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February 12, 2010

Pimp My Workbox

I call this: On the Road Again,tech,theatre — Posted by KP @ 3:59 pm

For some time, stage management has had the saddest workbox on all of the Acting Company tour. Nick and I have vowed to change that this year. At the Guthrie we came into possession of some blue ropelight, and were going to cobble together some kind of interior lighting. Our TD, Bobby, said he would help us install it, and picked up some parts at Home Depot in Minneapolis.

Here in Pittsfield, MA, we finally got some spare time, and Bobby spent what must have been three hours on our box. The result is gorgeous. Not only is every shelf and compartment lit with ropelight, but it’s dim-able, and we also have two outlets in the shelf that serves as our laptop-holder. The ropelight that was handed down to us has a burnout, which we were OK with, but Bobby is going to replace it for us when we get near a Home Depot. It’s probably a good idea, because it’s kind of comical that the dead spot landed exactly over Nick’s shelf.


Breaking Even. And Just Breaking.

I call this: mac,On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:52 am

This morning I paid off my credit card. Not just paid the balance, which I haven’t been able to do in months — paid every. last. dime.

Of course the secret to my success is that I’m on tour, I’ve been under full LORT B scale for the last two months (though not anymore), and our per diem kicked in last week. But after that almost inconceivable windfall, it still took me two-and-a-half months to break even and start making some money on this only 5-month contract.

My dream, perhaps you recall, was that by the end of this tour I would have saved enough money that I could replace my Macbook Pro in cash whenever the need arose. I really don’t think in two-and-a-half months I can make enough money to do that, and so far I haven’t found the drive to double or triple up on hotel rooms. We septuple-up every night on the bus, when we’re in a hotel I like to have my space.

But nevertheless, by not having any debt, at least the bright side is that I have room for new debt.

Which comes at a good time, because although I’ve been in denial about it, my poor Macbook Pro has been making it clear that the display is going bad for about six months now. This morning we arrived at the theatre for the 1-hour R&J, and the display was a mess. I had to reboot it a couple times before it started to calm down, and now it’s just dandy. Of course I keep frequent backups, and I was in the middle of pulling up my prop list on Nick’s computer when mine started working.

I’m not sure if it’s the connection, something in the display itself, or the video card, but it’s exhibited very occasional flickering or graphic corruption, which has sometimes been fixed by squeezing the bezel in certain places, leading me to think it’s the display itself. If it’s just a loose connection it might be something that can be fixed cheaply at the Apple Store, but if the display needs to be replaced, I’m not sure it’s worth the money to keep laying out hundreds of dollars to fix it, when something else could just as easily break right after that. Once again, people, keep track of the date your Apple Care expires! Or at least don’t wait until the last day to renew it, in case your recollection of what date it was is off by a day.

I’m hearing rumors of quad-core Macbook Pros coming out in the near-ish future, and I’d love for mine to hold on long enough to have something significant like that to upgrade to. I don’t feel like the current Macbook Pros are really that much more exciting than mine. And what I want most of all is built-in GPS, or a way of getting the location from my phone’s GPS without having to do anything. I get so frustrated with my computer when it doesn’t know where I am.

Anyway, I thought I’d fill you in, since one of these days you’re bound to read another post about me getting ready for a show and discovering that my computer has up-and-died. And when that happens, I hope I’m someplace with an Apple Store.


February 11, 2010

Bam-Bam

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:07 pm

Last year towards the end of the tour, our truck driver, Scotty D., got a puppy. His name is Bam-Bam.

This was Bam-Bam last year, when his favorite hiding place was on top of the pedals of the truck.

This year he is a lot older and bigger, and has a new attitude: he is the guard dog of the truck. He does a very good job, although he sometimes takes his job a little too seriously, even when friendly people like us go near the truck.

At a recent load out, I saw him sticking his head out the window, so I took a walk down to the cab to say hello. Even with Scotty there talking to me, he wouldn’t stop barking, apparently declaring that this was his truck, and who the hell did I think I was to stand outside of it?

Scotty says that if you pick him up and hold him he’s still very cuddly, but I couldn’t reach up that high to pet him or pick him up, and I was supposed to be working, so I had to settle for taking a picture of him while he barked at me imperiously from his perch.


How Many Technicians Does it Take…?

