stage-manage
Americanverb (used with object)
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to work as a stage manager for.
When he wasn't acting, he stage-managed a repertory theater.
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to arrange or stage in order to produce a theatrical or spectacular effect.
The clients were most impressed with the way she stage-managed the whole presentation.
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to arrange or direct unobtrusively or in secret.
He stage-managed Mediterranean black-market operations from his secluded villa on the Riviera.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to work as stage manager for (a play, etc)
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(tr) to arrange, present, or supervise from behind the scenes
to stage-manage a campaign
Etymology
Origin of stage-manage
First recorded in 1875–80; back formation from stage manager
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“This motley crew try so hard to stage-manage this moment together because they love her so much and want her to succeed, and it’s just so sweet,” explained Marshall.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 26, 2023
“Belgravia” is often more basic than captivating, even with all its 19th-century grandeur and two shipshape performances from Walter and Greig, whose characters ally themselves to stage-manage a standard-issue conclusion.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 9, 2020
They speak to the living and stage-manage events from the grave.
From Fox News ● Mar. 23, 2019
In the later hours, your ability to stage-manage yourself gets weaker, your ability to hold it together starts to erode.
From New York Times ● Sep. 5, 2018
Ah, but I think I can stage-manage so that it will come up to her expectations.
From Penny Plain by O. Douglas
Whereas most American robotics companies only show their products in obsessively stage-managed demos, at an Ultimate Bots fight, “failure is the show,” Bulatov says.
From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026
As the New York Times reported, Erika Kirk carefully stage-managed the days and weeks after her husband’s murder, making sure to photograph and publish every potentially cinematic moment of her grief.
From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2025
Seoul, Tokyo, Washington and Brussels will see great peril in those words and in the stage-managed meeting.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2024
Always, what we casually assume to be a realist depiction taken from everyday life, in fact, turns out to be a cleverly stage-managed fiction.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024
Strauss stage-managed the AEC hearing into Oppenheimer’s security clearance as he had the campaign of calumny that preceded it.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
She enjoyed stage-managing debates and revelled in her role of making Parliament the focus of attention.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2023
Sandra Charles was stage-managing as she posed with friend Jamie Coleman in front of the photo-booth setup at the bright-orange Vizzy trailer.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 21, 2021
But after 10 years at the Universal Studios theme park in California, he is only No. 13 on the stage-managing roster.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 1, 2020
As her memory problem worsened, she apparently refused food and drink, stage-managing an ending more in keeping with how she wanted to go out.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2014
Now, this was ticklish work for the Picardo vaqueros who were stage-managing the sport.
From The Gringos by Anton Otto Fischer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
