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February 9, 2009

Slice of Life in Transit

I call this: On the Road Again — Posted by KP @ 7:32 pm

The crew bus rolls along a narrow deserted highway somewhere between Kentucky and Missouri.  The drive has become so boring that many of us have gone to our bunks because there’s nothing else to do.

I have the lights out and am lying down with my eyes closed but not really trying to sleep.  After about 15 minutes I feel the bus start to slow, then make a sharp turn, then another, and finally we seem to have stopped (though the ride is so smooth, at low speeds it can actually be hard to tell).  I suspect that our quest to find Mexican food for dinner has come to an end.   At the very least, I have learned that these sensations generally indicate we are stopping.

I slide my bunk curtain partially open and stick my head out, just as Bart steps into the open doorway of the driver’s compartment and exclaims, “El Bracero!”  I flip my legs out of the bunk, and immediately Nick slides his curtain open across from me and asks, “Are we somewhere?”  I say, “Yes.”  And so we all gather in the front lounge, getting shoes on and tidying ourselves, and together head out to dinner.


February 7, 2009

TOUR STOP 2: West Lafayette, IN

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:56 pm

Tonight we are leaving West Lafayette, home of Purdue University (where we performed both our shows, as well as conducted student performances and workshops ranging from 6th grade to college level.)  West Lafayette is also the home, as we learned, of Triple XXX Family Restaurant, which despite sounding like a porn shop, is actually an historic drive-in diner, the first in Indiana (opened in 1929).   The crew was HUGE fans of this place, mostly due to the fact that it’s open 24 hours, and serves great diner food and their specialty root beer floats.  In the six days we spent in West Lafayette, I think we ate there five times.  I do believe on one day we ate there twice.

The crew at Purdue was great, and the support staff very friendly and helpful.  We spent most of our time there teching The Spy, so we only did one invited dress and two performances (one each of Spy and Henry), but our audiences were large and responsive.

We have two days before we have to load in in Poplar Bluff, MO, so we are taking a slight detour to Nashville.  Part of the reason for this is that it sounds like a more interesting place to spend a day than Poplar Bluff, but also because it’s the home base of the bus company, and it will provide an opportunity for the bus to be serviced, as our water pump is broken.    We will sleep on the bus for two straight nights, chipping in on a single hotel room so we can all shower in the morning and have a place to stash our stuff during the day.   I think it will be a fun couple days to unwind after a very busy week.


February 6, 2009

Life on the Road

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:42 am

I’m still new at this, but now that we’ve been really in touring mode for about 5 days, here’s what’s going on.

Our day often consists of waking up at 6:30AM to be ready for a 7:30 bus call.  If I think my personal involvement in the insanity occurring at the theatre at 8AM will be minimal, I will bring my personal pillow from the hotel to the bus, in the hope of getting to sleep more hours on the bus than I do overnight.

Our schedule here in West Lafayette is kind of insane.  We started out re-teching The Spy, then tearing it all down to do a single performance of Henry V, then tearing that down to put the Spy set back up for our last two days.  This has been a kind of boot camp for our crew, getting to practice almost every method of changeover before we leave our first stop.  They’re getting very good at it.  Nick, being an ASM, deals a lot with props, and actor-proofing the set, so that’s basically what he helps with during load-in and changeover.  I really have nothing to do once the signage is up and I’ve put the proper calling script in the booth, so I kind of float around helping with simple tasks.  Today I packed a drum in a cardboard box and carried a few things to and from our prop road box, then I went on a cleaning spree of the stage management work box, which it desperately needed.  Then when I ran out of things to do, I went back to the bus and took a nap for about 45 minutes, before returning to help Nick set up for our 1-hour Henry performance for a student audience.

Thankfully, that performance was in the same building as our main shows are, in a small proscenium theatre, so we didn’t have to go too far with our trunk of props.  I hung out for that one and helped to set up and get the cast settled in before the show.  The 1-hour show is Nick’s baby, as there will be times when he has to stay behind to put it up in a city after the crew has left.  As far as that show goes, he functions as the PSM, and whenever I’m available I will make myself useful as his ASM.  This was the first time it’s been performed, and although it’s been rather underrehearsed due to all the work needed to remount The Spy, the cast did well and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

Now that the show is over, we are back on the bus.  Bart, our very awesome driver, needs to take the bus for an hour or so, so the call went out for anyone who intends to hang out and/or sleep on the bus to get on for the ride.  I’m not sure where we’re going.  I’m not sure where we are.  It doesn’t really matter.  I think we’re going back to the hotel for a while (where I suspect we are now), and then to a place where he can service the bus.

