Meet Matty Sayre: Production Stage Manager & Playwright

When Matty Sayre enrolled at Bowling Green State University some years ago, his goal was opera performance. His teachers had other ideas, and convinced him that he should find another path. So he did. And yet, he didn't really. He switched to theater-acting and directing, with a secondary specialization in music. He ended up as a professional (Equity) Production Stage Manager. There have been times when he was the only backstage tech person for an opera production who could actually read the music!

"It's kind of amusing when the lighting designer points to the score and says, 'Put the light cue here on this batch of dots'," Matty says with an unassuming smile. But if you're a go-to PSM as he is, you learn to work with all sorts of tech folks, even those who can't decipher the page of hieroglyphics they're working with. On the other hand, he adds, "Just because you can read music and count to four doesn't mean it'll be pretty the first time around." Of course, it's the job of the PSM to make it look as good as it can, while performing a balancing act that would challenge any circus juggler.

As a starter, the PSM acts as a sounding board and general means of communication for/and between the actors/performers, tech folks (costumes, lights, sound, props, scenic designs and directors), administrators and anyone else involved with the production, while trying valiantly to keep on a schedule, make props appear out of thin air, solve problems, be a baby sitter or taxi driver, act as gaffer or stagehand, and keep it all running smoothly. And on time. Whew!

He grins. "If a donkey is scheduled to come on stage, do the lights and or music need to coordinate with the donkey's pace? Will it be fast or slow? Bright lights or subtle? And do they need to happen as the donkey first makes its entrance, or when it reaches center stage? These kinds of artistic decisions are sometimes left up to the stage manager and he or she needs to have that artistic eye."

Matty didn't settle into this career field easily. In fact, the year between his graduation and first internship, he dragged his feet, not thinking he'd make it, before beginning an odyssey that would take him to some of the biggest stages around the world. A mentor from BGSU -- Dr. Michael O'Brien -- explained the "facts of stage life" to the young man and suggested he think about stage managing. "Just do what the director tells you to do," was the solid advice and so Matty began his new career.

The Black Swamp Players were a community theater group in Bowling Green with ambitious plans. Dr. O'Brien directed some of the plays, among them Fourth Wall by A.R. Gurney. And at Bowling Green State University, Sweeney Todd (Sondheim), Waiting for Godot (Becket), Actor's Nightmare (Durang) and Words, Words, Words -- a one act play by David Ives, that presumes three monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce another Hamlet. Matty expanded his horizons by also doing sound design on the latter production. He was hooked.

Determined to succeed in his new-found career field, he visited Virginia Tech to apply for grad school, but two things happened that changed his life. First, Virginia Tech told him he needed more experience, and almost simultaneously, he received a phone call offering him unpaid work -- as a stage manager. He spent several months at the Hanger Theater in Ithaca, NY, in an intensive program that combined a professional director and playwright with interns who did everything else: actors and tech folks included. The program meant learning and producing four one-act plays within two weeks, and the day after the production went up, beginning a second sequence of four different one-act plays! The interns were housed, but there was no other pay. Matty considers it "a terrific learning experience, anyway."

From there he went to Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park as a stage manager intern for the 2000-01 season. A group of 5 actors and a set toured the production Capture the Moon to area schools "sometimes more than one school in a day." What followed was an in-house production of A Christmas Carol. Playwright Lanford Wilson visited for a few days while they worked on his play Talley's Folly, which was co-produced by the St. Louis Repertory Theater. Matty also got his feet wet in the musical field with a production of Avenue X.

Since that time, Matty has seldom been out of work, unless he wanted to be. He's worked for theater companies big and small, and a good many opera companies, including local groups, Lyric Opera Cleveland, and the new Opera Per Tutti.

Along the way, he spent time at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, NY – “we had one day off every two weeks, which was spent ‘prop shopping’!”; the Downtown Cabaret in Bridgeport CT; Cortland Rep in NY, “the director, Gary John LaRosa was also big on props”; to Platteville, Wisconsin and Kiss Me, Kate directed by Dr. O’Brien, where Matty started writing a play of his own; to Connecticut Opera in Hartford, the Intermezzo Opera in West Hartford, The Hartt School of Music and finally, Yale Opera.

