I fell victim to a checkout line impulse buy the other day. There was this bag of Cracker Jack, just begging me to buy it. So I did. But I haven't eaten any of it yet. The moment hasn't been right. I might have had some Monday, but I had some peanut butter ice cream. I might have had some yesterday, but instead I had a big ginger cookie. I might have some today, but I had half a slice of lemon meringue pie already. I'm trying to eat less sugar. But I am feeling a little hungry.

I'm in tech, so I'm usually hungry and snacking in the afternoon, then pretty full after dinner. We're here until 11, and it's 8:30 now- I think I'll be having another snack soon.

9:30- I have eaten some Cracker Jack, and it isn't as good as I remember. :(

Been awhile

I got all manner of tied up with tech for about a week. It was a fairly normal tech. We did discover a major downtown improvement very close to the theater. It's a lovely new restaurant dealing out tasty hamburgers known as Chef Burger. You may have guessed, but they specialize in burgers. They also have hot dogs and even a few salads. I will surely branch out in the future, but right now I'm hooked on the sweet potato fries. ( I looove sweet potato fries.) We went there about 4 times during the tech process. They also specialize in milkshakes, and for an extra fee you can have yours spiked with booze. I'm looking forward to trying one.

Still working?

I can't believe I'm still here, at 5:21 pm. We had the final dress rehearsal this morning at 10am. It was over about 1, and then surprise! We were going to lunch then coming back to work on cues more. I thought I'd be home by 2:00. Now I'm just hoping that nothing gets screwed up for opening night, since there are no more rehearsals left. It doesn't help that I'm not doing anything. My main job has been to organize the followspots, and they got sent home over an hour ago. They keep working on the projections, which amount to a series of powerpoint slides. (They look about as good as you think they do.) Jeez.

birthday/ tech

Since I had to work last night, Donald and I celebrated my birthday Monday night. We went out to eat at Carmen's in Brookside for the first time. We were in no hurry, so we relaxed and took our time. Donald had a chicken dish and I had a very tasty pasta. For desert we shared a very good tirimisu. The restaurant was pretty dark, which always bugs me a bit, but otherwise had an inviting ambiance. We went home very full, and carrying leftovers.

Yesterday I went out for brunch with the rest of my family. Donald was unable to ditch work, so we went without him. Eggtc has really good waffles, if you wanted to know.

Then there was rehearsal. Last night was the final dress rehearsal. I got there at 5 intending to do about half an hour's worth of work notes, and found that none of the lights onstage would come on. They worked when I left Sunday night, but it seems that every time I show up something else isn't working with the lights. Sunday morning, all 4 moving mirrors weren't working. After much climbing around, phone calls, and ladder dragging, it turned out that in 3 separate places, vital things had come unplugged. Guess what was wrong last night? If you said "something was unplugged" you are a winner! The TD knocked things loose when he was working. Again. The DMX running from the dimmers in the booth to the dimmers backstage had come undone. Kind of important if you want the light board to turn the lights on. With the massive piles and knots of cables everywhere, I don't know why the place hasn't burned down yet. I didn't get any of my notes done, so I'll try again, and hope to get them done today. And tonight is first preview.

Fun fact: The Unicorn has SIX different kinds of dimmers. In three places.

May You Live in Interesting Times

To start where the last post left off- the furniture got moved again and we refocused stuff a third time. :P

That was a weird weird tech. The plan was to focus Friday morning, dry tech in the afternoon, tech Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, then open Saturday night. Friday evening's rehearsal was supposed to start at 7:30, and actually started around 9:30. It ended at midnight, and we hadn't gotten trough Act 1. The next day we picked up where we left off, finished the show, and even had enough time to run part of Act 1 before the 8:00 show. Which was opening night. It went surprisingly well, considering it was our first run through!

The director left Sunday morning, but the LD was still there for the matinée. We did a batch of cue notes after the show, then he got on his plane and went home. Things got interesting during the evening show. Let me first say this show is more like a concert than a play. They mostly play songs, and just talk a little. During the evening show, the guitar player skipped a song. Up in the booth, the SM frantically located the right cue, and we jumped forward. Then we had a quick headset discussion about whether he would go back, or keep going. He went back. We jumped back, then got ready to jump forward again. At other points, singers forgot lyrics, forgot to come on, and generally just faked it. The audience loved it. At the end of the show they were on their feet, demanding an encore. Naturally, we hadn't rehearsed that. So the SM frantically found a bright cue and we jumped back again, while leaving the houselights up. After the encore they were satisfied and went home. Whew! I've never used the "Go to Cue" button so many times during a performance before. :P

Why theatre is dumb today

I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30 this morning to get down here and focus lights at 8AM. To start off, there were no spikes on the floor for the furniture so the lighting designer spent half an hour placing spikes. Then we focused the lights for an hour and a half. (It's a very small plot.) Then we took a break, and worked on the cues for awhile. We had a lunch break, then came back to find that the director showed up and moved everything around. Naturally. So we worked on the cues for a few more hours, then spent half an hour refocusing on the moved furniture. There's nothing that annoys me quite like doing work twice because somebody didn't do their job.

Another one down

Opera tech is over. It went pretty well in the end. There were the usual screeching halts, where we encounter some stupid problem and come to a complete standstill for awhile. I say usual, which is sad but true for the opera. Opening is Saturday, and I'm pretty sure there won't be any surprises like last time. Yay!