Tomorrow we have five final hours of rehearsal, and then we play our first performance of The Spy to a paying audience (finally!  We started rehearsals Nov. 3!), then the cast stays here for a true day off before traveling to Poplar Bluff, MO.  For the crew, we will load out the show Saturday night and immediately begin driving to Poplar Bluff, where it will be loaded in.  

I still don’t know where we are right now, but I’m pretty damn sure that’s our cast bus parked inches away ahead of us.  Either that, or there’s more than one black rockstar bus with gray swirly designs in Lafayette, IN.   I haven’t explored their bus that much.  I’ve only taken one brief ride on it.  They have 12 bunks instead of our 8, which means they stack 3-high, giving everyone less headroom.  On the plus side, the bunks are there for convenience, they don’t ever actually have to sleep overnight in them.  I heard a rumor they have a shower on their bus.  That sounds nice in theory, I guess, but I’m sure the reality is more cramped and awkward than it sounds.   Their front lounge is also smaller, which I don’t like.  On short jaunts around town, including our favorite pastime here in Lafayette, having a late-night dinner at XXX, Indiana’s oldest drive-in diner (founded in 1929), we generally all sit in the front lounge, which can comfortably hold all seven of us.  It’s a nice chance to unwind, check in about how the show went, and discuss anything we need to.  I have taken to claiming the seat at the table on the post-show trips, so I can write the report and send it before we get to XXX.

As far as the show goes, things seem to be going well.  Last night was our first performance of Henry outside of the Guthrie, where we teched it.   The adjustment to a very different space, and to a new local crew who were unfamiliar with the show, went pretty smoothly.  It felt good to try that once, to prove that we can do it.  I’m really looking forward to this week being over, and finally being done with tech and major rehearsals.  We have a couple 1- and 2-nighters next week, which will be a different experience as well.  I enjoy the travel, so I welcome the change of scenery.  If there’s one thing we’ve gotten experience with on this tour, it’s changing scenery!


February 2, 2009

On the Road, Finally!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:13 pm

Well we finally did it!  We finished our run at the Guthrie last night, and after about 5 hours, closed the door on our tightly packed truck and hopped on our bus, where a bunch of take-out bar food in styrofoam containers awaited us.  Within a few minutes we started to roll, and finally hit the road!

We ate for a while, watched the highlights of the Super Bowl we missed during the show, and then got into our bunks exhausted.   I for one slept really well.  I’m a small person, so I don’t feel as much like I’m in a coffin as some of my colleagues.   That’s my bunk in the foreground, the lower frontmost bunk.  I found the motion of the bus was actually very soothing while trying to sleep.  We all pretty much slept until about 12:30PM when I slowly got up and wandered into the front lounge where Nick already had his computer out.  I also sat with my computer out, and had barely begun checking out Facebook when Nick pointed out the window over my shoulder and said, “Look!  There’s our truck!”  Sure enough, the Acting Company truck was waiting at an intersection as we passed it.  Moments later the front divider slid open and our driver, Bart, announced we had arrived.  We were all taken a bit by surprise, and stumbled into our shoes and out the door to meet the local crew here on the campus of Purdue University, in snowy West Lafayette, IN.

Nick and I helped direct the unloading of the truck for a while, and brought some of the small items that travel under the bus into the theatre, until our work box was off the truck.  Then we set it up in a corner and began hanging signs, assigning dressing room space, setting up the callboard, etc.  There wasn’t all that much for us to do, so a lot of our time has been spent on the bus updating paperwork, or just hanging out and watching TV.  One of the main tasks we’ve taken on is to make coffee for the crew.  We all carry walkie-talkies, and they can just radio ahead a few minutes in advance when they’re going to be wanting a coffee break, and we get a pot going on the bus and begin making their orders.  It’s not our job, but I think considering they’re in there doing heavy labor for 10 hours, and we hung some signs and printed some documents and sent some emails for a few hours, it’s a fair trade.  We also took on a project for our wardrobe supervisor, who didn’t have enough of the little plastic things that divide each actor’s clothes on the costume racks.  We got some cardboard and made a bunch more for her.

