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December 8, 2009

Day Off

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 12:53 am

I’ve come to a realization about my days off. I don’t actually do things. When I do things, they’re generally work, but they feel less like work because the day off allows me time to get things done that will otherwise make my work days more difficult if I don’t.

For instance, my day:

9AM – Woke up

10AM – Went to the Guthrie for the grocery run

11:30AM – While waiting for van, answer emails on prop construction, production meeting, and travel plans of lighting designer

12PM – Return with groceries, have lunch, return 1 or 2 emails, get tired

1PM – Do laundry, take nap while laundry is going

4PM – Wake up, put laundry away

4:30PM – Return to emails. Find out tour performance date needs to be changed by the venue, check Equity rule book to make sure new date doesn’t violate any rules, report that to the GM. Brief email chat with Nick about what this means for us.

5:30PM – Respond to earlier email from costume designer, confirming that we can accomplish all his requested fittings next week, giving prospective schedule.

6:00PM – Exchange several emails with director about tomorrow’s meet and greet.

6:30PM – Realize I had intended to call my parents. Video chat with parents for 1 hr.

8:00PM – Receive email asking about the approximate run time of our partially-completed read/walk-through of Act II. Figure this is the time to fix what’s broken on the database run time summary, since the data is in there, but the report is not working. Added features to the report so that you can quickly search for specific criteria (such as an act) and see the run time just for that part. It turns out really cool, and tells me that the answer I’m looking for is 42 minutes, 17 seconds.

8:30PM – Realize I’m missing Monday Night Football, turn on TV. While watching football, check my to-do lists in OmniFocus. I notice that one of my topics for the upcoming production meeting is to decide on a schedule for the actors in tech week. And I don’t have a plan. So I make a list of the Equity rules regarding that week, and then enter a proposed schedule into my personal Google calendar (using iCal), which is where I put things about the show that I need to know, but I don’t want to clutter up the official R&J production calendar with.

Even though I think I’m relaxing by watching the game and poking around on places like Twitter, Facebook, and Fark.com, without even realizing it, I’m still kind of working. I’m cleaning up my inbox, checking off little tasks, backing up my files, cleaning up my desktop.

I’m not sure where exactly the time goes, but there are very few times when I’m not doing something in some way related to work, and I wonder if that’s a problem. I think it’s pretty much confined to sleeping, showering, going to the bathroom, and spending the occasional 10 minutes playing a couple songs on Rock Band for iPhone. And maybe blogging, except that this post reminded me that I should share my personal tour calendar with Nick, so I took a minute to do that. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m supposed to be entering all our vendors into the database so my contact sheet will be able to fully replace the old one. Good night!


December 7, 2009

End of Mini-Week 1

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 1:34 am

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After three days, our first half-week of rehearsal is done.

I told you about Day 1. Day 2 and 3 featured a continuation of table work. Basically after the initial read-through and some general discussion of the play and production as a whole, we began back at the top, working slowly through each scene, discussing plot points, character development, and any other insights people have. It’s also the time for actors to ask questions about meaning or pronunciation, which sometimes has no right answer, but we can decide to standardize — for instance today featured a debate on whether we should use the written “corse” or the more contemporary “corpse” to make it clearer for our audiences.

The thing about Shakespeare is that there isn’t just one script. Often there are multiple versions of the dialogue based on various texts from the period, so companies are free to mix and match text that makes the most sense to them. Also, due to time constraints, most productions cut quite a bit of text. We are using a version of the script prepared specifically for this production by Dakin Matthews, in collaboration with our director. This is the text that the cast began rehearsal with. Over the course of our table work, as we pass through each scene, the actors, director, staff director, and vocal/text coaches are free to call attention to cuts or alternate text that they would like to consider including in the show. Many of our actors are familiar with other versions either because they have done the show before, or from their own research prior to rehearsal. There are also a number of different reference books on the table with notes on the various known versions of R&J for the group to use to clarify questions. After discussing the matter, we then decide whether to change the text. We have made a lot of small alterations of words here and there, put a few lines back in, taken a few lines out, or traded one couplet for another. As the changes get made, I have been marking them and flagging pages in my script while Nick is making changes in our Word document. We will then cross-check them to make sure we got everything, and send out the revised script to the team. In one case we reprinted a page for an actor who had a pretty sizable chunk of text changed.

