Day Forty-Three: Oklahoma

This is a long post…but it was a VERY long day.

We went on tour today.

Yippppeee!

The theatre company I am working for gets very large grants to take the shows that we do on the road to smaller communities in the area.  They have been doing this for years and it’s a pain in everyone’s ass.  It’s a lot of work, with very little payoff…at least for the crew, and the hours suck.  On top of all of that, we are performing in theatres that are less that adequate for what we are trying to do.   Which made for a very fun day today.

It started at 7:00 when I finally pulled my butt out of bed to go take my standard 30 second shower.   This wouldn’t have been such a big deal but I was unable to sleep last night.  I went to bed at 1:00ish and at 4:00 a.m. was still very much awake.  If you do that math that’s at best three hours of sleep.  My butt has been dragging all day.  I got downstairs at 7:30 only to find out I was 15 minutes late.  Whoops, no one told me about the change in time.  We added a few more things to the 24 foot Budget truck that was in the parking lot and we were on our way.

First stop?  Quick Trip.  You can’t officially start your day without a Diet Coke.  I would have really loved a good cup of coffee, but as I’ve mentioned the last three or four times I’ve had coffee it’s made me nauseous so I haven’t had it in a while.  The tech director and I filled our cups and were on our way.  The trip was about 35 or 40 minutes outside the city.  There was very little traffic and we made it in no time.  And there we were in front of the _________ High School.  The building was clearly built in 1903 and the prospect of what lay ahead was frightening.

We finally found someone to open the doors for us.  And when I say someone, I mean a real character.  He was a local who had been hired to open doors for us and help us as much as he could.  He was about 68 years old, and smelled as though he’d been smoking since sun up.  He had the thickest accent I’ve heard since I’ve been here and was full of fun stories.  He used to run the National Weather Station in the area until it was closed by Bush.  It’s hard for someone his age to get a job especially since the heart attack.  He’s getting an operation next week for the aneurysm that’s about to explode in his chest.  His son is going to see the Broadway show that’s in town this week.   I could go on.  I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or ask him to go away.  He kept popping into the control booth at the most inopportune times to talk.

So we get inside the theatre.  The first thing to greet us.  A massively huge wall of heat.  The air conditioning is broken.  It had to be 130 degrees inside the theatre and we hadn’t started working yet.  Some men were coming to fix it, but they weren’t sure they could get to it today.  In the meantime we had a show to load in and we couldn’t breathe inside the building.  And of course the temperature in Oklahoma only got worse as the day progressed.  It was very much a hot and humid day, just like it should have been.  By the time we finished tonight, I think I’d lost 15 pounds and I had done the least physical labor.  The audience was having no part of it.  I could only see the balcony from where I was stationed but at least 20 or so people left at the intermission because the temperature was unbearable.

And so we got to work.  Sort of.  The stage in this theatre is about half as big as the stage we are accustomed to working on.  We have a 40 foot stage at the performing arts center and the stage at the high school is 30 feet.  It’s also about half as deep.  On top of that there’s no fly space (the area above the stage where scenery is stored and then flown in during a specific scene) therefore it was impossible to use use at least 3/4 of the scenery we had brought with us.  We were able to use the backdrop and a couple of other pieces and that was it.  So suddenly are large musical’s set consist of some benches, 12 chairs and a rocker.  Just so you know, when things become problems visually in the theatre,  guess who they look to, to fix it?   That’s right.  Lighting.  I could magically create the gymnasium, the front porch, the gazebo all with lights.  That’s why I’m being paid the big bucks.  Right?

In a “real” theatre, with “real” equipment,  “real” money, and “real” time I could do all of those things.  However to have this become my problem when we now have 7 hours till the house opens and the audience is admitted, and there’s very little equipment, and no money.  That’s another story all together.

The lighting package consisted of state of the art equipment that was bought in 1987.  I’m not exaggerating here.  All of the equipment was at least 20 years old.  And I’ll buy someone dinner if they actually can prove to me THEY are using the computer they bought 20 years ago.   That’s what I thought.  It took my crew and me almost an hour just to figure out how to turn the lights on.  And don’t forget I have a degree in this.  Once we figured it out, we discovered that you couldn’t actually program the memory of the board.  The show would have to be programmed the old fashion way.  Manually.

