.’ I was like, cool, cool, cool. You know, the hurricane hit this morning. I didn't wanna say, ‘Hey, just call in to see if you still want to do a show in a couple of days.’ Uh, so we ended up getting a little bit rerouted for that one. Did I tell you about my story about the person putting their feet in the sink in West Virginia? [Laughter.]
STEPHEN: No, please do it.
MASON: It’s not a horror story, but it kind of is. [Laughter.] So when I was on one tour, and hopefully this person won't hear this, we won't use names, but if you did, it's fine. You know what you did. There's this saying in ArtsPower, and I'm sure it extends to other companies that the van changes people. So you get along really well in rehearsals where you're together for six or seven hours and then go home at the end of the night. And then once you spend every waking moment with these people, you know, you share hotel rooms, you share a van, there is nowhere to go, conflicts start to arise, or not conflicts, but just, personalities don't always mesh. And that's part of touring. So there was one performer on one tour that I did who I just was not the biggest fan of, and I had a couple actors that I had worked with on previous tours that I was close with and could find solace in them. But we were in West Virginia and if you've been to West Virginia, I'm sorry, don't go back. But I mean, I remember we were driving saw on the road sign for food coming up Subway, and I was like, 'Hey, let's just stop. That's probably the next thing for the next hour.’ So we stop and whoever was in the front seat was kind of like navigating me to the Subway I was driving and we show up at this mall in West Virginia, you know, it's carpeted. There are no existing stores. There's the gym, there's like the Mommy and Me workout class, the senior center. There was a hotdog restaurant, but no active retail stores in the mall. Also, there was no Subway in the mall. So I think there probably was at one point when all these signs were put up, but they weren't there. So we find the Subway on like our phones, we're gonna go, but they say, ‘Oh, can we run to the bathroom while we're here?’ And I thought, sure, fine. So we go in, I come out, another comes out, there's a delay, another comes out, and then probably five minutes later, the last two people come out and one of them says, ‘Oh, sorry, my feet were just really cold.’ [Laughter.] So in my mind, this person has been running their feet under the hand dryer in this bathroom of a defunct mall in West Virginia. So weeks later I'm out to dinner with the person who came out with this person and I'm bringing that up and they say, ‘Oh no, they took their socks and shoes off and were running them under the hot water in the sink.’ [Laughter.] And I just thought, ‘Oh my God, you're in a public restroom and took off your socks and shoes. Put your feet in the sink. Who does that?’ So that's really the definition of the van changes people. And whether that's a horror story or not, I don't know, but it's such a memorable like thing that I will never forget.
STEPHEN: Did they put both feet in at the same time?
MASON: The person that I went to dinner with didn't say that they held them up, so I'm guessing though, [Laughter.] but then like you've got a gross wet foot on the bathroom floor now.
STEPHEN: Yeah!
MASON: Yeah. I don't know. That was, yeah.
STEPHEN: How has this… [Laughter.]
MASON: I can, I can spin it directly outta this question.
STEPHEN: How has this… [Laughter.] How has the van changed you?
MASON: [Far from mic.] That’s not what I thought you were gonna ask
STEPHEN: As you… [Whispering, horrified.] What did you think I was gonna ask?
MASON: I don't know.
STEPHEN: How has the van changed you as you have moved on from touring to working back Off-Broadway and to doing other positions, whether it's office positions, it's Rockefeller, it's Guggenheim, it's the Playbill Pride Festival in Times Square. What have you taken from these experiences and applied to different aspects of your career and your personal life?
MASON: So, you know, I took the very kind of hard skills of lighting programming and patching and all those kind of technical things that I didn't do in college when I focus like really just on stage management. So touring really kind of forces you to learn skills in other departments and you know, if you have those going into a tour, you're set up for success. But you, you know, I learned so much of that from touring. And then you learn, you know, the softer skills of people management. You know, everyone kind of needs different things. So one person just needs to talk about their problems and doesn't want you to solve them. One person just needs to eat and then they're better. One person just needs to warm up their feet in the sink and they're better. [Laughter.] And managing people, you know, everyone needs management in a different way. So that is really kind of something that you learn on the road of different people need different things from you as a leader. And probably the biggest thing that I take away is knowing when good enough is good enough. You know, at the end of the day with these types of shows, the kids just want to see what's on stage. They want to see the story, they wanna see the costumes. They don't care about the lighting, they don't care about the design elements of it. So when I was in the school and I had a red wash to do Are You My Mother? If that's what it's gonna be, wonderful. And it's just…yeah, you know, you have to let the material kind of speak for itself. And I would tour other shows and am I gonna waste forty-five minutes dropping in a different gel color that's three shades off from what's already in there for two performances? Absolutely not. You have to learn how to take care of yourself. You're on the road for weeks, for months at a time and learning, what do you need to be a successful person? Do you need to get up and eat breakfast every day? Do you need to do a weird yoga practice in the morning? And what does that look like for everyone? And you know, really taking the time to just set yourself up for success and knowing what your body needs, what your mind needs to be successful. Mine is sleeping as late as I can and then doing a crazy long day. And then one thing that I would always pride myself on, but really helps, is knowing everyone's name. You walk into a theatre and there's ten local crew members. I made it a point to know everyone's name because if I say, ‘Hey electrics, I need this thing,’ you'll probably get it. But if I say, ‘Hey Stephen, could you grab me a twofer? I just really wanna do this thing.’ Knowing everyone's name goes such a long way in any capacity, especially when you're there for a day. It shows that you've put in the effort to connect with the people that you're working with. And I'd hit repeat venues and I'd walk in and be like, ‘Oh my God, it's so good to see you. I remember I was here on this one,’ you know? And I just think in any occupation, in any career, like that level of like person-to-person connection goes a long way and helps. It makes your job easier ‘cause you'll get things that you want.
STEPHEN: Mason, thank you for speaking with me today and for sharing your pipe and drape story. How can our listeners find out what you’re up to?
MASON: So I'm on Instagram, it's just my first and last name, Mason Huse. I never really post, but I'll like your content if you just want a new follower to like what you're doing. [Laughter.] I'm on LinkedIn at Mason Hughes. I'm very much a social media lurker, so follow me if you want. I'll like your stuff.
STEPHEN: Mason’s Instagram handle is linked in the notes for this episode. Become mutuals and get those likes on your stuff. This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music is “Cupid’s Ball” from Zombie in Love, Book by Michelle Elliott, Lyrics by Michelle Elliott and Danny Larsen, Music by Danny Larsen, Commissioned by the Oregon Children’s Theatre, Based on the popular book written by Kelly Di Pucchio and illustrated by Scott Campbell.
[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]
Are you interested in sharing your pipe and drape story? You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories Instagram. And everyone, please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners find the show. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to hear theatre for young audiences creatives share their pipe and drape stories. Pipe and Drape is created and hosted by Stephen Fala and distributed by Anchor. The Pipe and Drape logo was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today.
LinkedIn: Mason Huse
This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music: “Cupid’s Ball” from Zombie in Love
EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com
Host: Stephen Fala
Artwork: Stephen Gordon
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