Tomorrow we begin (or re-begin) teching The Spy.  Tonight when the crew is done at 11PM Bart has offered to take us someplace to eat, and then we will go to our hotel, where everyone is going to appreciate a good shower (we were running late last night so we didn’t get to stop at the hotel in the morning, we just got up and went straight to work).  I’m having a lot of fun with this aspect of the job so far.  I think the longer multi-day trips will be really cool.  The unfortunate thing so far is that from the moment we got on the bus in the parking lot of the Guthrie, I didn’t see the outside world until we got on campus at Purdue, so “seeing the country” isn’t really happening yet.  Also, the windows on the bus are so heavily tinted that you can’t see anything at night.  A couple times through the night I used the GPS on my iPhone to find out what state we were in!


January 31, 2009

Prepping for the Road

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:00 pm

It’s Saturday night, and tomorrow we have two more shows at the Guthrie and then we’re gone. Much of my attention in these last couple days has been focused more on packing and preparing to leave than on the shows we have remaining here.

I did most of my laundry last night, and will do the last bit tonight. I cleaned my apartment last night, and tonight is my last opportunity to pack. In the morning before the matinee call we have to bring our luggage to the parking lot of the Guthrie, where the crew bus is already parked. As soon as the show is loaded out tomorrow night we hop on board and are off to West Lafayette, IN. The cast will get picked up by their bus at the company housing on Monday morning, and will arrive at West Lafayette in the evening.

Our production manager and tech director, Joel, took all of the crew, as well as our staff rep director and company manager, out to dinner tonight between shows. This was our last opportunity to talk as a group about anything that might need to be said about how things will work on the road. It was a great opportunity for all of us to get on the same page and approach our next challenges as a team. By the time we walked back to the theatre, our bus had arrived, so a bunch of us ventured to the parking lot to take a tour of the bus, and meet our driver, Bart. He has been driving the crew bus for The Acting Company for many years, and by all accounts is incredibly awesome.

Here’s Nick and one of our actors, Andy, who happened to tag along to see the bus, testing out the couches in the back lounge (pardon my flash — there are a lot of mirrored surfaces).

In the morning I plan to come in early (which Nick thinks is hysterical because lately I’m never early, and barely on time for my own duties) to clean up all of the random stage management stuff strewn around the theatre. We have a cardboard box that lives under the seats in the theatre with a bunch of stuff that needs to get thrown out, and a bunch of stuff that needs to be packed in our road box before the whole place turns into a disaster area during load-out. So I hope to have a lot of time to make order out of all our belongings so there’s as little as possible to keep track of after the shows.

We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but everyone is very excited to start the most adventurous part of this gig.


January 27, 2009

Why Yes, We ARE a Rep Company!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:11 pm


Despite the fact that we’ve been together for almost three months and have so far only performed Henry V for a paying audience, we are quickly coming upon the first performances of The Spy in less than two weeks in West Lafayette, IN. As soon as Henry was up and running at the Guthrie, we began “brush-up” rehearsals for The Spy, which due to unforeseen circumstances, have become more of “put-two-actors-into-the-show” rehearsals. We are also rehearsing the 1-hour version of Henry which will be performed sans set and costumes for younger school groups who aren’t up to the 3-hour real thing.

The above photo shows the Henry set with the jagged platform and two of the columns for The Spy roughly taped out on it. Yes, it has to be done anew every day. And yes, the tape does pull up the finish on the floor!


January 25, 2009

iPhone Apps for Stage Managers, Round 2

I call this: phones,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:51 pm

UPDATE: For a current list of apps see the Apps Page

For my initial review of helpful apps for stage managers, read this.

I’ve now had the iPhone for about six months, and the App Store has grown exponentially with new and updated apps, so here is another check-in on what I’m finding useful for stage management and life. All links will take you to the App Store page.

TimeCalc ($1.99) still remains the greatest single contribution of the iPhone to stage management, as far as I’m concerned. I use it every single day. Right now I use it most because the Guthrie requires an 18-minute intermission. Sucking at math as I do, I prefer to input the time the first act ended, and add 18 minutes to it.