We also discovered that the lamps in at least half the lights we were using were blown.  The high school drama teacher (HSDT) had explained to us that the administration wouldn’t buy him replacement bulbs.  There were also a bunch of lights hanging on a pipe that was virtually impossible to get to.  The  HSDT told us he didn’t touch those lights since it was impossible to get to them.  We also asked about why the house was so dark when the house lights (the lights that light the audience) we on.  The HSDT teacher said there was no way to get into the air to replace them so as they burned out they were just being left that way.  There’s more but I could spend an entire post just on the HSDT.  It scares me that people like him are teaching young people about theatre.

So my crew and I figured out how to get to the lights that were impossible to get to.  Unfortunately we discovered that the lights when turned on only produced a beam of light that was only about 4 feet across when it got to the stage.  (Call this the wrong equipment in the wrong place.)  This made them useless to us.  However, since HSDT didn’t use these lights, all the light bulbs in them worked.  So with the help of my crew, we scavenged the light bulbs out of the instruments that worked, but that were useless to us, to use them in the lights that were useful but didn’t work.  This took almost an hour, but I don’t think I could have lit the show without them.

Without going into the technical information, we also discovered they didn’t have the hardware to actually make all the plugs electrified that we were plugging the lights into.  So we had to be ingenious to figure out, what dimmer (the control, like in your dining room that allows you to make the light be at different intensities) could be where, to make the lights work.  There were 125 plugs.  But only 48 dimmers.  You do the math.

Finally, all the lights work and we began focusing them. (Pointing them where they go on the stage.)   In the performing arts center we usually perform in, there are about 280 lighting instruments.  This is a medium size show.  A Broadway show can have upwards of 500.  Today I lit a two act musical, with at least 15 different scenes, with dance numbers, etc. with about 40 lights.  And it actually looked okay.  But as they say: you do what you can, with what you have.

All of this was done in about three hours.   At 2:00 the actors hit the stage and we began a spacing rehearsal.  And what is that?  Well it’s basically figuring out how to make 30 adult cast members plus  8 kids  fit on a stage that’s significantly smaller than what we are accustomed to.  We basically went through the play moment by moment figuring out where people would be.  While the actors were doing this, I was figuring out what lights would be on in each scene and trying to make a list.  Unfortunately, we only did the big numbers because the two person scenes looked the same.  That meant I’d just have to wing it when I got to the show.

And this is what we were doing when the actress who plays the mother tripped on a piece of scenery coming on to stage and went crashing to the floor.  I didn’t see any of this since I was in the light booth.  What I did see was the crew member come running on to stage asking the stage manager to call 911, and telling the place that medical attention was needed pronto.  Of course everyone rushed to the stage (not me) to help.  Seems she had ripped a huge cut in her arm and also hit her nose which was now bleeding profusely.  The stage manager told me later that when she got to the stage to assess the situation there was blood everywhere.  She maintained control of every thing while the assistant stage manager sent the other actors to the green room (the place actors hang out when they are not on stage).  About 6 or 7 minutes after this occurred the EMS people arrived.  OH MY GOD!!!  I have never seen such butch women.  They looked like linebackers.  And to make their appearance worthy of mentioning.  One of them had the most beautiful mullet I have ever seen.  It was bleached blond and perfect.  I was laughing out loud as soon as I saw it…but I digress… Back to my story.  They helped the actress out of the building and to a car that was going to take her to the hospital.  She ended up getting six stitches in her arm and a bandage on her nose.  And she still made it back for the 7:00 curtain and performed perfectly.

And now we are at the show.  In every theatre there is a control booth.  Usually it’s in the back in a room that is away from the audience usually shielded by glass or plastic.  It’s the place where the light board and sound board are kept and where the people who are running those things sit during the show.  Often the stage manager will sit in the booth to call a show.  And why is all of this important?  Well, the theatre had a booth.  At the back of the balcony on the second floor.  But wait.  The best part.  It wasn’t separated from the audience.  I was standing at the light board and could have reached out and patted the woman in the back row on the head.  And why is this important.  Well the stage manager has to talk to call the show.  And about 15 minutes into the show, the audience in front of us was turning around asking us to be quiet.  It’s a little hard to call a show when you can’t talk.  Eventually, we just decided to say “Fuck It” and did what we have to do.  But I’m sure some people left a little pissed off.  Maybe that’s why they left at intermission and it had nothing to do with the heat.

