The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
8 — Wednesday, March 10, 2021 

Working as a stage manager is intense. 

Like studying for a final or bingeing the 
entirety of Grey’s Anatomy in a week, 
stage management is mentally, physically 
and emotionally draining. But that is what 
students working toward a Bachelor of Fine 
Arts in stage management at the School of 
Music, Theatre & Dance sign up for — or is 
it? 

The eternal question lies in whether or 

not the training of the theatre industry’s 
future stage managers should be carried 
out traditionally or if it should constantly 
adapt to the current landscape of theatre. 
And in the middle of a pandemic, one has 
to wonder: Should students be the ones 
monitoring the COVID-19 safety of their 
faculty and peers? After interviewing 
Emily Hanlon and Harrison Hoffert, two 
juniors in the School of Music, Theatre 
& Dance who also work with University 
Productions (UPROD), I got to know the 
“WWW” — not the worldwide web, but the 
“who, what and when” of accountability as 
a student stage manager.

Stage managers are traditionally known 

for being all about paperwork. From daily 
calls, cue sheets, production analysis and 
a multitude of other documents needed 
to run a production, stage managers are 
worth their weight in the number of 
trees consumed by printing. However, 
stage management can also be about 
relationship-building and communication, 
according to Hanlon.

“(Stage managing is) being a liaison 

between a multitude of departments. 
It is more about keeping an open line 
of communication between everybody 
involved than it is about the role itself,” 
Hanlon told The Daily in a virtual 
interview. “It is you working to serve all the 
other people in the production rather than 
running a department of your own.” 

Although it involves working closely 

with the directors, designers and actors, 
stage managing is truly about “facilitating 
everyone’s ideas as they come together into 
one unified production,” Hoffert said.

However, COVID-19 has changed the 

nature of stage management drastically. 
Now, things look a little different for 
Hoffert: “Now that we are rehearsing 
over Zoom, communication over email, 
text or Zoom has become so much more 
important.” 

It is also important to recognize that 

traditional stage management does not 
have the same efficiency when UPROD 
guidelines for rehearsal spacing are 

counterintuitive to the way traditional 
theater has been conducted in the past.

As Hanlon expressed, “I know that 

my management style goes beyond a 
stage manager; it is more about being a 
facilitator.” Facilitating with a proactive 
mindset allows stage managers to, as 
Hoffert said, “notice things before other 
people do,” which is useful in adapting to 
the perpetually changing virtual rehearsal 
process. 

Working during the COVID-19 era, 

particularly in-person, has created a whole 
new set of struggles for stage managers to 
adapt to. In addition to their normal set of 
responsibilities, student stage managers 
now have to deal with maintaining safety 
in accordance with UPROD COVID-19 
guidelines. Walking the line between these 

two distinct kinds of accountability is no 
easy task. “There is a high level of human 
error to COVID protocol,” Hanlon said. “If 
a director approaches an actor to give a note 
and isn’t mindful of the six-foot distance 
… it puts a stage manager, specifically 
a student stage manager, in a difficult 
position of (determining) what is COVID 
policing and what is stage managing.”

Added Hoffert: “It is very easy to step 

six feet near someone; it is very easy to 

take your mask off to take a sip of water, 
and stage managers are already in a unique 
role where they are already watching and 
staying one step ahead (of everyone else in 
the production).” 

Both students agree that student stage 

managers should not be the ones to carry 
the entire weight of a production’s health 
and safety on their shoulders. 

“I think there are improvements that 

can be made,” Hanlon said. “Always 
finding ways of taking the (COVID-19) 
responsibility off students is important.” 

Steps have been taken to address this 

concern. “In the fall, it was shop heads 
(maintaining COVID-19 policies), and 
now there are house technicians who are 
responsible,” Hoffert assured. “The Health 
and Safety Coordinators are responsible 

for walking around and making sure we 
are following protocols.”

Added Hanlon: “The days I felt the 

safest and the COVID policies were most 
enforced were days when someone who 
was not involved in the project, who didn’t 
even know what we needed to accomplish 
for the day was there, because their only 
interest was maintaining COVID protocol. 
I think one of the difficulties of a student 
stage manager is setting boundaries.”

