Stage manager runs the show

Worrell King takes charge on European tour

Worrell King of King of Kings Promotions is well known as the straight-talking promoter of Western Consciousness and the Tribute to Peter Tosh. In a business where many people multi-task, however, leading up to and on many a show night, King also does that unseen job which determines what the audience sees on the stage. He is the stage manager.

King defines the stage manager as "the person who oversees a professional presentation of a stage show. The stage manager sees that the show starts on time, ends on time and during the period of the show there is a steady flow - any problem on stage is taken care of without the audience seeing".

He first took on the stage manager's role outside Jamaica, when the audience was seeing what they should not be seeing. King says he was on tour in Europe with SANE Band during the mid to late 1980s and "it was so chaotic, I put some sanity in it. Right after that show (in Denmark) the booking agent and I had dialogue and my services were used as stage manager and MC for the rest of the tour".

In Jamaica, King did stage management for Rebel Salute and Reggae Sumfest for several years. He also does some of those duties on Western Consciousness and Tribute to Peter Tosh, but says his role is more limited, as his duties as the general promoter keeps him occupied otherwise. However, he points out that he has a good team working with him for his shows - and also that the stage manager does not stand alone.

Staff is crucial

"An effective stage manager has a staff, whether he employs the staff or the promoter employs the staff. That can be anywhere from two to six or seven people," King said. That cohort includes stage technicians, runners, artiste liaison personnel and artiste coordinators.

However, while the focus is on the stage, King points out that the stage manager starts working long before show night. "A good stage manager is there in the making of the running order and he or she oversees or employs someone to oversee the rehearsals. The show is not made onstage. It is made offstage and delivered onstage," he said.

Pointing to a high level of indiscipline, where some artistes not only wish to rehearse sets that are longer than stipulated and may also deliberately go missing at a venue in order to perform in later hours when, they hope, the audience is at its peak, King positions the stage manager as the person who is in the unenviable position of imposing order. "So the stage manager is a man or woman who is easily hated, especially by people who lack professionalism," he said.

"The stage manager usually has no friends, especially on the night of the show."

He referred to an interview in which an artiste said that she was just ready to work when King ended her set. Laughing, he remarked, "you were given a set time to work. You get half-hour and when 40 minutes gone, you just ready to work!"

Still, King says he decided to get involved, "after observing the poor running of these events. I realised there was no uniformity, people were just going up and there was no cohesiveness. Shows were not starting on time".

So he emphasises that under his watch, for four consecutive years, Sumfest's Dancehall Night started on time and ended on time, working with the running order.

And he laughs as he recalls being approached by a popular emcee who said that he had recommended King as stage manger to the promoter of a show he was hosting. When King heard that the promoter had assumed that the emcee could have done that job on show night as well, he turned down the offer.

'The whole works'

The stage manager is also responsible for those of the artiste's riders which are specific to the stage, such as how many and what type of keyboards should be provided, the drum set, as King puts it, "the whole works". He points out that the part of a show which often weighs it down, the band changes, are also the responsibility of the stage manager, although there are some musicians who are so unprofessional that they have to be found in the venue when it is time to go onstage.

King will be making Western Consciousness 2011 before it is delivered onstage on Saturday, April 30, 2011, at Paradise Park, Westmoreland, where he will balance stage manager and promoter duties. He says that an international artiste will be brought in. "We might even be going to Africa," King said.

Summing up the stage manager's role, King said "the stage manager could well be called the event manager". However, although he says it is one of the most important jobs in the business of music, "it is treated with scant regard".

Now, he says, "I do stage management for few organisations and people. I am very selective. If I cannot be there from the very beginning, it doesn't make any sense".