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:52 pm


Apparently the answer is four: one to hold the sconce to the wall, one to hold the head of each bolt in place, and Bobby is unseen behind the wall tightening the nuts.

Installing practicals during load-in in New London, CT.


February 10, 2010

Winter Wonderland: I Wonder if We’ll Have a Show

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 12:39 pm

The big snowstorm has hit the northeast — the forecast to which we said, “Ha! Sucks to be them!” until we realized we were returning to the northeast. Damn!

We’re in New London, CT, which was lovely yesterday for our full day off, but today is quickly filling up with the white stuff. It may not look like much in the photo, but it’s really coming down, and Nick, who has been our bus-based meteorologist, says the forecast predicts 8-12 inches by 6PM.

We had an 8AM load in, which began at 7:30 with Bart driving carefully down streets already covered in a thin layer of snow. By the time we were unloading the truck, it was coming down pretty heavily. The presenter was already in meetings about whether we’d have a show tonight, or a school show tomorrow morning (which has more to do with the schools being closed than the theatre).

Because the theatre has very little storage space, we left the set on the truck until the last minute (and also because if the shows were cancelled early, we wouldn’t have to unload it). Also, there’s no loading dock, so taking things up and down the ramp and down the sidewalk in the snow is not something you really want to do if you don’t have to.

Here’s Juliet’s balcony, just delivered to the theatre, having accumulated a thin layer of snow on its trip around the corner from the truck.

We’re moving along at a very good pace, and at this, our lunch break, have most of the walls up. I’m calling focus again, and we’re most of the way through all the instruments we can focus before the set is finished. We’ve had three or four electricians going at once, so I’m getting a little more of a mental workout.

In other news, it’s very nice to be back in the northeast. Yesterday on our day off, Nick and I walked down to the waterfront, where the Amtrak station is, and the pier looks out on the river. I wanted to see a submarine float by, but no such luck (or maybe it did, and I wouldn’t know!) Being around the waters of Long Island and Connecticut reminds me of my childhood, so it was a nice way to come home to this region after being away since late November.

UPDATE!

The evening show is canceled. Tomorrow’s morning student show may still happen, so we have to continue working.


February 8, 2010

Day Off Excursion: Niagara Falls

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:19 pm

On Day 2 of our cross-country trek from Minnesota to New London, CT, we stopped for the day at Niagara Falls. If you haven’t figured it out already, when traveling we generally travel (and sleep) during the night and then park for the day near a hotel where Bart can sleep while we wander around and have fun. So Bart gave us some freedom to choose our stops within reason of our path of travel.

Four of us went to the Falls, in a cab that we negotiated a flat rate for, when our plans to get a cheap rental car were crushed. Our cabbie, Jay, was really awesome and filled us with historical knowledge and local gossip, while shuttling us from place to place around the falls and telling us what we should look at. On the way back he also helped us decide what we wanted for dinner. Because the bus was parked far from most places, we decided we wanted pizza delivered, and he told us the best pizzeria to order from. We were also pleasantly surprised that they didn’t flinch when we ordered a delivery to “the white tour bus in the Holiday Inn parking lot.” Sometimes that can be a bit problematic.

Photos courtesy of our lighting director, Devon Allen, who took a real camera along.

That’s me, Olivia (props supervisor) and Jason (wardrobe supervisor) at the American Falls, and below on the Three Sisters islands.

We also saw the statue of Nikola Tesla which is at the entrance to the American Falls, and wondered why he was looking so perplexed by what he was holding. We have come up with an explanation:


Alternate Stage Directions

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:25 pm

We here on the Romeo and Juliet crew decided a few days ago that we were tired of the traditional “stage right” and “stage left” and so forth, and we came up with some better alternatives to the boring “upstage,” “downstage,” etc. Sometimes we actually use them.

Below is our glossary for our new invention. Click to enlarge, and feel free to print, hang in your greenroom, or spread around the web.


February 7, 2010

St Cloud, MN

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:59 pm

St. Cloud was the last stop on our grueling first week of touring. Based on the tech specs, we knew the venue was small and the path to load our boxes in would be tricky. After leaving the new, spacious, union house in Appleton, WI, we were expecting disappointment in St. Cloud. What we got was just the opposite.