Night Camera ($0.99) is a really cool camera app that has completely replaced the built-in camera for me. The gist is that it uses the accelerometer to tell when you are holding the phone perfectly still and takes the picture at that moment. It is so named because it creates much better pictures in low light (which is great for theatre), but also takes better pictures in any light, in my experience. Below is an example of a picture I took in tech, during a very dark cue. I’m no Joan Marcus, but for a midrange phone camera, you can see what it’s a picture of, and I think that’s the most anyone can ask for. The regular camera app would probably have shown a black screen with a red blob in the middle.

MobileFotos is more of a fun app — it is a Flickr upload client, which I’m sure you could justify as a work-related app if you used Flickr to upload and share work photos of some sort — which now that I think about it is not a bad idea for things like documenting the proper look of light cues or scenery on stage). I use the app to update my Flickr stream, which is linked in the sidebar, with photos from my tour. It also is a nice way to pass the time by looking at other people’s photos. It’s very full-featured and nicely laid out.

Night Stand (Free) is used for one thing in my world: it tells the time down to the second. For some reason the iPhone doesn’t seem to have an app or an option somewhere that can show the time in seconds. A minute is a very long time when your director wants to know why the 2nd act got 30 seconds longer today. Personally, I take my running times down to the nearest 5 seconds. I’ve just started using Night Stand, and it’s very good at the one thing it does. Just a few days ago it was updated with some alarm features, but because apps can’t stay active in the background, there’s not much point to using a 3rd-party alarm app, since you can’t do anything else with the phone while waiting for the alarm to go off. I’m also looking at getting LCDClock or Table Clock, which are both $0.99.

Delivery Status Touch ($1.99) is the iPhone companion to the dashboard widget Delivery Status, which has long been a favorite of mine. It tracks packages from the major delivery services, and when you sign up on the developer’s site, it will sync your deliveries from the desktop widget with your phone (which is invaluable for entering tracking numbers since the phone doesn’t have copy/paste).

On the jailbroken front, I use PowerTool to restart my springboard when the phone gets a little sluggish. It can also trigger a full reboot or power down.

The most useful app, whether official or jailbroken, in my mind is PDANet (link goes to website), which has a long history of allowing tethering on Palm devices and others, and is now available for jailbroken iPhones. If you create an ad-hoc wireless network with your computer and join said network with your iPhone, PDANet will allow you to use the phone’s internet connection through your computer. Since AT&T has decided they don’t want our money (yet?) for this service, after a 14-day free trial, you can instead pay PDANet’s one-time registration (I think it’s about $30) for the ability to tether anytime and anywhere. This comes with all the usual warnings about tethering — it’s not allowed under your contract, don’t use enough data that AT&T will wonder where it’s going, etc. If you’re jailbreaking your phone you probably know all about what AT&T doesn’t want you to do already. It’s pretty expensive for an app that violates your data contract and could cease working with a future update, but in my mind there is no price that can be put on this feature.

I often hear people talk about how tethering is useless (or not useful enough to be bothered with). I think these people must get paid a regular salary, file one or two W-2s per year with the IRS, and spend most of their time at a “desk” or in an “office” or “the same place of business every day” where things like “phones” and “internet” are provided by their employer. For those of us whose jobs are a little less predictable, but still desperately need full desktop internet access HERE and NOW, not in 10 minutes, not at the Starbucks down the street, and who have to provide this level of efficiency but aren’t paid enough to afford a wireless broadband card for the laptop, tethering is the only option. I once distributed a rehearsal schedule while sitting in the trunk of my car in a restaurant parking lot. And I have done plenty of shows which rehearsed or performed for weeks in a room (or a building) with no internet available. For reasons such as this, I refuse to have a phone incapable of tethering, whether legally or illegally. When the 3G iPhone came out, before the tethering apps were available, I had to carry my previous phone, the AT&T Tilt, around in my bag so I could swap the SIM card into it if I needed to tether in an emergency. Obviously it was a huge pain, and I am very glad to see that PDANet has pretty much perfected the art of tethering on the iPhone to make it as reliable and simple as it can be without official support.