And after the show.  We loaded everything back into the truck.  In the million degree heat.  We finished about 11:30 and headed home.  And now I sit here typing, thinking about the fact that I’ve been told tomorrow will be even more of an adventure than today was because the space and equipment are even more antiquated.  I can hardly wait.

Day Forty-Two: Oklahoma

I have been involved in theatre since 8th grade when I was cast as one of the citizens in The Lottery.  We performed one night at the local college.  I forget what the occasion for the show was.  In high school I acted in almost all of the shows we did, having roles in Oklahoma, Gypsy, and Our Town just to name a few.  In college I continued to study acting playing roles in Guys and Dolls, Charlie Brown, and Godspell.  After college I realized I sucked as an actor, didn’t have the drive to pursue it and to make matters worse it made me a nervous wreck.  So I became a designer.  I’ve been designing lights for theatre, dance and opera since 1989.  In all I’ve designed lighting for close to 100 shows.

I’ve seen actors forget their lines, trip and fall, drop things and break them.  I’ve seen shows stop because of safety concerns, for tornadoes and fire drills but never by an actor.  They have all adhered to the idea that the show must go on.  It’s your job to make it work, hopefully without the audience knowing there’s a problem.  I have never, ever, ever seen an actor stop the orchestra and ask to start over.   After tonight I can’t say that.  Tonight the leading actress entered as usual, the lights came up on her, the conductor cued her and she mumbled something you couldn’t understand, hummed a little and then tried again.  Hummed some more and finally over the orchestra said, “Can we start over.”  I didn’t know whether to laugh or hide.  It was embarrassing for me and I wasn’t on stage.

None of this would be terribly exciting if it weren’t for the fact that the leading lady thinks her shit don’t stink.  She’s made everyone’s life miserable for the past 6 weeks.  I haven’t been in rehearsal, so I don’t have any first hand knowledge but I know most everyone in the cast hates her.  The director has sworn never to work with her again, and stage management would like to push her into the pit.  I don’t have to deal with the actor’s much so I haven’t seen it but 40 people can’t all be wrong.  All of this and she’s having an affair with one of the other actors in the cast and has stopped even pretending it’s not happening.  I think everyone but her husband knows it’s going on.  Except perhaps the family of the man she’s fucking.  That would be one wife and two kids.  Makes me think about the sanctity of marriage we hear so much about.

So tonight she started over.  And was never quite on for the rest of the evening.  She stumbled over words, was off pitch, and just couldn’t seem to get it together.  I sat in the audience tonight waiting to see what would happen next.  Luckily for the most part not much…at least not that the audience noticed.

My ME who I’ve now written off as completely incompetent, was ahead two light cues tonight for almost 10 minutes, completely unaware that anything was wrong.  Luckily the stage manager was paying attention and realized something was up and questioned him enough to make him realize there was a problem.  He might have realized all of this if he hadn’t been reading a book during the show.  I’ve seen some nights where he never looks at the stage and never looks at the monitor to see what’s happening.  He just sits there with his head in the book completely oblivious to what’s happening around him.  Tonight I wanted to strangle him.

And why tonight.  I think I might have forgotten to mention…the show was video taped tonight.  So the official documentation of the show will have the lovely leading lady starting over and will have the light cues in Act 2 completely fucked up.  I can hardly wait to see it.  Nothing like having documentation of the mistakes you make.  Maybe I’ll force the ME to sit and watch it so he can see how bad the show looks when it’s not done the way it’s supposed to be.

Or maybe I’ll go back to New York and call it day.  And know that HE won’t be back next year.   At least not if they want me to be here.

Day Thirty-Eight: Oklahoma

What to do?  What to do?  What to do?   That’s been the question on everyone’s mind for the past several days.  Everyone has an opinion about what shows to do for next season.  Should it be this, should it be that?  Will this show make money?  Will anyone pay to see that?  Of course no one is sure their suggestion is the right one.  There’s no way to 100% predict whether people will choose to come to see the shows that you produce.  It would be nice if it could be a show that everyone wanted to do and we didn’t have to worry about whether people would come and see it or not.  But it’s a business and even though it’s a non-profit, you still have to make enough money to pay the bills.

I’m just happy to be included in the discussion.  It’s pretty much a sure thing that I’ll be back next year if I want to be.  And I think I do.  The pay is good and the people are fun and even with all my complaining I’ve had a good time.  I could do without the twin bed in the dorm and I could do without one or two of the 12 year old actors but for the most part it’s been great.