We were greeted by Max, who was one of our most trusted local crew guys in our first stop of Moorhead, MN, who arranged to work on the crew in St. Cloud as well (about a 3-hour drive for him). It was nice to be able to look forward to seeing a familiar face, and one who was familiar with how our show goes up and down. The rest of the crew was equally eager, and somehow, with a really convoluted path from the street to the stage for our heavy boxes, and a 2-ft lift up to the loading door for the human-carryable pieces, this crew still managed to put the set up much faster than any other venue so far. I’m sure part of that is us learning to be more efficient, but without the right crew, everything would fall apart.

We actually had free time to get everything ready before the show. Nick and I had rehearsal for an hour and a half in the afternoon — our first understudy rehearsal. The cast had a relatively relaxing travel schedule, and with the rehearsal in the afternoon, they had plenty of time to see the venue and grab dinner before their warmup time an hour before the show. Also, they didn’t have to deal with the crew running around finishing the set and lighting while they were trying to do warmup and do fight call, which must have contributed to their sense of relaxation, even though the backstage area was more claustrophobic than usual.

There was a very nice greenroom, in which there were several copies of the local arts & entertainment paper, where we were the front-page article.

My calling position was in the house, just behind the back row. I chose to be positioned between the light board and sound positions, with my desk made from the lid of our light board’s road case, stradding the lighting and sound desks. It was actually one of the more comfortable calling desks I’ve had so far.

I generally dread calling from the house, or with an open booth window anywhere near the audience. Not for myself, but because I feel really bad for the audience who has to listen to me talk the whole show. Also, I believe that having to talk quietly, especially when calling to a crew unfamiliar with the show, leads to unnecessary mistakes because I can’t be heard as clearly as if I was speaking freely. When I heard a rumor that the show wasn’t well sold, I hoped there would be many rows between me and the nearest audience member. When I walked out into the house just before places, and saw the entire orchestra and much of the balcony filled, I was at once very happy for us, and also really sad for the people whose heads were literally three feet from my mouth.

However, being able to be in the house for the show — not in an open booth, but literally sitting in the back row of this beautifully restored old theatre — was well worth the challenges of calling quietly and clearly. It’s been a long time (since rehearsals during previews) since I’ve been able to watch the actors “in the room,” and then I was still too busy worrying about my own stuff to sit back and enjoy their work. And they have discovered a lot of great things since we opened. I was actually really moved by the show, and was very glad I had the opportunity to experience it from the house.

The best thing that happened, however, was the bat. We discovered during the day that a bat had found its way into the theatre. It hadn’t been seen for a while, and then during Scene 2, the bat comes flying out of the window in our set, and out over the audience, where it continued to soar around the house and the stage for at least 30 seconds. The audience freaked out. The cast was momentarily stunned, then broke into smiles, and then carried on bravely, accounting for the audience’s lapsed attention in the way that one holds for laughs but then presses onward. They did a great job keeping their own laughter together and bringing the audience back into the play.

The bat returned a few times through the play, most notably during the “lark” scene in which R&J are on the balcony, debating whether the bird they hear is a nightingale or a lark, thus signaling the approach of day. As Juliet is saying “it was the nightingale and not the lark,” the bat flies right past the balcony. I’m not sure if the full irony of that moment was understood by the audience, but we in the back had to really stiffle our laughter.

The load out went equally smoothly, not the fastest ever, but very good in relation to the difficulty of getting things to the truck. We then began our 3-day trek to New London, CT. Today we spent in Chicago, or rather in a parking lot near Midway Airport, surrounded by hotels, one of which we have a crew room in, where we take turns enjoying such luxuries as a shower and a real toilet. We also watched the Super Bowl on the bus, and did some troubleshooting to improve the TV picture and surround sound.

Tomorrow we’re going to Niagra Falls. I’ve never been, so that seems pretty cool. One of the reasons we chose to go a little bit north out of our way is so that Nick can be dropped off at his old college, where he’s talking to some tech theatre students. Then he’ll rejoin us at the bus.

I’m looking forward to our arrival in New London on Tuesday night because we’ll have real hotel rooms — for two days — in the same hotel! It’s practically like being landed gentry!


February 4, 2010

Tour Week 1

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:47 pm

We are now halfway through Week 1 of our actual touring schedule. Apparently, unless my dashboard widget is lying to me, it’s Thursday. Before I looked at it, I thought it was Saturday, but felt that was probably just my imagination and it’s really Friday. But no, I guess it’s Thursday.

