An Interview with Lisa Mansson, Deputy Stage Manager of Six! The Musical
Interview by Verity Glading
I’m reading a book about Henry VIII and I’ve come across the phrase ‘Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.’ You know, I’m not surprised to see it there, I remember being taught in junior school. That saying has dominated pop history for decades and, for the most part, that’s we know about his six wives. They’re defined by their relationship with the King, bundled together in a simple rhyme.
But now there’s a musical that aims to retell the story of the six infamous queens, allowing them to take their crowning glory. Six! The Musical does so in a meaningful way, making their story relatable to today’s audience. Six has seen global success from humble beginnings at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017. It’s hit Broadway, the West End, the Sydney Opera House and now, its second UK tour.
So what does it take to produce a fast-paced and exciting musical? I’m here in Chichester, where the UK tour cast will be performing at the Festival Theatre over the next few days. I’m here to meet Lisa Mansson, the show’s Deputy Stage Manager.
Could you talk us through your average day? After we speak to you, what would you go and do?
I would go backstage and start preparing for the show. I work as a Deputy Stage Manager and there are three Stage Managers doing the show. It’s me, the Assistant Stage Manager and the Company Stage Manager. We clean the stage, which is very fun. We get the brooms out or we take away everything.
All the confetti, I’m guessing?
Yeah, we usually do that after the show. We’ve also got industrial wipes, so we polish the stage so it’ll look really nice for the show. If we have a cast change, for example, like we have today, I need to sit down with my script and make sure that I’ve got all the cues right. In this show, all the Queen’s have got their own colour. So when I call the follow spots, I called them by the colour of their dress. So if we have a cast change, like we have today, I need to tell them that they have to spot another colour. And so my script is full of post-its that have to be rewritten for every show.
After the show, is it a fairly quick getaway for you or do you have to stay afterwards?
It’s quite quick. We usually wait for the audience to leave and then we sweep the confetti out, which is a fun job, and that’s pretty much all we do. Before the show, as well, we also reset the confetti bucket in the middle of the stage.
I know I’ve done a few shows down in Portsmouth and we have the same size stage as here. If something’s not in the right place, it can be a bit scary sometimes having to find it.
Yeah, it is. The ASM is in charge of all the props. This show is not very prop-heavy, but the ruff’s that they’re using, they’ve all got their personal ruff. So if we have cast change, for example, we need to make sure that the right ruff is in the right place, because that’s something that we give them during the show and the sunglasses, the phone and all of that. Fi, who’s our ASM, she’s in charge of making sure that all the props are in the right place.
In terms of calling the show, are there lots of lots of calls during it?
It’s quite an easy show to call, mostly because there are not so many departments that are involved. With this one, I usually call LX and follow spot, and then I’ve got two cues for stage management during the show. My cues are usually in the scenes. The ‘bams’ for example, they are triggered by the MD’s keyboard, but I cue them as well in case something would go wrong. There are a lot of cues in the scenes, but in most of the songs, there are barely any cues so I can sit and relax and just enjoy their performance.
As this is a tour, you’ve got lots of different locations. How is it with each location, setting up a new stage?
It’s quite the same. It’s very well worked out with the Production Manager and our Company Stage Manager. Depending on the size, we’ve got two extra floorboards on the side that we use if we’re in a larger venue. This venue is the trickiest we’ve done so far because we have the audience on the side. Last week, we had a full day of rehearsal to restage the show. Normally, we’ve got a lot of straight lines, but we have to angle them in a ‘V’ for this. We always have a challenge of — we don’t use it here because we can’t — the kabuki, which is a purple curtain that hangs. In every venue, we have some kind of draught going on, so it’s either pulling out to the audience or out over the band. That’s a little bit of a challenge. And getting things down, like flying the bucket down. In other venues, we’ve got a header which is part of the set. When we’ve used the confetti bucket, a lot of confetti stops on that and we need to bring that down. In some venues, we can’t bring it down so we need to climb on a ladder or be creative in finding solutions.
Last week, there were some problems with the mics. How is it dealt with, was there panic backstage, or have you got clear things to if that happens?
For us, it was the first time it happened. Poor Jodie! All the things that have happened recently have all happened in her number. The mic went down for some reason. I’m not sure why. But she didn’t realise at all, and I don’t think anyone really realised in time. We had our Sound Number 2, Monty, standing in the wing trying to get someone’s attention with the extra mic so that he wouldn’t have to run in and do it. But no one saw him, so he ended up running and swapping the mics out.
There was obviously some sort of plan of what to do, though?
Yeah, I think we all kind of laughed about it and then we talked through what will happen if that happened again.
Could you tell us a bit about the most surprising thing about being a DSM? What do you think people wouldn’t necessarily know about your job?
Like I mentioned before, changing all the cues for who’s on stage. I think that’s something that people don’t think about. And all the details that go into the preset of the show, we have to be here 2.5 hours before the show to preset. I’m in charge of doing all the calls for the warm-up. I don’t think people really think about all the preparations.
How do you feel about meeting new casts, is there any sort of workshop team-building? You work quite closely with them, how is it meeting them for the first time?
Yeah, it’s fun. I always find that people in this business are quite open and easy to talk with anyway. In the first day of rehearsals, usually, everyone involved in the production meet and you read through the script and you sing some of the songs. It’s quite easy to get along. We were not so involved, but the cast did a lot of, you know, trust exercises, games to get their personalities out and to see what they could take from their own personalities into their Queens.
How do you feel working on Six, which has seen global success? How does it feel knowing you’re a part of it?
Oh, it’s amazing. It’s so much fun. I’m originally from Sweden and we don’t really have this kind of fanbase, so it’s just amazing. I mean, we don’t have to go out there every night and sign autographs and stuff like that.
You should.
Thanks. Just seeing that every venue is almost sold out, it’s amazing being part of something that’s continuing to grow.
You’re from Sweden, what was your training like?
I have a B.A. in Production Management and after my education, I realised that it was a bit too far away from the actual creative process. So somehow, along the way, just ended up where I am now. I kind of shifted my career goals and start to do a lot of production. I went from Production Manager to Production Stage Manager and then gradually ended up being Deputy Stage Manager, which is the position I love because you’re part of the show. It’s a bit different, there were so many things at the beginning of this rehearsal that were the same, but slightly different. The calls, for example, here we call it at 35 minutes past, so the half an hour call is 35 minutes past. And then 15 minutes is twenty-to. Beginners are then obviously five minutes before the show starts. But in Sweden, we would call the half an hour call 30 minutes before, and then we would do every 10 minutes up until the show starts. Our beginner’s call would be two minutes to showtime. So I still do my 10-minute call and everyone is like ‘what is that?
I’m hoping to go to university to study Stage Management and see where that takes me. What advice would you have?
I would just embrace it. Do whatever you find interesting, dig into it and find out more about it. I would also say it’s very useful to know what every department does, so gain a little bit of knowledge of what every position does because then you’ll be able to understand them and help them deal with certain issues during a show. But yeah, just embrace it. It’s just a lot of fun, it doesn’t feel like you go to work every day.
Nice, thank you very much.
No worries!
Interviewed by Verity Glading
Produced by Thomas Locke