After we finished working through the show we took our meal break and cleared the tables. When we reconvened, I led the cast on a two-dimensional tour through our set taped out on the floor (with the detachable staircase from the model in my hand, because the pillars are kind of hard to explain in two dimensions). The speed with which that was able to be accomplished was a good sign. I was surprised when I quickly ran out of things to say — I guess the set is simpler than most I’ve worked on, though that’s not to say it isn’t big. Just not a lot of doors, tricks, or nooks and crannies.

The purpose of all this was to prepare the cast for our next exercise. They were immediately turned lose on another read-through, with instructions to get on their feet and use the space however they saw fit — not to worry about what proper blocking would be for the stage, just to focus on relating to the other characters.

It was a lot of fun. Our cast continues to impress me with their talent, inventiveness and sense of humor. Sonny and Laura gave a great early view of Romeo and Juliet’s romantic scenes. I can only imagine what an audience of a thousand 9th graders is going to think about all the smooching! Well you can’t say it’s not accessible! In all seriousness, this cast is already developing a sense as an ensemble of the line where heightened language meets the relaxed way that people speak in real life, while at the same time coming off as honest, rather than intentionally “modern”. I think it will be a real eye-opener for the kids (and adults!) who have never seen Shakespeare acted well, to realize that the words in those dusty old books actually do say the same things that we would say today, they just use slightly different words or syntax.

Tomorrow is our first day off, concluding our short week. On Tuesday we will have our official meet & greet, which would normally be held on the first day, but was pushed back to allow the artistic directors of The Acting Company and the Guthrie — Margot Harley and Joe Dowling — to lead the festivities. That will kick off the day, and once the invited guests have departed, it will be back to work for us!


December 4, 2009

First Day of Rehearsal

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:06 pm

4159527044_5fdba1ff4b_bWe began our day with the Equity meeting. Nick and I had met most of the cast the day before, when they happened to arrive from the airport at the time we were working in the rehearsal studio. At the meeting we introduced ourselves to everyone else and talked very briefly about the basic structure of the company before launching into the four votes we needed to take about rehearsal hours. We have a relatively large number of new or almost-new Equity members on this show, which is kind of fun. I actually did some paraphrasing of the spiel that we’re supposed to give about the deputy election, and the duties and importance of the Equity deputy. I was still bumbling through the conclusion of this speech, wondering if by mentioning what it entailed, I was discouraging anyone from doing it, when we suddenly had a volunteer! Everyone quickly consented, and thus concluded our Equity business.

Once we opened our secret chamber, we were joined by our director, Penny, our vocal coaches Andrew and Sara, and our prop master, Scotty, who was bearing some boxes of things vaguely weapon-looking. We spent about an hour doing basic introductions, going around the table giving our name, role, and something interesting about ourselves, and quickly got to know each other and build up a rapport.

We then began our first read-through, which was also attended by our sound designer and composer. On this show I really wanted to be caught up on everything to be free to pay attention to the table work, just for my own interest because I love table work. I had to respond to a couple emails and arrange a last-minute costume meeting before our designer left for the airport, but for the most part I was able to sit and just listen and take the occasional note when something interesting was said.

There are very few shows other than R&J which could begin with the type of table work that we did today — maybe no other. Once the read-through was complete and we reconvened after lunch, Penny began by asking everyone in the room — everyone, not just the actors — a group of questions:
1. How many productions of R&J have you worked on? (answers varied from none to eight)
2. What was your first experience of the play ever? (most people credited their 9th grade English teachers)
3. What are your feelings about the play itself? (everything, ranging from cynicism about love to it being the reason that people wanted to do theatre).

I can’t imagine another work where you could ask a room of 20 people these questions, and be sure that every one of them would have some prior experience to work with. In some ways it’s even more interesting, because this play is so well known that any production has to deal with the fact that both artists and audience will have their preconceived notions of how it should be done, and what they think of it, before they ever set foot in the theatre. We also discussed how we, as a company who will often be performing for students, have the pleasure of maybe being the first live production — or the first experience of the play ever — for some of these kids.

We continued to discuss the play, characters, and period until the end of our day, and I could tell everybody is eager for tomorrow to continue the discussion we had going.

