CarnEvil, Auditions, and Gangs, Oh my!

I believe we left off after Friday night's shows, so let's play a quick game of catch up shall we...?

Saturday was Michael, performing his adult magic show. I was planning on arriving at the theatre several hours before the show (per usual), but Michael called me and wanted to run some things so I got there even earlier. We did the levitation bit and switched some cues around, adding in one more trick and an intro for him.

The show went well, although I did need to do some impromptu improvisation with preset cues (always intersting), when things went in a different order once the show started. Some of the lighting fixtures were very important for the specific "scenes" so I didn't want to get behind.

This is not where the real excitement was that night; no, that was AFTER the show. There was a shooting in our parking lot/the rooftop across the street... gang activity. Brandon called 911. We were loading stuff up in the truck in the lot and could see 20 cops with shot guns cocked, doing those hand motions to move in like you see on television. There were helicopters with spotlights overhead, and more cops on the on the sidewalk keeping a look out and doing a bit of crowd control and this particular gang got wind of what was going on, and people came out of the woodwork. We were there for some time longer, but about a minute or so after we left the theatre several cops cars blew by us, lights flashing, moving in the direction we had just came from...

Anyway, back to recent theatre goings-on: I went to the company meeting which was quite eventful. I learned a lot more about upcoming projects and heard updates about projects I am working on. It was a long but efficient meeting, and much was discussed.

CarnEvil is our next upcoming show; I have been looking forward to it since the Thursty's. It original premiered during Serial Killer, but this is a longer, more complete version that also has more songs. I met the writer/composer Michael, and he is just brilliant. It is going to be a huge show in all aspects, so I am doing a lot of running around helping anyone and everyone who needs a hand. I was watching as things were getting programmed the other night and I was helping out as a stand in to see how everything looks on a human body... very different effect from a blank stage. I also got to hang out with some of the actors I hadn't seen since the Thursty's as well, while blocking was being done. This is going to be a great show. If in the area, go to www.sacredfools.org for more info on this week's show and the rest of summer camp!

I have also sunk my teeth deep into the prepping process for next week's auditions for the fall show, 'Savin' Up for Saturday Night'. That should be a lot of fun as well.

Like Cirque de Soleil... Only Sexier

This weekend's schedule is a bit different than usual. We have three different shows in two nights; Jon and Juliet (two SF company members) performing their own 'Cirque de Loon' as an opening act for The Abe Lincoln Story on Friday night, then Saturday, Michael, the adult magician performs.

Since Wednesday was devoted to Michael and his act, Thursday was spent working with the band (The Abe Lincoln Story) and Jon and Juliet. I was very glad to get to work with Jon and Juliet once again. I have learned a lot from them about performing just by watching how they work and getting to talk to them afterwards. I spent the rehearsal memorizing all the directions in addition to the cues that we had since the producer was not there nor was the technical director. I was taught how to "ride the mics", which basically means to stay on top of each of the channels being used to make sure they don't spike or create any sort of feedback, and adjust them as seems fit to while they play. For the Jon and Juliet's act, what they call a "progressive clown piece", I am in charge of running sound, so I got all the cues in there and did a run through. They said to pay extra attention because depending on if they need to stall the show a little extra longer for a member of the next act to show up (who was going to be running late) they would add in a part they initially took out and we (meaning me) would add some impromptu music to coincide accordingly. I also explained to Danny the ins and outs of working/running the lights for a show.

Tonight was the first two performances. Everyone staggered in at designated times, early enough to practice or at least walk through their pieces so that was good. It gave Danny adn I a chance to work on the set-up of equipment we put together for the band. I also went over more of the ins and outs of lighting with him tonight before we opened house. Since he was in the booth right next to me it was very easy to answer any questions he had, while still running the sound board so that was good. Things ran very smoothly tonight. There were no problems with any cues and the disc player did not freeze. Needless to say I was happy about that. Now, I am looking forward to tomorrow's show, which should be a lot of fun.

Practice makes perfect...

When I first came into the theatre this week I knew it was going to be an interesting week. I came in early to open up the theatre and do the normal turn things on/set up kind of thing in prep for this Saturday's performer who is performing an adult magic show. What makes it interesting is since I was there in place of our producer to help out the performer, I was also going to be levitated.

There were definitely some kinks that needed to be worked out, not with the actual levitation bit, but with climbing onto the bed, from which I am levitated from. The original step stool was slippery and I fell from there, and then I fell when the bed was not locked into place. I have a nice bruise from it, but it was well worth it, because I got to help put the trick together and I learned a lot of the the secrets.

I have been working very actively with this talent, stepping in for the producer. I also got the cues today while Heatherlynn programmed the board. We also did a tech through for general feedback and to work glitches, then we did it with all the cues integrated. The show is somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour long, so it was not too bad to run time-wise. 

A lot of time has been spent helping out the talent to keep the tricks secret and running them over and over again until they are just right.

One Down, Seven to Go

A lot has gone on this past week and I have gotten behind in my updates, but man, there has just been zero time for them... until now.

