Take a breath...
Close your eyes... relax... release your grip on the arm of that chair.
What are you trying to do, strangle it?
Get some sleep. You look like a train wreck. Eat something for chrissake.
Pet the cat. Read the newspaper.
Watch some TV. Whatever helps you disconnect... just chill out, dude.
Forgive my absence of late. For a variety of reasons I've been neglectful of the blog. Most of this is due to my increasing relationship with the theatre company, which completely monopolized my time for much of February and March.
We closed The Mystery of Edwin Drood last weekend. In a weak moment I had allowed myself to be drafted as technical director for this show. I should have known better, having served as technical director for The Sound of Music a year ago. Now with two shows under my belt, I can say that the job doesn't get any easier. I had no discretionary time on my hands, and every waking moment was either spent at work, or at the venue. My sleep time was reduced to an average of three hours a night, and even my dreams were commandeered by the production. (I designed some of the lights in my purported sleep.) To say it was stressful would be a gross understatement - I lost seven pounds because I simply didn't have time to eat. My bowels turned to liquid, and I went on a daily regimen of Aleve to combat the inevitable backache and wrist pain that came from horsing around building materials.
As before, I got some good help. Mom helped cut the plywood for an elaborate cathedral; brother-in-law Barry framed and nailed the pieces of said cathedral together; Melynda did the artistic design for the set pieces and painted nearly all of them.
The gross light design was mine, though I was able to offload much of the operational stuff on Karla Lowe. (I like Karla a great deal. She's a self-described geek with a nice artistic feel for lighting. She'll be able to light the next show by herself. I'm kinda looking forward to seeing what she can do.)
The last two weeks before opening night was construction week and tech week. About halfway through construction I was asked - okay, begged to consider becoming stage manager for the production as well as tech director. They'd had problems finding a stage manager and time was a-wasting. "The Drood cast moves all their own props and things," I was told, "and one of the cast members plays a stage manager, so there won't be much for you to do." I thought about it for a few seconds, and decided that if I was in for a dime... might as well be a dollar.
"Not much for you to do" my ass. They LIED.
The stage manager is the first to arrive and the last to leave. He prepares the stage, sweeping the floor and performing a safety check. He assembles the cast for vocal warmups and sound check, coordinates with the House Manager, and gives instructions to the cast and orchestra. I felt considerably out of place doing the latter, because although the show was nominally mine at the beginning of tech week, I deferred regularly to the director.
On stage during the live performance, I ran the "practicals" -- lights and devices that aren't controlled by the light board, and also operated a fog machine. I watched the script, called lighting cues, and relayed instructions between the cast and the sound tech. ("Danielle's body mike isn't working." "I'll have her switch with Robert's.")
I had planned to take it a little easier during tech week, my job as technical director being fundamentally over at the end of construction week. I thought I'd be mostly supervising the light and sound staff, and entering light cues into the board from notes I'd taken earlier. But nooooo... instead I had to do that and finish dressing the set and learn the show in order to be an effective stage manager. Fortunately I'd been to about half the rehearsals. Unfortunately, they were all Act I only, and I hadn't paid much attention to set changes and other details. I quickly became overwhelmed, and it was a damned good thing that Karla was able to take over for me and program the light board.
On our final dress rehearsal we had an audience of 30 or 40 people in for free: mostly high school students taking advantage of our "preview night". Things were a little rough, but we ran the show straight through and it was a success, with the crowd laughing and hollering and booing at appropriate times (it's that kind of show). It was only then that I knew we'd get through it all.
But there were actually two weekends of production to go, and it was still a lot of work. I didn't really start to settle down until Wednesday or Thursday after closing.
So now I've been a TD twice, and I don't feel like quite such a
poseur. But this stage manager business - I don't know. I really
should have been at all the rehearsals, and been an assistant director.
Who in hell am I to take over the show for the director otherwise?
posted at: 00:51 | path: /dailies | permanent link to this entry