After rehearsal, the Guthrie had arranged a reception for us at the bar, which was a great way to celebrate the end of our first day. We have a really great company — very talented, and it seems like a good group of personalities, which is especially important given how closely we will be living and working together for the next five months. I always appreciate a process that actually makes me look forward to getting out of bed in the morning, to go to work, no less!

And in meteorological news, the honeymoon is over here in Minneapolis. When we arrived (four days ago) it was in the 40s with a wind chill in the 30s. Today it was in the teens with a wind chill in the negative numbers, and snowing lightly but steadily all day. Which is already a lot milder than it was last year, for which I am grateful.


December 2, 2009

(Waves to Guthrie Fans)

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:48 pm

i_heart_mnGreetings to new readers from the Guthrie website!

As you probably know because you’re here, I’m the Production Stage Manager for the Acting Company / Guthrie production of Romeo and Juliet, opening in January.

First I’ve got a little backstory for you: I’ve been writing a blog/website about stage management, and the application of technology to enhance theatre management for about two-and-a-half years.

So last year, making my debut with The Acting Company as PSM of Henry V, I hired this guy Nick to be my assistant. Nick decided to create a blog about his experiences on tour, too. And one morning we came to rehearsal and discovered that Nick’s blog was all over the front page of the Guthrie website, and suddenly everybody was reading it! Our actors’ parents would come to the show and be more excited to meet Nick than to see their kids perform! Well Nick thought this was awesome, and indeed it was.

So the other day as we were waiting at JFK for our flight to Minneapolis, we somehow got on the subject of our blogging rivalry. Nick declared that once again he was sure to be the darling of the Guthrie homepage. Having significantly expanded my blog and website since last year, I retorted that I was just as likely, if not more so, to attract their attention. So we began googling terms like, “Romeo and Juliet Guthrie” to see what came up. Unfortunately we got through about 100 results and neither of us was listed. That put a temporary stop to the discussion.

Today as we were locking up our rehearsal room, we heard someone at the other end of the hall exclaim, “It’s Karen and Nick!” We didn’t recognize these people, so we were a little surprised. As they came closer, I think the first thing the young lady said was, to Nick, “I read your blog!” Which sent Nick up and down the halls doing a happy dance, of course! Once Nick had contained himself and returned, they introduced themselves as James Scott, the General Manager, and his assistant Lauren. After much continued discussion about how popular Nick’s blog is with the Guthrie staff, I asked what the hell a webmaster has to do to get some love around here. Nick will characterize this as begging. Perhaps it was. But you must understand, I’m desperate at this point. Lauren took down the name of my website, and then we talked a bit about some work stuff she needed to tell me.

Nick and I were on our way upstairs to see Faith Healer, and by intermission I had an email from Lauren saying that both our blogs were now linked on the website, under the title “Blogging Stage Managers Return to Minneapolis!” which I think is an awesome title. I also submit Blogging Stage Managers for your consideration should you be looking for a band name.

So welcome, and now you know how much it means to me to be acknowledged as the other half of the Blogging Stage Managers! Look for us to continue our tales of Romeo and Juliet as we create it here in Minneapolis and tour it around the country.

And if you’re interested in stage management or technical theatre, or computers, I especially encourage you to take a look at the rest of the site as well!


Day 1 of Preproduction at the “G”

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:18 pm

Checking In

First day of work at the Guthrie (yesterday). We arrived a little before our announced arrival time of 11am, to get our security badges, and hopefully have our pictures retaken, because we arrived last year unaware that there would be pictures, and coming off our travel, looked a little rough. Well of course in typical Guthrie efficiency, they just typed in our names and reprinted our badges from last year. So so much for that. I didn’t really mind. I’ve taken worse pictures, it might not have been worth the gamble. Nick also discovered when they couldn’t find him in the computer, that his name was misspelled on his badge all last year. That was pretty funny.

The important thing about the badge is that there are electronic sensors all over the building, and without one you won’t get very far before a door or an elevator blocks your passage to the non-public parts of the building. So with our access granted, we then proceeded upstairs to the 2nd floor production office.

