After several days of hanging out and slowly making our way west, we have arrived and loaded in in Poplar Bluff, MO. I have yet to figure out what there is here, except for a Holiday Inn that beats the pants off the one we stayed at in Lafayette (for the first time in months, I had a good enough internet connection for uninterrupted online gaming). Unfortunately we were only there for one night. We are playing Henry V tonight at Three Rivers Community College, which seems like a nice place. The theatre is a single-level proscenium, I’d guess maybe 600 seats, but then I suck at estimating capacity. Everything is clean and spacious, and close together (we didn’t even bother putting up directional signage).
Nick and I made new laminated name signs for the dressing room mirrors, using some of the parchment paper used in the show (we have a colonial-era theme in our signage, utilizing still images from our favorite YouTube video). Now that we had the time to make them laminated and nice-looking, they will be reusable, which has been a goal of mine for a while. We set up our stuff in the dressing rooms — signs on the doors indicating men and women and the names of the actors inside, valuables bags, and the names over the mirrors (sometimes assigned at random, sometimes located at the request of our wardrobe supervisor).
Our crew breakfast, which is required in our rider for load-in day, was delicious, and everyone here has been very nice. We are in the last hours of load-in. The small electrics stock of the theatre has made it a difficult show to light, but I just went inside to check in with Dan and he thinks we’ll be ok with only a tiny bit of restaging for one moment.
When I was in there it looked like the set was almost assembled, there were a bunch of ladders up on the gallery. Nick and I spend about the first hour of load-in working, and then sit around trying to be useful for about five hours, waiting for the set to be done and the ladders to get off the gallery so we can lay the sound-dampening carpet. Nick also replaces the pipe insulation that protects the actors from whacking their heads on low-hanging scaffolding supports. Some of it travels intact, but some can’t, and then there are tiny pieces that cover the bolts once they are assembled, to keep the actors from snagging their costumes on protruding bolts.
Looks like it’s time to go help with focusing lights. See ya later!