A Sonnet

I call this: mac,On the Road Again,phones,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:47 am

Tonight I write a poem with pen and pad
Upon this two-show day of Henry V.
My iPhone rests behind my chair plugged in,
The cord supplied of insufficient length.
O what can I with simple paper do
Of import that would match my Facebook’s state?
An email might for many minutes sit
Unknown, unread, devoid of swift reply.
Tomorrow’s weather stays a mystery,
No picture sent to Flickr when it’s took.
I fear a post comes from my favorite blog,
And yet I’ll know it not upon this hour —
Perhaps to wait until I reach my home.
And oh for shame, however will I know
One of my apps perhaps is obsolete,
An update waiting in the App Store now
That was not there to get an hour past.
The world is changing, yet I can’t be told,
But sit and call a show five centuries old.


January 24, 2009

Thoughts at Half Hour

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 6:19 pm

Oh God, seriously I haven’t posted anything since Day 2 of tech? Well, again I refer you to Nick’s Blog, which has been kept up slightly better (I think between the two of us we might make up one fairly regularly-updated blog about stage managing this tour).

I am writing from the booth during half hour of an evening performance on an average Saturday here at the Guthrie. The matinee was a very good show. We have been rehearsing The Spy and the 1-hour student version of Henry V like crazy this week, as well as doing 8 performances of the 3-hour Henry V at night, and everyone is very tired, both physically and mentally, but the cast gave a great show to one of our best audiences yet (which is saying a lot cause we’ve had some awesome audiences). We found out at the post-play discussion that they were largely made up of a group of college students who were working on Henry V for an English class, so our talkback focused pretty much exclusively on questions about the text and the task of performing Shakespeare. I love doing talkbacks, so the heavy focus on education with this tour is a lot of fun for me.

Next week we have an additional student matinee, which means a 9-show week (and the corresponding increase in pay), in addition to our intense rehearsal schedule. Everyone is worried about getting worn out from it, especially since at the end of the week we are leaving Minneapolis and traveling to West Lafayette, IN, for another tech for The Spy. I’m anxious to actually start touring, though. It will also be our first ride on the bus, which should be really fun, at least until the initial effect of feeling like rockstars wears off and gives way to “gee I’d really like to sleep in a real bed.”


January 7, 2009

Tech Day 2

I call this: On the Road Again — Posted by KP @ 4:58 pm


Our first 10-out-of-12 hour day. We are making very good progress, and everyone is pleased with how smoothly it’s going. The picture above is one I have entitled “Henry Cast and Crew in Repose.” There are several more like it on my Flickr page, linked in the sidebar. This was taken while a light cue was being written.

The set is rather complicated as it’s got lots of little doors that open and things that can be climbed on, which were bound to require time to get used to that just can’t be prepared for in the rehearsal room. We’ve had to restage some things, but we have also discovered new ways to play with the set that we didn’t imagine before, and none of it is taking too long. We’re at our dinner break, only 9 working hours since we began tech from the top, and are through the majority of Act I. We’re shooting for a run (perhaps an invited dress with some students who will be at the Guthrie) in two days, then our first preview the following night.

Most of our touring crew are here this week (some are going back to New York for a while before rejoining us for the tour), so that has been a nice reunion. Our two local backstage crew are great, and the large and valiant wardrobe crew have done a great job tracking a ridiculous number of costume changes, with the assistance of Nick’s paperwork. When we’re on the road, we’ll have Nick, our TD, wardrobe and props supervisors, as well as a local crew of two stagehands and two wardrobe people backstage. This tech will be the final test to make sure the shows can be run by the number of people we are budgeted for.

Today we were treated to the Guthrie’s traditional tech dinner, which is a homecooked buffet provided by volunteers. By some fluke of scheduling, the Guthrie is teching two shows at exactly the same time — A Delicate Balance also started tech yesterday, so the two companies shared the enormous meal in one of the rehearsal studios. I don’t think any of us have ever seen so much food. With the rest of my two hour break, I am letting my food coma wear off by sitting with my laptop in a nook of the 9th floor lobby of our theatre. It’s this crazy room surrounded in yellow glass, that is cantilevered out from the side of the building — it even has a glass floor in one spot. I have a thing for colored glass in architecture, so this has been my favorite place in the building even before I got here, when I saw it on the photo tour on the Guthrie website. You can see it from the outside in this picture, which is also my current desktop wallpaper.

At night the yellow glass casts a tint on all the lights of the cars and buildings below. It’s quite cool. This picture doesn’t do it justice at all. At some later time I must try to do better.


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