Our last venue was in Grand Rapids, MN. The venue was in a high school, but gets a lot of touring shows. It was a very nice, intimate theatre with a semi-thrust stage. Unfortunately our show is designed for a proscenium, so due to the lighting needs, the first electric has to be over the edge of our marley deck, so we couldn’t use the apron as a playing space.

We’re in Appleton, Wisconsin. Last night during load-out in Grand Rapids, MN, a bunch of us were sitting in the green room finishing up paperwork, and I pulled up my venue database, which has many features, including that it automatically pulls up the Wikipedia page of the city in question. We learned many things about Appleton. Apparently in the late 1800s it was kind of a big deal — it had a large paper industry, which spurred development of electricity far ahead of most cities. We also found this interesting because our show takes place in 1912, and has a little throughline about how excited the Capulets are to have electric lights at their party. As I said to the assembled crew in the greenroom, “Appleton’s gaslit streets were replaced with electric lights in the year…” and everyone said, “1912!”

In addition to having been a pretty big deal back in the day, Appleton also has a very new, very fancy theatre, the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. The theatre seats almost 2,000 and has three balconies, in a horseshoe configuration.

We’ve had some young and eager student crews (I have no idea what has happened to the poor high school kids we kept up till 3AM last night, but their parents must be pissed at us!), but today we have an honest-to-goodness IATSE crew. Sometimes that can be a mixed blessing, because a non-union crew can be used more flexibly, and we can pitch in to do more of the work ourselves if necessary. But at one point today a few of us were standing around watching a group of about six or seven stagehand-looking stagehands (men and women) putting up the walls and platforms of the set, and we remarked to each other how exciting it was to have an IATSE crew. It’s really a completely different energy.

Here’s a picture of our set facing out towards the house.

Last night at some point late in the day, our lighting director, Devon, mentioned that to speed things along, he would like me to call focus. Now, I am well aware that in the “real world” of touring, one of the stage managers generally does so. I have hung out with friends doing focus on the Phantom tour, but I am a bit embarrassed to confess I’d never had to do it myself. So when I was asked, I was rather excited because it’s something I need to get experience doing, so that I don’t make an ass of myself when Broadway calls, now that I supposedly have “touring experience.” Then I realized where we were going today, and I was kind of mortified. I told Devon, “You couldn’t have asked me to call focus with the high school kids? I would have been perfectly confident to do it with a high school or college crew. But I have to do it for the first time with an IATSE crew?”

It actually went really well. We only had one or two guys focusing at once, which was a relatively easy way to get into it. I also had no familiarity with the lighting channels used in our show and what they do, and now that I’ve seen it once, the order in which one would want to focus makes logical sense. We aren’t completely done at this point — we had to skip the lights that need to be focused on the balcony, because it’s not assembled yet.

For once, we don’t have a show tonight — but we do have a 9:30AM show in the morning, so all our work has to be done. It’s good that we have some flexibility because we got here late. The driving time between our load-out last night and this morning’s supposed 8AM load-in was far longer than the time we had. Once load-in is done we will get to check into our hotel and have a shower for the first time in a few days. Then we’ll do the early show and have the rest of the day to spend in Appleton.

For additional reading, I suggest the following of Nick’s blog posts. He has already said pretty much exactly what I would say if I went into detail about our first two venues:
Moorhead, MN
Grand Rapids, MN


February 3, 2010

Goodnight

I call this: On the Road Again — Posted by KP @ 12:55 am

I’m about to go to bed for the night. It’s just before midnight and I’ve spent most of the day since load out ended socializing with the crew. This was our first free time together as a group.

We all went out to a local pub here in Fargo for dinner, and then spent hours in the front lounge of the bus getting to know each other. People came and went here and there, but for a long time it really was all seven of us.

Finally one by one people have turned in for the night. A lot of people took naps in the afternoon. I laid down in my bunk with my computer, under the covers and with the lights out, but I was blogging and just web browsing the whole time. Now I’m tired and ready to go to sleep to the soothing sounds and steady pulsing of the generator.

Bart has declared a 2AM departure time, but I think all of us will be asleep by the time he wakes up and comes on board. We have an 8AM load in in Grand Rapids, MN, and a show at 7:30PM, so it will be a long and busy day. What I do know, or what I’ve heard, is that the theatre is in a high school, and it will be our first venue without a loading dock. It will be a little scary to figure out how hard it is to get our set and boxes down the ramp.


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