Last night I went out for a drink with the opera stage management gals. We went to a bar with video touchscreens in the booths and played video Monopoly. Long game short, I took all their monies. :) I'm pretty sure that's the first Monopoly game I've finished in at least 10 years. Even with a computer doing all the math, it still took two hours. When I was a kid I played Monopoly with my cousins a few times, and I don't think we ever finished it. We always had to stop because my cousin Scott would start losing and then cry. He's the one that got married this summer. He doesn't cry when he loses games any more. :)

dollas

The show we're teching at the Rep has been ridiculously easy. It comes in at probably 65 light cues total. I will definitely be getting a lot of reading done on this one. They're cutting tech time left and right which is good because I get to go home early, but bad because I don't make any dollars when I'm at home. Sigh. I wonder if I'll get the pay increase I asked for? It surely isn't fair to make $2 an hour less than the guy doing the same thing at the other theater.

I added up my hours for the opera just because I was curious tonight. I get paid a set amount for the whole thing, so the fewer hours I work the more I make. If I work 5 more hours, I'll average out at $18 an hour. Pretty sweet!

The Lyric makes my knees hurt

The house of the theater used to be a full semi circle shape. At some point, they walled off the sides nearest the stage, making a more wedge shaped house. The walled off portions are now hallways and storage areas with slanted floors. My path from the house to the office (where I print things) goes out a door, down a ramp, through a door, down more ramp, turn left then up a ramp, turn right then through 2 more doors, up a few stairs, turn right, then up stairs to the second floor. I do this often, and fast. The place is peppered with small flights of stairs, everywhere you go. It’s definitely not ADA accessible, and gets to be hard on the knees! It doesn’t help that the leg of the tech table intrudes in my space and I whack my knees on that sometimes. The whole thing is still much much better than last year when the tech table was in the balcony.

Time for an audience

Our little show is ready to go. We ran through the whole play last night and the night before, and it went pretty great both times. We have our preview tonight, and the performance tomorrow. Yay! I'm glad to get to the performance, and yes, I'll be glad when it's over. I'm looking forward to not inhaling any more dust. We're bringing in fans to try to keep our audience as comfortable as possible. Oddly enough, we all agreed that it didn't seem as hot lately. Either we're getting used to it, or there's some inversely proportional temperature thing going on with the outdoors. It's probably the first one.

I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon helping the set designer make masking. Using only the finest in materials- we made blacks out of black plastic paint tarps. :) It worked surprisingly well. I cut them to size, then sat and put grommets in them, and Dave hung them. Then we made a backdrop with the same technique. The backdrop has fabric "buildings" attached. Dave laid them out, then I took over making them into buildings. It was a lot of fun actually. The sound designer watched me do it, making suggestions. So it ended up being a truly collaborative effort. For once. All the talk about collaboration in theater is usually just talk. It's very rare that 3 designers do ANYTHING together. So, it was fun!

Speaking of dust, I started getting a sore throat a few days ago. I'm sure the excessive dust doesn't help, even though by this point we aren't really stirring it up. By today my voice is nearly gone. I'm thinking about making myself a button that I can just point at to avoid unnecessary speaking.

For dinner last night Donald and Mike and I tried out the Westport Flea Market for the first time. I give them 2 thumbs up. They have 2 sizes of hamburger, A Little Too Big and Really Too Big. Both sizes are delicious- flavorful and juicy, and reasonably priced for the size. They come with a side of fries, and you help yourself to a condiment bar. There are a lot of other sandwiches on the menu, but I'm pretty sure that the next few times I go there I'll be getting another delicious burger. Tasty tasty.

That must mean I'm a unicorn!

Day 2 in the dustiest place to ever do a theatrical production went rather better than day 1. I got some desperately needed help from Dan Parks for a few hours. He helped me hang and focus my pile 'o lights. Hanging eighteen lights is no big deal, if you have a buddy. If you're on your own, it takes much much longer. So Dan is awesome, and I owe him a nice big dinner sometime. With his help, I got the stuff ready between 11:30 and 4:30. Then I went home and took a glorious shower. One of my top 5 showers ever, probably. I rested awhile, made a lovely batch of smoothies, and had dinner with Donald.

Around 8:30 I went back for the evening portion of rehearsal. I wrote some cues, and watched the scene change rehearsals. It was a pretty productive evening. It was also relatively comfortable, sitting still in front of my light board with a fan on me. I borrowed a camp chair from my dad so I have a clean place to sit. Once the sun has been down a couple of hours, it gets cooler, or at least seems to . That's not going to help with the performance much though, since "curtain" is at 7:30.

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to not go in until 6:30 for rehearsal. We thoroughly teched Act 1, then just did the scene changes for Act 2. It's coming together quite nicely, and I think we're ready to run through the whole thing tonight. If you're free Monday night, check it out... it'll be unique! Bring a hand fan and wear shorts though!

info here: http://davidfehr.net/Sin.htm

yummy

I just had a new cookie. Snackwell's chocolate mint cookie cakes. This isn't a deep post full of insight, just a reminder to myself that I should buy me some of these tasty cookie treats.

Clearly, I'm in tech. I have a bit of sitting around thinking about cookies time.