When someone asks me what
role I have in the
play, I tell them "
God." And this is not just because of the
power trip that comes from being a
techie (although being in
control of
tech does in fact make one a god), nor because everyone must
bow down when I give a
command; the
stage manager plays an
active role in the play as God. It is the
SM who controls all the
elements in the
onstage world.
As in the creation of the earth, the stage manager opens the show by asking for light. In essence, he commands, "Let there be light!" (I have actually opened a show with those words) and pronounces it good when his light fills the stage. In the next scene, let there be music, then trees shall appear at his command where there were none, and then life shall pour in from the wings on cue. And all of this is good.
After all, from the perspective of the audience, is there any proof that the stage manager actually exists? All it can see are the lights and set that may or may not have come together on its own. They do not see nor hear the stage manager; in fact, it is forbidden for these mortals to gaze upon Him or his black angels in the bright light before them. The only basis for the audience's belief in the stage manager is what it reads in the program, an apocryphal work of unknown origin--the audience must place that much faith in the strangers who typed up this pamphlet. And yet they believe.