Not much to report today.  We had a full brush-up rehearsal of one of our shows that hasn’t been performed since last weekend.  A brush up rehearsal is done after a show opens when it’s been a while since it’s performed.  It gives the actors a chance to do the show with music and props to kind of refresh their memories.  The rehearsal went great although there were parts where people were being a little silly.  The one nice thing about the rehearsal.  The air conditioning wasn’t turned on today and the haze that we use looked beautiful.  So I’m requesting that the air be turned off a few minutes before the show tomorrow night so that we can have the haze look good in performance.

Tonight we actually performed a different show than the one we rehearsed today.  The show looked great.  It was full of energy and we had a great audience.  It’s amazing how much an audience can effect the show.  An audience that applauds and laughs out loud and is vocal in their appreciation gets a much better show than an audience who sits quietly and enjoys the show.  I’d love to say they get the same show, but in fact the actors like hearing the responses and thrive on the energy it provides.  Thus was the case tonight.  The audience got all the jokes, applauded enthusiastically at all the songs, and were great.   There was so much applause the show was almost 5 minutes longer than it normally runs.  Everyone was pleased with the end result.

After the show about 10 of us went to a local all-night diner to get food.  It’s your standard place with lots of grease and sketchy patrons.  I had a sandwich, but the best part was the pie.  All of their pies are homemade and you can get a half slice.  That way you can get two half slices and not look like a pig.  Which is what I did.   Half cherry, half apple–heated with ice cream.  YUMMY!!!

And now it’s 1:36 (notice I told you the time at the end of the post) and I’m going to bed.  Have a great weekend all.

Day Twenty-Seven/Eight: Oklahoma

I’m behind a day so this post will bring everyone current.

I spent the weekend with a very bad cold.  I believe it’s because the air conditioning in the dorm is set at -48 degrees and everything in the place is damp.  There’s mold growing in a couple of the rooms on  the first floor.  On Sunday evening around 8:00 p.m. I took some Benadryl and promptly went to sleep.  I slept until 1:00 a.m. got up used the restroom and went back to bed.  The next thing I knew it was 4:51 p.m. on Monday evening.   In total I slept almost 19 hours.  I woke up feeling groggy, but my cold was gone.  And I’ve felt fine all day today, so keep your fingers crossed that it’s gone for good.

So there’s not much to report from yesterday.  I slept all day.  I was supposed to go see a show with the stage manager and assistant stage manager but they blew me off.  So instead I ended up going to eat with the director.  He called around 5:30 and and said “come on, let me take you out to dinner some place nice.”  I said sure.  Who am I to turn down a free meal.  Especially when it’s not Wendy’s.  So I got up, showered, got dressed and called him back to tell him I was ready.  He arrived and indeed took me to an above average place.  It was in a strip mall so it wasn’t that above average, but the food was good, albeit a little pricey.  So we get there and I order a glass of wine and my meal.  And we sit and talk.  Mostly he talked.  He likes to talk.  And the meal comes and we eat and then the bill comes.  At which point I’m completely expecting him to pick up the tab.  But oh, no!  He turns to me and says…”Is it okay if we just split it down the middle.”  With out blinking I said of course and tossed my debit card onto the table.  Ugh.

I would never had agreed to go there if I knew I was going to pay my half.  It’s not that I mind.  But as most of you know.  I’m officially unemployed after this job.  So I’m trying to be a conservative with my money.  I don’t choose to eat at Wendy’s every night because I like it.  It just so happens they have a fairly extensive dollar menu.  I especially wouldn’t have chosen this restaurant if the choice had been mine.  I wrote it off as a lesson learned but am now weary of needing to always have an excuse to not go if he offers again.

After I got back home I retreated back to my room and went to bed fairly early.  Unfortunately, all the sleep from the night before meant there wasn’t to be much sleep last night.  The last time I looked at the clock it was after three.  Luckily, I got stood up as far as getting to the theatre early this morning so I got to sleep in.  Or least stay in bed, I wasn’t doing much sleeping.