Conversations 
about 
theater 

accountability need to account for the fact 
that stage managers are already asked 
to invest 110% of their effort in order to 
“succeed” in normal circumstances. In the 
current theatrical climate, when theaters 
are reopening under the constraints 
of rigid COVID-19 regulations, stage 
managers have to find ways to make time 
for safety while already trying to juggle 
the rest of their responsibilities. Is asking 
this much of stage managers simply part 
of the job, or is it something that needs to 
change?

“I personally think UPROD asks … me 

to do the job of a professional filling the 
role, which is demanding, but that’s what 
I signed up for,” Hoffert said. “We came 
here to do the role, we came here to do 
the entire job and it is hard as a student 
and is a lot to do, but it gives us a great life 
experience we can take with us later.”

Added Hanlon: “I would say all stage 

managers are overworked, period. I hope 
to see the death of this ‘perfect stage 
manager’ ideology.” 

To put it simply, I agree with Hanlon. 

As a costume designer, I have often seen 
stage managers be pushed to the side for 
the sake of getting the scene just right. It is 
not okay for stage managers to be the last 
defense for accountability in the theatre 
world. To ask stage managers — unpaid 
student stage managers at that — to be 
overworked for the sake of meeting the 
“industry standard” is a futile waste of the 
University’s vast resources and influence. 

The path to allow stage managers 

to voice their concerns about COVID-
19 safety is a difficult one, but it is one 
that the Department of Theatre & 
Drama signed up for when agreeing 

to the terms of the Department of 
Theatre & Drama strike this past fall. 
According to the demands of Theatre 
& Drama students for stage managers, 
and by agreeing to “prioritize wellness,” 
one might cynically suspect that the 
department would take the easy way 
out. (I’m looking at you and your two 
“wellness days,” University President 
Mark Schlissel). 

On the contrary, the Department of 

Theatre & Drama, specifically the design 
and production faculty, have done a 
great job of hearing the concerns of their 
student stage managers. “I appreciate 
production manager Paul Hunter (and 
stage management faculty Nancy Uffner) 
because they hold those student demands 
very highly in the work they do,” Hanlon 
said.

Hoffert agreed. He added that it is 

important to have “grace for people and 
understanding 
that 
everyone’s 
going 

through different situations daily, and 
then having the grace to deal with those 
situations.”

With regard to the effect that COVID-19 

will continue to have on theatre, Hanlon 
said, “Things are going to change, and as 
much as everybody wants things to go back 
to the way they were, I don’t think they ever 
will, so why cling to them when we can try 
new things, important things.”

There is still work to be done. Although 

both Hanlon and Hoffert believe that 
positive change has occurred, Hanlon 
remarked that “the seriousness that 
(Theatre & Drama strike) demands are 
taken is more from professor to professor, 
rather than the unity of a department.” 

The question posed in the title is 

rhetorical, but it is one of the fundamental 
questions in stage management. Whose job 
is it? 

Without defining the role of a stage 

manager, you are creating an unjust 
workplace. 
Without 
explicitly 
asking 

for feedback from a stage manager, you 
are creating inequity. Theater needs to 
start asking more questions, and not the 
softball kind, but the kind that will end 
this unattainable perfection that is asked of 
stage managers.

Few artists can take control of their 

listeners’ emotions the way slowthai can. On 
his debut Nothing Great About Britain, he 
could make you want to start a revolution one 
minute, then compel you to call your friends to 
tell them you love them by the end of the next 
song.

Slowthai still has his hand on the joystick, 

playing with his listeners’ hearts on his latest 
album, TYRON. But this time around, he’s 
toned down the social commentary and 
looks inward more than ever before. It’s not 
unexpected — after all, what’s a self-titled 
album without introspection? (Slowthai’s 
name is Tyron Frampton.)

TYRON is a two-disc album, but not 

because of its length — it’s only a 35-minute 
record. The two-disc format is a stylistic divide. 
Disc one is for the slappers — more music to 
fuel the insane moshpits that are central to 
the slowthai concert experience. Disc two, on 
the other hand, is raw and unfiltered emotion, 
a musical heart-to-heart that sees slowthai at 
his most vulnerable on the mic.