In the Office

We were there to see Russell, who is the Guthrie’s PSM, and our direct liaison to our host theatre. Russell had stepped out, but in poking our heads into his office, we were noticed by Trevor, the Assistant Production Director, who was also very helpful to us going into our tech last year.

We learned a lot last year about the challenges of creating a show with creative and production people sprawled out between New York and Minneapolis. The collaboration begun last year between The Acting Company and the Guthrie was very successful, but behind the scenes there is also a lot of planning that goes into figuring out how the two sets of personnel work together and where the handoff of responsibility occurs for each of the countless tasks that have to be accomplished to put on a show. This year my goal, and I assume everyone’s, is to use what we learned last year to build a tighter, more efficient collaboration between the two companies. I, for one, feel so much more prepared, knowing how things work here, and how to integrate our process into it smoothly.

So with that in mind, we immediately went into Trevor’s office and began looking over calendars, schedules, and ground plans, and shared as much information as we had, until Russell arrived. Then we hopped over to his office, and met our new intern (absolute best thing about working here — a 3-person stage management team is actually not 1.5 times better than a 2-person team, it’s like a billion times better, believe me, I’ve done the math!). We were very glad to learn we would have the help of this year’s stage management intern, after our fantastic experience with Meghan last year. This year we have Ashley, who is also fantastic! And the only thing better than an extra person on your team is an extra highly qualified person on your team! While waiting for our flight the day before, we had been exchanging emails with Russell and Ashley, so we had made our introductions, and had asked for her help to set up the rehearsal room on our first day.

But before that, we sat in Russell’s office for a while having some really productive discussions. I can’t even remember all that was said, but we covered a variety of topics, from our plans for rehearsal hours, to the availability of other studios, to how the new production of A Christmas Carol was doing. We also made plans to see Faith Healer together, which inhabits our future theatre until the end of this week, so that we could get a feel for the space as an audience member, and to see Artistic Director Joe Dowling live on stage! Having just returned from that outing, it was a very helpful experience, and a great show to boot!

The Theatre

Anyway, after our meeting I was most of all anxious to get an opportunity to tour our theatre. I knew a little bit about the backstage layout of the main stages, but had never been in either theatre, mostly because last year was so jam-packed with shows, there was always a show performing or in tech. So Russell, Trevor and Ashley took us to the theatre, where we walked around the cavernous wingspace, and spent a long time on stage. We had some discussions about the orchestra pit, whether it would be raised or lowered, or used as a playing space or not. This brought up some lingering questions, and by morning things had been bounced around between all the parties and a new drawing was waiting for us when we got in today. So that alone was a productive visit.

I asked if there was a possibility of calling from backstage. I’m not convinced I want to, just because once we get on the road it will be my responsibility to make sure the show looks the same in each venue as it does here. Staring at the show every night for a month will lock that in. If I call from backstage, I will be working only from dim memories of the tech process, and whatever it looks like on a video monitor. Later in the tour it would be fun to call from backstage (which I did get to do last year in New York), but our goal as a touring company, from a technical perspective, is that every audience should see the show exactly as it will be set by our designers here, to the best of our ability given the time, equipment, and facilities available at each venue. And although I won’t have to hang a light, lay down the show deck, or play a sound cue, I’m the one who’s supposed to know when it’s right, and I’d like to be as familiar with it as possible.

Continuing on, we left the stage and got another tour through the backstage hallways. We saw most of this on the grand tour of the building on the day we arrived last year, but back then it was more in the context of, “And over here are the dressing rooms where the grown-ups put on plays.” This year we’re all grown up and now we’re being asked to think about how we want to assign those dressing rooms.

My favorite part of this tour was visiting the third floor star dressing rooms. As we walked, Russell told us that they only hold four, but if we really needed the extra space we might be able to use them. So he opens one of them, and we step into the largest four-person dressing room I’ve ever seen. I said, “Yeah, see we would call this a 10.” Seriously. If that’s their four, I can only imagine that the six-person room we didn’t get to see probably would hold all 10 of our guys! I don’t think we’ll have any problems!

