"There's a couple of things I've learned..."

They say you can't go home again. They say time heals all wounds. They say many, many things. They may just be right. After a summer I won't soon forget, I packed up my life, loaded up Sally, and drove off. 8 hours later I was back at the place I felt like I had just left days prior, Varner Hall. That's right, I drove straight to school, do not pass go (go home), do not collect $200 (much needed sleep). Straight into a room where people had gathered to begin the process of the first musical. A musical which I am stage managing, hence the me being there. And as I sat there, (which I actually did very little of as I wandered around the building, letting various people know I was back) I came to the conclusion I must really love this fucking theatre world. Because if I didn't, why the hell was I doing this to myself. Why was I going from a rehearsal into tech for another show the day I got back? Why was I sitting in a room, in a state I didn't want to be any where near(still don't, but that's a tale for a different day) doing the same thing. Why am I doing this? Why did I ask for so much this year? I could've requested to not have many assignments at all. Just focus on my remaining classes and get my ass back out into the real world I now so desperately long for. Maybe I'm really full of myself, but I don't see how much more I can learn here. Yes the experience alone will teach me, but so would experience outside of school. It's not like I need to add even more college credit to my already packed resume. And I'm not certainly not getting paid like I so desperately need to be. So what can I do to make this worth while for me? They also say everything happens for a reason. Perhaps. Perhaps I am here, not to learn, but to teach. And not teach in the actual sense, because that's what teachers are for, but to impart the vast number of things I've learned in both the last 4 years as well as the last 3 months to anyone and everyone willing to listen. I don't know much. In fact, I know very little. But what I do know, I know pretty damn well. So I will show the newbies the ropes, blur the lines between the factions as best I can, mend rifts I've created. When I was an underclassmen, I looked up to a handful of people, and based on what they did, and how they acted, I learned enough to make my own way through college. I guess its now my turn.

Another Day

RENT. The one show that means the absolute most to me, ever. Angels in America is still my favorite play but RENT is the closest to my heart. It was the first show to ever bring me to tears. The first thing really other than a family member dying or something of that magnitude to do so. It made me fall in love with theatre in high school. It was the one show I always wanted to be involved with, no matter what I would have to do. And I am. I'm mixing it no less. My desired position in my dream show and my designer tells me I'm doing a good job. I should be happy, ecstatic even, right? I would be if I didn't feel like I was fucking every thing up. I missed pick-ups that I shouldn't have, levels were wrong, cues were late, and to top it all off, Peter Flynn had a hard time hearing the show and apparently he wasn't the only one. Yes, these people who had trouble hearing were in the last row on the bench which is a dead spot with the coverage, and yes, I am mixing the show with a very limited few of the stage due to the platform in front of me, a light focused directly in my eyes. Yes, there are 23 people (17 mics) and a 4 piece rock band on stage. Yes, I'm mixing from a some what dead spot in the speaker coverage. No, none of these are valid reasons to me for the suck. Maybe I'm just a perfectionist, maybe I'm just stressed (I am both of these things), maybe I was more nervous then I thought, but I just couldn't lock down the beginning of the show today. Side note, nerves before a show is something I haven't experienced in a long time. I didn't even really get them during Bloody Bess. The real answer here is I just love this show too much and I care too much about being perfect, which in all actuality is a good thing. It'll keep me on my toes. We open tomorrow night. Holy Fucking Shit, I'm mixing RENT and its opening tomorrow night.

No Day But Today

Today I truly got to experience theatre in many of its forms. From The Adventures of a Bear Called Paddigton, a children's show of the craziest, cutest variety to RENT was has been, and will long continue to be a favorite musical of mine simply for the emotional pull it has over me even after repeated viewings/listens. It was in fact, the first stage show I ever saw to bring me to tears, maybe even the first entertainment (music, movies, stage) to do so. Then after both of those experiences today, I went into the Wedge for the final performance in that space ever (which was kind of Bittersweet, but that's a whole different topic) for some highly, highly experimental theatre put on by the lab company. Then we struck the Wedge for the last time. Cut down all the runs, packed up the computer and board, the works. I'm still convinced a good strike is my favorite part of theatre. All in all, I worked more today then I did all of last week combined, and even through all the stress, such as moving a piano across town in my Mustang, it was one of the most fulfilling days of the summer. It is now past 3 am and I get to do the first two parts of that again later today, as we have the final two performances of Paddington followed by another run thru of RENT. And then changeover. And find sometime to move. I should really be in bed. Oh well. Work to be done. Goodnight blogsphere.