Slowthai doesn’t wait until disc two to get 

introspective. The front half of the album sees 
the artist rapping about drug use, depression 
and suicidal thoughts, often sandwiched 
between less conspicuous lyrics about 
making money and slinging drugs. “Mazza,” 

featuring A$AP Rocky, is emblematic of this. 
It’s a hazy, dream-like track in the style of 
popular Soundcloud and emo rap. From the 
get-go, slowthai lays his heart out in his verse: 
“Feeling like these drugs made me better than 
I was / But I never felt love before the drugs,” 
he raps. Slowthai is so raw on the track that it’s 
almost jarring to hear A$AP Rocky’s generic 
guest verse afterward.

Admittedly, I was nervous when I first saw 

the title of the track “CANCELLED.” When 
the single came out, I learned that slowthai 
had been “canceled” by Twitter before after 
an incident at an award ceremony. When 
someone talks about their experience being 
canceled in their music, it can often drag out 
the drama and make it harder for everyone 
to move past it. Thankfully, slowthai’s 
tried-and-true 
partnership 
with 
Skepta 

makes “CANCELLED” the hype highlight 
of disc one. The beat is driven by a zen-like 
flute melody that nosedives into an eerie 
horror-movie-esque synth halfway into the 
track. Skepta’s hook is the catchiest on the 
album, and fortunately, slowthai is beyond 
acknowledging his cancellation at this point — 
he aims well-deserved jabs at the Oscars and 
the Grammys.

The front half goes hard, but the back half 

of the album is where TYRON truly shines. 
It’s the same heartfelt introspection that’s 
spread throughout the whole album but 
often delivered more gently, reflecting the 
vulnerability of the lyricism.

The beats are a refreshing switch-up 

from the first half’s sinister aesthetic. The 
acoustic guitar on “push” or the piano melody 
on “nhs” are at odds with the synthetic 
instrumentation of the first half, bringing a 
touch of rawness and authenticity. Featured 
guest singers like James Blake and Deb Never 
reinforce this somber style with beautiful 
echoey choruses. Most tracks have moments 
where the instruments mellow out for a 
moment, or the drums take a pause, giving 
breathing room for the verse to take the 
forefront.

Many of slowthai’s verses are dripping 

with existential dread. When he uses his 
talent for clever songwriting to depict his 
own pain, slowthai’s lyrics become bullets 
to the heart. “We filled cracks of broken 
homes with broken dreams and broken 
bones / If walls could scream, ears would 
bleed,” he sings on “i tried.” Heart-wrenching 
songwriting like this is all over the album’s 
back half, and it’s impossible to fully digest it 
even on the fourth, fifth and sixth listen.

Slowthai captures every facet of mental 

illness in each track: The sinking depression 
of “i tried,” fighting an uphill battle on 
“focus,” the persistence to move forward on 
“push.” All these feelings are resolved on 
“nhs,” the highpoint of slowthai’s emotional 
rollercoaster. In it, he wholeheartedly 
embraces life’s hardships, showing gratitude 
to the lows for giving meaning to all of life’s 
joys.

Despite this, the album ends on its 

darkest note in “adhd,” a tracklisting choice 
that colors the whole tone of the album 
Here, slowthai dives deepest into the mental 
trappings of depression and loneliness, 
singing each line with such defeat that it 
feels as though he’s given up. 

I keep asking myself, what does it mean 

that slowthai chose to end the album on 
the loneliest track rather than the happy 
resolution of “nhs”? When I reflect on my 
own struggles with mental health, I think 

slowthai is suggesting a cycle — the sense 
that once you’ve felt that depth of loneliness, 
it lives with you forever, always under the 
threat of resurfacing.

TYRON is a gut punch. It feels less like 

a page from slowthai’s journal and more 
like a slice of his brain, taken from the part 
that holds his stream of consciousness. Few 
artists can so eloquently and passionately lay 
their darkest thoughts out, and few albums 
so uniquely encapsulate the magnitudes of 
mental illness.