On our travels we passed the wardrobe and hair area, which has giant windows overlooking the main entrance. We ran into our old friend Susan, who’s the wardrobe supervisor for the theatre, and was instrumental in making sense of the wardrobe tracks as they wrangled the amazing zipping, transforming costumes we had last year in Henry V. Susan explained that this is the area where everybody hangs out at half hour. I said, “I know, I used to see them when I’d pass by here before a show or at intermission, on my way to slink back to the 9th floor. They always had candy.” That area in a theatre, wherever it may be, where everybody hangs out is always a magical place. I must admit I was a little jealous of not being a part of that camaraderie last year. It will be very nice to be in the middle of the action this time!

Anyway, our tour was pretty much at an end, so we returned to the production office to pick up the dilapidated box of our supplies that had made its way from New York (and from the looks of it, might have traveled around the world a few times underneath a FedEx truck!). We carted the box down to our rehearsal room, where we were happy to discover that nothing was broken, not even our printer/scanner.

Setting up the Room

We set about getting some tables up, approximating where the director and staff director would sit, with the director’s chair on the centerline, and then made a very long table for us. My spot, across the aisle from the director, followed by Nick, and then closest to the door, Ashley will have the second table, which holds the printer and I anticipate will be used for displaying things for the actors to pick up (new paperwork, for instance) or to put a plate of cookies somebody’s grandmother sent. We distributed basic supplies across the tables — pencils, staplers, tissues and sanitizer.

Then we really got down to business and flattened out our groundplan on one of the tables. I took the measurements on it before we left New York, so I had a basic idea of how we would tape the floor. We took our time choosing where we would mark the edge of the stage, because the last thing I wanted was to decide after we were done that it should have moved a little bit. So we made some careful measurements and considerations of how we might use the space, and then placed our downstage center mark. It didn’t take all that long to tape out the set, at least not considering that there are quite a few stairs. Stairs are the worst!

Here’s a picture of our room with the floor taped out. It’s a panorama, so the perspective is a little weird. I assure you the walls are flat!

photo

We spent the remaining time making a list of supplies we still needed, which Ashley was able to procure from the Guthrie’s supply, and then Ashley took my reformatted script file and went to make 25 copies for our first rehearsal scripts. By default they bind them with these nice simple black covers, which we liked a lot, and once they were done, proceeded to decorate them as we did last year. This was Nick’s idea, and very successful, I think — we took our postcard and with black gaff tape, affixed one to the cover of each script, and then wrote the actors’ name on it with silver pen. We actually packed a handful of postcards in our hapless box before we left the office just for that purpose.

We selected a wall of the studio to use to display design images. We put up the ground plan and another drawing showing the main wall of the set. I printed the photograph of the set model, and hung that up as well. Before the first rehearsal we’ll also be getting costume sketches to go up there.

While we were doing that, Scott Edwards, our sound designer, came in to set up some instruments that will be used by our composer, Victor Zupanc, to explore what kind of music will go into the show. Last year I had a great time seeing how Victor works — I had never been part of a process where the composer was truly a member of the everyday rehearsal team. He was there all the time, playing with various instruments and improvised items, accompanying each time we worked a scene, and I think it was evident in the final product how closely tied he was to the rehearsal process. I got a lot of questions from people who saw the show wanting to know how the sound was developed, because it really stood out for feeling like an integral part of the show. From my perspective, it was also really fun to call the show, because Victor had such a crystal-clear idea of how each sound reflected the action of the play, so the bar was set very high for me, to translate that into telling a guy to push the spacebar on a laptop, and to hopefully get exactly the artistic impact that the composer and designer intended. I’ve met lots of great collaborators here, so I’m very excited to get to continue working with them.

That pretty much concluded our first day. We accomplished basically everything we needed to do in the studio before the first rehearsal. We will need to set up the tables for the first read-through, but I want to talk to Penny about how she would prefer them to be arranged.

Homework

Besides the on-site stuff, the number of emails and phone calls has been increasing this week. I’m working with our costume designer, Matt Lefebvre, to find time in the schedule for actors’ measurements to be taken and for a flurry of costume fittings for our ladies. The costumes are being built by a shop in Pittsburg this year, not at the Guthrie, so the scheduling will need to be a bit tighter to accommodate people coming in from out of town.

I am still very much at work on our new stage management database, which should make our lives much easier, after it’s done keeping me up all night! Nick and I are planning to have a working dinner and/or drinks tonight with our prop master, Scotty, who has just arrived in town. It will be great to see him again, too!