And then I got to the theatre and threw my first hissy fit.  At least four or five times in the past two weeks my ME has decided to wait until rehearsal starts to give himself and our crew a break.  Which means that when I’m supposed to be working, there’s no one there to run the board.  He knows this pisses me off, and he did it again today.  I blew my top.  I told him fine.  Take his fucking break.  In fact take the whole afternoon off. I was done.  I got up closed my notebook and walked out of the theatre.  I’d had it.  How stupid do you have to be.  Anyone who’s ever done theatre knows that as “technicians” you get your breaks when the actors get theirs.  And if you want a break before we start you have to schedule it.  You sure as hell don’t wait till actors are on stage to “go eat lunch.”  I think I made my point.  Everyone was walking on pins and needles around me when I got back.   I think they were all afraid that I wasn’t going to come back.  And we still have one more show to go.

Tonight was the performance of the show that I like.  I was there tonight to take pictures.  In fact I took about 650 photos.  I just love digital cameras.  Because it was a real show I was set up in the back of the house but I was able to get a lot of shots.  I’ll wade through them over the next couple of days and try and post a few.  I did manage to piss off two of the leads tonight.  There are two members of the company that are divas through and through.  So much so that one of them was almost fired about a week ago for not knowing his lines and being such an ass about it.  The two of them are inseparable and it’s thought they are having an affair.  They are bitches about everything.  And I do mean everything.  The lights are too bright.  Where’s my water.  Blah, blah, blah.  It would be different if they were breathtaking in their performances.  But the man can’t remember his lines to save his soul.  And the woman has yet to get through the “real” show (she’s the lead) without fucking up one scene or another.  So tonight I did the unspeakable.  I took photos without getting permission.  Equity (the actor’s union) states that to take photos you have to give the cast 24 hours notice.  I didn’t do that.  In fact I didn’t even tell anyone I was going to do it.  No one else in the cast cared.  But at intermission Mr. Fuckhead threw a fit.  The stage manager calmed him down and explained I was already half through the night and if he wanted he could request I stop but that would mean I would be back on Friday night to do it during a full house, as long as I give notice.  Once he calmed down he decided it was better to let me finish.  And so I did.  Ah, actors.  Theatre will be perfect when we figure out how to do it without them.

And that’s my Monday/Tuesday.

Day Twenty-Five: Oklahoma

Why am I still awake at 1:30 in the morning.  I could have been asleep hours ago.  But I chose to go get food with the stage manager and a couple of actors and just got home.  We went to an all night diner where the food was so so, but the pie was delicious.  I had a piece that was pecans and caramel and cream cheese and it was yummy.  But now it’s 1:39 and I have to wait for the sugar high to end so that I can go to sleep.  This may not have been the best decision ever.

So we ran our two shows today.  The first show went okay.  One of my follow-spot operators was at a wedding so a person from the scenery crew was a substitute.  She did okay although the one part of the show that I’m a bit particular about she completely screwed up.  This was no concern  considering how badly the person subbing for her did.  In the theatre the scenic elements that are lowered in from above are called flys.  There are people pulling ropes that bring these to the floor.  Well in the first scene change, the person doing the flys didn’t notice when to stop and slammed the scenery into the floor.  For a moment I was afraid it had broken.  After it stopped shaking and settled down it appeared fine, but everyone was on edge for the next few minutes.  Needless to say the stage manager was a little pissed because no one had told her someone was going to be out today.  It kind of set everyone on edge for the rest of the day.

Show number two went much better tonight than it did last night.  For my part all of the light cues were in the right place and the haze didn’t make the theatre look like it was on fire.  For the most part the actors did okay, although the lead actor completely fucked up the final song of Act 1.  For a moment no one knew what was happening.  The orchestra had finished and he was still singing and the person singing with him was trying to cover and they both finished a good 10 seconds or so behind the orchestra.  By the time they were off stage I didn’t know if they were going to cry or laugh.  I’m starting to wonder if any of the leads can get through the show without fucking something up.

It’s official.  I’m staying here for two more weeks.  I’m not sure exactly why I’m staying, but the director has agreed to pay me enough to make it worth my while.  So instead of flying home on July 1, I’m now going to be flying home on July 17.  I’m hoping it’s not a total bust and that it turns out to be fun.  I have to call tomorrow to change my flight.  I’ll of course keep everyone posted as the fun presents itself.

At the moment I’m trying to decide if I’m going to the matinee tomorrow or if I’m going to sleep until 4:00 p.m.  There’s no need for me to be at the show and it would be nice to sleep in.  And if I go downtown, I’ll be tempted to skip the show and go get in to trouble, which I’ve been trying to avoid.  What to do.  What to do.  I guess I’ll sleep on it.

Hope every one’s having a nice weekend.