“Pelé,” Netflix’s latest foray into “30 for 

30”-esque sports documentaries, chronicles 
the former Brazilian soccer player’s career 
from his first World Cup in 1958 to his 
last in 1970. With a mixture of strange, 
half-dubbed/half-subtitled 
talking-head 

interviews and old television footage, 
directors Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn 
(“Crossing the Line”) try to unpack the 
legacy of one of the most iconic figures 
in sports history. Unfortunately, the film 
never gets deep enough into the material 
to give the audience a more thorough 
understanding of Pelé’s story.

There are plenty of surface-level sports 

documentaries that are perfectly enjoyable 
to watch — like this past year’s “The 
Last Dance” — but the biggest problem 
with “Pelé” is that it could have a much 
bigger impact. While something like “The 
Last Dance” can just have fun with the 
personalities and dynamics of the players, 
“Pelé” feels like it is attempting to make 
a greater statement about something but 
never quite takes the risks necessary to get 
there.

For example, a large portion of the 

documentary is focused on the rise of the 
military dictatorship that ruled over Brazil 
from 1964 to 1985. However, because the 
dictatorship and Pelé never quite intersect, 
the film never gives the audience great 
insight into either. The documentary has a 
moment when it looks like it might criticize 
Pelé for not using his status and influence 
to speak out against the new oppressive 
regime — à la Muhammad Ali speaking 
out against the Vietnam War — but the 
film quickly brushes this aside in favor of 
continuing to paint him as a hero. It would 
be one thing if the film was always trying 
to keep Pelé’s mythic image intact — plenty 
of good sports documentaries do that — but 
the fact that the documentary brings up 
the criticism of Pelé means that it creates 
an opportunity for depth that it completely 
fails to capitalize on. It’s a disappointing 
choice by the filmmakers, especially when 
doing the opposite could have turned the 
film into something special.

Another example of the documentary’s 

failure is that it decides not to focus on 
the potential psychological effects of 
Pelé’s celebrity status. The film spends 
a few minutes talking about how Pelé’s 
worldwide fame forced him to travel a lot 

which put a strain on his family life, but 
these issues are never brought up again 
once the segment ends. From both old 
and new interviews, we can see in Pelé’s 
face the mental toll his life must be taking 
on him. But by spending so little time 
on it, the film passes up the opportunity 
to deconstruct the toxic nature of the 
celebrity lifestyle.

“Pelé” feels like it’s trying to cram too 

much into one film. It tries to be a film about 
athletic greatness, celebrity and political 
unrest all in under two hours. As a result, 
parts of the film feel rushed, which is no 
doubt the reason it fails to explore any of its 
themes in greater depth. The part that gets 
the most attention is, unfortunately, the 
least interesting aspect of the film: Pelé’s 
athletic ability.

Focusing most of its attention on Pelé’s 

incredible talent satisfies no one. Soccer 
fans already know how great he is and 
do not need over an hour’s worth of 
reminders. Non-fans of soccer can get the 
gist of his greatness pretty quickly from a 
few of his highlights. By spending so much 
time on Pelé’s soccer skills, the film keeps 
hammering home a point that ultimately 
doesn’t tell the audience much about 
anything.

The best sports documentaries always 

use sports as a backdrop to explore bigger 
themes: “Hoop Dreams” uses high school 
basketball to explore race, class and 
education in the United States; “Diego 
Maradona” uses soccer to explore addiction, 
fame and identity. 

“Pelé” uses soccer to explore … soccer. It 

mentions bigger issues outside of the sport, 
but it never focuses on them long enough 
to make an impact. Considering how iconic 
of a figure Pelé is, and how interesting so 
much of his story is, “Pelé” is ultimately a 
forgettable disappointment.

‘Pelé’: New documentary fails to dig below the surface

Whose job is it anyway?: Accountability as a student stage manager

On ‘Tyron,’ slowthai is headstrong, hopeless and everything in between

MITCHEL GREEN

For the Daily

MATTHEW EGGERS

Daily Arts Contributor

DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer

Netflix

Design by Grace Aretakis

Method Records

