I’ve been pretty quiet lately. I went through this phase of “write a blog post about something every day,” and then I went through this phase of “Netflix fixation and getting addicted to episodes of long-running television programs,” and now I’m at a point where I need to start paying attention to things outside my apartment because I’m about to start a for-reals job.
The job actually doesn’t start until the second week of September, but I have my first meeting tomorrow, so it’s kind of important. I’m going to be the ASM on Crossroads Theatre Company’s production of Ain’t Misbehavin’. One of my closest friends is the PSM, so it should be a fairly low-stress return to having a regular job. I was really hoping my first job after the tour would be as an assistant, so I’m glad it worked out that way. I may also end up subbing as PSM at some point, so I still have to sort of approach it with that mindset throughout the process.
…Starting with tomorrow, where I will be attending the first production meeting, representing the stage management team. So I’m trying to go in as prepared as possible, by watching old clips from the TV special of the original Broadway production on YouTube.
You know how watching a recording of a show never captures the magic of seeing it live? 30-year-old grainy video compressed for YouTube doesn’t help either! But it’s definitely more helpful than being totally unfamiliar with a show. Seems pretty easy from an ASM’s perspective, although I don’t know exactly how faithful we’ll be to the original staging. While in many cases that may be a “famous last words” thing to say, I find that when it comes to assessing a deck track, first impressions are usually correct. I have much experience at seeing a show and later finding the kindest way possible to ask my friends, “is your track as boring as it looks?” and pretty much always being right. I’m not complaining! It doesn’t look deadly boring, probably more like simple tasks to accomplish every 3-5 minutes throughout the show, which is a nice way to enjoy a simple deck track.