November 30, 2009

Travel Day – NYC to Minneapolis

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:28 am

The time has come! The Acting Company 2010 tour is kicking off, at least for me and Nick today.

If the WordPress 2.0 client for iPhone doesn’t suck as much as 1.x, and doesn’t eat posts anymore (which in my experience it does not), I will be blogging intermittently throughout our travel.

8:20am

I am now all packed up, and just waiting for 8:45am when I have scheduled my ride to the airport. While waiting, and sweating, I was thinking how unfortunate it is to have to choose between dressing for 50 degrees or 30 degrees. Then I was like, “Well, the natural solution would be to dress for 40 degrees.” And then I was like, “Huh!” So I unlocked my suitcase and swapped out which shirt I was wearing. And now I’m back to waiting. Stay tuned for more shocking discoveries.

8:46am

In car. Much more successful pickup than last year.

10:05am

At JFK with Nick, sitting at our gate.

11:06am

Still waiting to board. Nick and I are having a friendly competition to see whose blog may get on the Guthrie’s homepage during our stay there. So we started googling appropriate search terms, and neither of us came up in the first 100 results. This will require some work.

2:06pm, Central Time

We have been picked up at the airport. We didn’t know which company manager to expect, and as it turns out we got both – making a 1:1 ratio of company management to arriving guests. We feel special.

2:28pm

Dropping our stuff at the apartments. I’m in my old apartment, so it really feels like coming home.

5:30pm

Groceries unpacked, had a little to eat. Suitcase partially unpacked. Nick is going to cook us dinner. I have my usual Minneapolis sinus headache, so I’m gonna lie down until then.


November 29, 2009

A Cautionary Tale of Laundry Miscalculation

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:32 pm

Today is the day before I leave, and is also laundry day.

I have planned my departure in minute detail for about a month. I thought I had a brilliant plan. Here it is:

1. Pick which clothes are going on the road
2. Stop wearing those clothes as much as possible
3. Neatly pile clothes on couch
4. Wear other clothes that are not going on the road
5. On the day before departure, wash all dirty clothes, the few that are going on the road can then be packed, the rest are nice and clean to be put away
6. Profit

I realized today that this plan is TERRIBLE!

There are two essential flaws:

1. Some of my clothes that are going on the road (nicer shirts, silk underwear) can’t or shouldn’t be put in the dryer. Washing them 18 hours before departure doesn’t leave them much time to dry.

2. Why am I paying $3 and going up and down 5 flights of stairs all day? I have done this ass-backwards. All this week I should have been wearing the clothes that are going on the road, then packing the dirty ones in the expansive dirty laundry compartment of my suitcase, and then doing them for free in the laundry room adjacent to my bedroom in Minneapolis.

I am a damn fool, that’s why.


November 28, 2009

Departure

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:24 pm

I find myself trying to make a weird mental shift today. My big task for the day is basically to tie up my loose ends: to mail my completed contract and paperwork to The Acting Company office, to mail that contract and a couple others to Equity, to drop off a friend’s borrowed belongings at his theatre, and to pick up my last Phantom paycheck and say goodbye to the folks there.

When these things are complete, I will have done all the tasks that need to be done before I can leave (short of actually packing my suitcase and locking it for the trip).

My Sunday will involve a final half-load of laundry, and then packing my suitcase with everything except the things I need to use overnight. The remainder of the day will be spent on more work on the stage management database (priorities are the wallet cards, and a layout where you tell it which actors you have and it provides a list of all the scenes you can rehearse.). I want to arrive with as much work done as possible, but that’s not something that depends on which city I’m in, and there are still four days in Minneapolis to complete that kind of work.

So the mental shift that’s happening started out as a kind of detachment. What I think it is is my mind’s attempt to begin seeing New York as another stop on the road, one that has an end date, and just like any other, gives way to a new city waiting to be explored. So trying to see New York not as home base, but as a place that must be left because there’s a show to be done elsewhere is part of that mental leap into touring. I’ve had a pay-per-ride MetroCard for a week now, which always makes me feel like an outsider, so that’s been a subconscious part of the transition. I scheduled my car service pickup today. That was a little weird, too. But I felt good when the lady asked if I needed to schedule a return pickup, and I said, “No.” Off the top of my head, I couldn’t even tell you the date I’ll be back, and it won’t be on a plane.