It was at this latter company that he met one of his biggest influences: Marc Verzatt, who is also on staff at the Metropolitan Opera in NY, perhaps the biggest company in the world. “This was a really great experience,” says Matty, his face lighting up with pleasure at the remembrance.

It wasn’t all hectic however, as he found time to marry a young woman he’d first met at BGSU. He and Jen are now in the process of buying a home in Richfield, an easy commute for each of them between her job at the Kent State Twinsburg center, and his in Berea, although he’s hoping to go back to school soon at Akron University, working towards a Master’s Degree in Arts Administration, and an MFA in playwriting. “By the time I’m 60, I want to be a full-time playwright,” he adds with a touch of longing in his voice.

Matty was invited to apply at the Tulsa Opera Company for their 2006-07 season, during which they’d do Carmen, Porgy and Bess and The Little Prince, among other productions. The Porgy and Bess turned out to be something quite different from what he’d expected. Many of the cast went on an extended European tour of the same opera with another company, in two segments: from late September through early December, they were resident in Spain for one month, then toured Germany, France and Switzerland, and in the spring to Italy and Scandinavia.

“Spain was too funny. They put us up in a very high-end hotel, while the opera house was almost too small for so many people as we had with us.” It was here he first enjoyed meeting the local people who assisted with the production, and getting to spend time with them away from the theater. “I didn’t know much of their language, and sometimes they didn’t know much of mine, but somehow we made it work. We’d go out for late dinner after the show and unwind, which was really fun.”

The tour picked up again early the next year, and his itinerary reads like ‘around the world in 80 days’ or so. Parma, Italy for a couple of weeks, home for two, then back again—to Catanzaro this time—followed by three weeks in Munich and six weeks in Amsterdam. “And even with six weeks, there are things I didn’t have time to do. Jen came over for a week, and even though we visited at least two museums each day, we still didn’t get to see everything! One day we walked through their red-light district. On one side of the street were Moms with their kids feeding the ducks, and on the other side were people selling drugs. Unreal.”

“Parma was one of my favorite places. We were at L’Overtura, and it seemed like the most common music we heard outside the theater was either Johnny Cash or Dean Martin. I stumbled over this little restaurant run by a man named Flavio. His English was about as good as my Italian. He was studying to be a sommelier, and every night when I’d go there, he’d say ‘try this, try that’. When we were about to leave, he said, ‘come back on Friday. I feed you the best food and best wine.’ On our last night there, after we struck the set, he fed us Prosciutto and Parmesan, and refused to take any money from me. I’ll never forget it.”

He continues his reminiscence. “In Catanzaro, the prop girl spoke a bit of English, and once she learned I was married, she showed me all over her town, and even took me home with her to lunch. Introduced me to her Mama. I hated to leave there. Münich was great, too, even if I did have the flu for three days, which didn’t help a lot. After our six weeks in Amsterdam, we went to Antwerp for two weeks, and then came home. I was ready.”

For now, however, Matty and Jen are settling down a bit. Along with the new home, Matty has a new job, as client services coordinator at the Scott A. Williams and Associates law firm in Berea. Still, though, the theater and especially opera holds a strong lure for him. “If the rehearsals and performances are only in the evenings and on weekends . . .” He looks off into the distance.

Matty Sayre is the production stage manager for this weekend's performances of Belle Nuit by Opera Per Tutti at the Solon Center for the Arts. For information, visit http://operapertutti.org or call 440-337-1400. Matty's website can be found at www.mattysayre.com.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com

In the spirit of full disclosure: Although I have not been an active participant in every production of Opera Per Tutti in its short lifetime, so far, and am not involved with this one, I hope to achieve active status again in the spring. It was at last January's production of Puccini: The Man and His Music that I first learned about the myriad duties of a stage manager. I felt strongly that Matty's story was a good one, and I'm pleased to be able to share it with everyone. -- Kelly Ferjutz (:divend:)