Salutations! My name is Crow Delavan, I use they/them pronouns, and I am the stage manager’s apprentice for Pippin. For those who don’t already know, Rose is our wonderful stage manager for Pippin, and my mentor. Rose has taught me about the deepest, darkest secrets of stage managing, such as how to tab a script (step three is cry) and that actors should be alive, ideally, all of which is very important. But in all seriousness, Rose is such a wonderful mentor. She has simultaneously guided and helped me whenever I needed it and trusts me with responsibilities.
Stage managers are often the people who do the things the audience doesn’t know need to happen, such as paperwork, blocking notes, syncing their minds with the actors’ heartbeats to make sure they don’t stop, and helping the freshmen fight the soulless husks of our director that lurk in the theater. Rose does all of this and more, always going out of her way to talk to actors and make sure they feel welcome. She cares deeply about every person in the cast and crew and about the play we’re making together. I honestly don’t know where the theatre department would be without Rose.
Not only has Rose been a wonderful mentor in all things stage managing, she has also never hesitated to support me or anyone else. She has sprung life advice on me when I don’t even know I need it and never hesitates to help me if she can. I am so eternally glad she is my friend.
Here’s an honorable mention to Thomas, the assistant stage manager, who also exists and is pretty cool.
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