No matter how much I enjoy any city on tour, I am always looking forward to the next one because it’s a whole new set of experiences. I’m starting to feel that urge of, “OK, let’s just get going!” and I guess that’s a good thing.


November 25, 2009

Putting on Plays – Serious Business

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:25 pm

You know in the climactic scene in 42nd Street (which incidentally happens at least 40 minutes before the end of the show), when Julian Marsh begs Peggy Sawyer to do his show, and finally she declares “I’ll do it!” and a giant production number breaks out…?

Well the part they don’t musicalize is Peggy spending the next hour filling out all the paperwork to make the “I’ll do it!” official.

If they did, it would have a lot of choruses of Peggy repeatedly writing her name, address, and social security number.

But the good news is that aside from my hand being about to fall off, and having nearly succumbed to death by boredom, I am now officially the PSM for The Acting Company’s 2010 tour.


November 23, 2009

WHAT? I’m sorry Calendar, I Can’t Hear You!

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 4:27 am

A Conversation

Screen shot 2009-11-23 at 3.28.09 AM
My calendar is trying to tell me something. Something about next Monday, and I’m like, “Dude, Calendar, I don’t have a job, I have, like, nothing to do all month. So why are you so concerned with how I divide the hours of the day between sleep, playing online games, and building the stage management database? I have, like, forever!”

And my calendar’s like, “Blah blah blah Thanksgiving.”

And I’m like, “Yeah, I know, Thanksgiving is like, in a week or something. I’ll figure out what time my train is the night before.”

And my calendar’s like, “You know, Thanksgiving is actually Christmas in your world. So… presents…”

And I’m like, “No, Calendar, you see, Thanksgiving is Christmas for me! I intend to buy all my Christmas presents at the Mall of America once I have money, and then ship them home, so Christmas for my family is, like, Christmas.”

And Calendar starts to say, “Well, actually you should leave yourself about a week, cause remember what happened last year when you tried to mail them on a Saturday…” and I’m like, “Just shut up, I got that, OK?”

Which then returns us to the subject of next week. And finally I’m like, “Alright already, WTF is next week!?”

My calendar throws me a pitying look, and is like, “November 30th. November 30th is next week. It’s actually a week from today.”

And I’m like, “No it’s not.”

And it’s like, “See, look, here’s this month. Here’s today. Here’s next week. See it’s the 23rd. And the 30th is like, seven days later. And you still have to deal with Thanksgiving, so those aren’t even real days.”

And I’m like, “Shit.”

So…

I’ve actually been pretty well packed for a while. Most of my clothes are folded in piles on my couch. I’m getting some more clothes for Christmas (aka Thanksgiving), so I’m waiting on making final arrangements. All of my non-clothes stuff is in my suitcase if it’s not needed. I have a database just for keeping track of everything I plan to tour with, and which compartment of which bag it should be in. My apartment has remained consistently clean since Inventing Avi closed. So really, I could pick up and go to Minneapolis at any moment.

The work side of things is taking a little longer. First there’s the big issue of the stage management database. It’s new, although I got to test out some parts of it on Avi, so I want to be way ahead of myself to find any problems that pop up. Most of it has been built since Avi closed, and there are still a few more things that haven’t been done at all (like the rehearsal report, which shouldn’t take too long now that the show report is done and working beautifully).

A few little things I love:

  • Show report practically writes itself. Put in the date and it fills in all the venue info and lets you select the time of the performance based on the scheduled performances for that day.
  • 1-click sending of the report that creates a PDF, pastes a plain text report into the body of the email and sends to a list based on a checkbox in their contact profile.
  • Venue profile contains a tab that embeds the Wikipedia page for the town the theatre is in (generated dynamically based on the theatre’s address).
  • Rehearsal schedule planner that turns colors to let you know when you’re violating Equity rules, or aren’t using all your allotted time.

The main problem I’m having now is that we still don’t have a final script, so once I finish the reports and a little bit of tidying, I will quickly run out of things I can do until I have the data pertaining to the show itself. There are a number of things I want to expand later, but I’m trying to keep focused on the things that need to be done to start rehearsal, and then the things that need to be done to start touring, and then all the goodies later.


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