The Met: It's ok. If you like that sort of thing.

The first thing I noticed was how eerily calm everything was before the show. Because everything is taken care of. The only problem to solve was that the horse couldn’t get by the cases that the Ballet had brought into one of the hallways. Other than that, it was just checking props and waiting for the curtain.

The Met does things differently then the rest of the world (of course they do, they’re the Met). They have four stage manager posts per night and I spent basically an act with each one. It's strange cause none of them wear head sets (well, 1 does to call cues).

I always knew intermissions at the Met were long. But I thought they just felt like a long 20 minutes. Turns out they’re all 25-35 minutes long. And for good reasons. During the first intermission this crew of about 40 or 50 guys had to tear apart one third of the set and replace it with another one waiting behind it. Then they had to refocus all the lights and run any fight calls. The head SM didn’t have anything to do so he showed me the basement set storage area and the lifts under the stage.

Best part of the evening: apparently Renee Fleming doesn’t come to the stage when called. You have to go get her out of her dressing room. The ASM said she’s very nice and always comes right away, but you have to personally go get her. So, ACT I, Renee’s entrance, the ASM and I wander back to the dressing room to escort her to the stage. Later I got to ride in the elevator with Renee and the Mezzo (Stefanie Blythe, who was amazing) from below the stage up to stage level. I also showed them my penis. They seemed impressed, but may have just been being polite.

I got to talk with the tenor (Kobie von Rensburg) and the counter tenor (Andreas Scholl) while they were waiting in the wings. That’s the best thing about opera (compared to theater), you get to talk the whole time you're back stage. I actually saw very little of the show, even though I was only about 10 feet from the stage (and yes, the thought of streaking definitely entered my mind).

At the end of the night, when the principals were taking their bows I was hanging out on stage. I was thinking if I lined up at the right spot they would send me out for my bow.

All 4 stage managers talked to me about how they got started and gave me what advice they could. They gave me resume pointers and invited me back anytime next season (this season ended Saturday). Too bad they don’t have an internship. They said since the Met is different from every other house it’s a good place to take your experience, but not a good place to gain it. Still, I plan on hanging out back there next season as often as they’ll let me.