Lyric Opera of Chicago Stage Manager, Caroline Moores, Profiled

Moores backstage throwing cues to keep the opera running smoothly. (Photo: J. Geil/Oakpark)

"At 5-foot-1, Oak Park's Caroline Moores is a towering force of verve, creativity and efficiency as the longtime production stage manager at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She's the one backstage with the British accent, calling all the cues that help create the pageantry that is opera, and when she speaks, people listen. At the piano run-through of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, which closed Dec. 11, Moores was poised stage right, ready to hold court. With her headset on, she makes sure everything and everybody is in the right place at the right time. At her beck and call are several assistant stage managers who await her signal to verbally call the actors to stage. Everywhere else, scores of people responsible for running the electronics, makeup, wardrobe and props, including techs on the rail who fly scenery in and out, are paying close attention to Moores, waiting for the cue to carry on. In Ariadne auf Naxos, for example, she cues a cloud machine to travel across the stage, and tells stage hands when to fetch, deliver and pull away the boat platform and wagons. In this house, she rules, but not with an iron fist. Rather, Moores says, she facilitates the work at hand, always standing at her oversized console, never sitting. 'It's about being focused, and I need to stand to think,' Moores says." Read the full article here.