Never Again...

...Do I want to work on children's theatre. Never. Ever. Again. The end. I honestly don't know how it is beneficial to me in any way. I can't remember the last time I was in a bigger cluster-fuck of a tech. In 7 hours worth of dry tech I really don't think we are going to make it through this 48 minute long play. Maybe I'm just letting it get to me because I don't care about it and therefore don't want to do it. Maybe I'm just anxious to get to RENT. Or maybe it's I'm a bit bitter about the way things worked with Spring Awakening and how Company Management can't tell me where I'm going to live next week. Maybe its something else all together. More than likely its a combination of all of these things. All I know for certain is this week cannot go by quickly enough. That is all.

When The Lights Go Out...

The joys of live theatre. Today, right in the middle of act 1 of November, a lightning bolt struck a transformer in Ithaca and killed power to much of the city. Including the Hangar. We were without power for a few seconds. After waiting about a minute, the dimmers were turned back on and we once again killed the power. So we took an impromptu Intermission, assessed the situation and after a brief hiatus resumed the show pretty much where we left off.I had to do a manual fade for the scene change that was originally INT but other than that the rest of the show ran as it normally does, very smooth. The amazing part about all of this was how calm, cool, and collected everyone was during this. Not a single member of the cast or crew freaked out or lost their nerve. It was simply realized that we were doing everything we could and the situation wasn't entirely in our control. It's moments exactly like this that make me love my job. To watch and be a part of a small group of people who don't panic and fix problems when shit hits the fan as is typically the case in live theatre. Things go wrong. Its just a fact. Why overreact and just amp up the stress of the situation, right? Bravo to everyone involved tonight. Bravo.

The Tech That Never Ends, Yes It Goes On and On My Friends...

It will never be able to fathom why one gets so unbelievably tired, even though they only sat in a darkened theatre for 10+ hours behind a mixing console and pressed the space bar on the iMac running QLab. There is no physical, strenuous activity being performed, yet I could barely keep my eyes open by the end of it. There also seemed to be a very high amount of stress and tension in the air for a show that in all actuality is on the simpler side of the spectrum. There is something in this conundrum that I'm not picking up on I feel, but I really can't grasp as to what it is right now in this extremely tired state. Tomorrow night poses as the first preview of November, which hopefully will relieve some of these feelings and problems. I guess we'll see tomorrow. Goodnight Blogsphere!

There is something oddly relaxing in the tech process. Yes it can be stressful and crazy at times when its happening, but I always seem to feel more at peace when a day of tech is done then just a day of regular work. At least out here where I only have the one job of running the show to worry about. Designing is a whole other beast and when that is happening tech can be a nightmare, but for now I am realizing how much I love what I do.

If I only take away one thing from this summer, which is definitely not the case as I have already learned very much in a small amount of time, is that this is truly what I want to spend my life doing. I'm not just in theatre because when I got to college my girlfriend was in theatre and I wanted to take a class with her. Yes, that's where it started, but having since moved on from that I know this is where I want to stay.

I am also getting a bunch of crazy ideas I want to try to incorporate into future designs as well as new ways to trouble shoot things. For example, in November, which is the show that is in tech right now there are two phones on stage that ring, constantly. It would be safe to say the phone(s) is a character within itself. However these phones are multi-line phones and therefore will not ring with a simply Tele-Q to activate the internal ringer. So we wired up the phones to operate as a tiny satellite speaker and are playing a pre-recorded phone sound through them. This also allows for more onstage effects to happen in the correct places on stage without wiring and hiding another speaker somewhere in the set.

Wow, two posts in the first day. Maybe this thing will actually survive.

Beginnings

It has been a few years since I've done the whole blogging thing and I feel that it is time to give it another go. Maybe a different approach this time. Yes there will be plenty posts of my ramblings, late night philsophy, and general musings, but along with those will be plenty of my insight into what I'm learning as I try to crave a path through my life in the world of theatre sound amongst other theatre related activities. Do I think anyone will read it? Probably not. Do I care? No. Do with it what you will.