The tech run for last week's show Small Things, presented by the Mitchel Evans Mime Project (mimeman.com) was a long one. We were there for many hours matching up cues and trying to do some run throughs because our cues were extra important as there are no spoken words in the show. This week I learned how to run the light board and worked that for the show. I was/am the Stage Manager, although I delegate to Danny to make calls to the actors and whatnot since I am in the booth working on other things as well. 

The show was a lot of fun to work on; I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it in my life. As far as performances go, I was much happier with how Saturday night went, as opposed to Friday. There is a part where I had a cue marked for when a certain character walks off stage, but the actor ended up improv-ing some and I had to guess when that was. Well, I guessed wrong. Turns out, I thought he was going off stage for good; he was actually just going off stage and leaving his chair there before returning for another half minute. He acknowledged that the lights should have blacked out and switched then. we ended up making it a bit together (because the audience thought that was supposed to happen) and just went with it, running more cues. I thought someone would have noticed but literally not one other person did. Although I was mad at myself for a second for pressing the cue I was happy with my recovery and how I handled it. There were a few other minor details that happened that night with other jobs so I got over mine fast, and to top it all off, I got home in time to watch part of Conan and I noticed the spot was off. It really is ALL ABOUT RECOVERY and how you handle things/yourself... good lesson to learn...

Saturday night went so well. Spot on with everything, even the few cues that were ridiculous in terms of the likelihood of everything matching up (from actor to sound to lights), but it did. I also had a great talk about method acting with one of the actors. We also traded info and swapped stories as I talked about Chubbuck and Strasberg and he talked about Chekov (Michael not Anton) and Meisner. After the show Saturday night I was talking with another of the actors who wanted me to contact him when I come back out here for good next May so that we can work together. I already took care of that touching base email so I am excited about that.

One show down, seven more to go...

Tonight, I went to the read through for the fall show Savin' Up for Saturday Night. It is an original work that is just fantastic. It is very smart and very funny. JJ (Producer of the show and one of the CDs for TruTV that I have mentioned) first let me know about this. I am going to be helping him out suring the upcoming auditions and get to see how that whole process works, so it was great to get a taste of the show's flavor tonight. I feel so blessed for having been around so much great theatre lately. I'm sure it sounds like I have gone soft or lowered my expectations or something. I haven't. These productions really are just that good and I have no other adjectives to describe them.

Summer Camp Series Begins

Earlier this week I met with Megan (one of two Summer Series Producers) at the theatre to learn more of the ins and outs of the theatre since I now officially have a key to it and will be in charge of it in a way. A lot of the different groups coming to perform on our stage for the series are not company members so I have basically began (as of this week) serving as the general presence of the theatre. I run things, answer questions, help out with their shows in whatever way they need, and open/close the theatre. That is something that started this week along with the series, and will continue with each group for as long as the series continues out.

The other day I also met Michael, who although was here to help out with sound on this week's show, is getting his BFA in Acting at CalArts. He's a pretty cool guy. I also met a young guy named Danny. He is going to be interning here for about a month. Danny is also a new responsibility of mine. He was originally introduced to me as my "minion", but I will not be referring to him as such :-) He is also a pretty cool guy.

Last night I learned the basics for operating the light-board, then got the cues written in as the group went through their show, because that's what I will be doing for the shows on Friday and Saturday. This took a VERY long time, but I didn't mind because the show was very avant garde and interesting to watch.

Another thing I went over before calling it a night was general house and stage manager obligations and jobs. After that, it was time to call it a night. Tonight will be our tech-through before the show opens tomorrow.

The Thursty Awards

The past few days have been pretty crazy and action packed. That means zero time to blog, so I will try to summarize everything so that this into is not the size of a Harry Potter book.

Aside from doing emails, planning, researching, and doing some phone conferencing, the two main things that have gone on that I want to talk about are The Ark Theatre's performance of Hedda Gabler, and The Thursy Awards that took place Saturday night at SF.

Hedda Gabler is the show that I mentioned in a previous post that I got a pair of comped tickets to. I was working on building the set for the summer series with her (Christina), we started talking about work and other theatres, and she said she was also the scenic designer for this other show that I should check out... Hedda Gabler. I cannot say that I am the biggest Henrik Ibsen fan, but wow, I was blown away. The show was amazing; the story, the acting, the set. I was immersed in it from beginning to end. It was a great study of how another theatre worked, and a different style of acting, comprable to the work done at SF. Perhaps I will have to rethink my position on Ibsen and give him another chance.

On to Saturday's main event: I ended up being at the theatre for a grand total of sixteen hours that day. It was probably the mentally demanding day of my life thus far, and I mean that in a good way. I don't think I have ever been challenged to do and learn so much in such a small period of time, and then put all that to the test for a huge show... all in one day's time.

I got there extra early so that Hans could show me how to work the sound board and show me all that goes into being the operator. Then I went straight into getting cues from the two different shows that were the final contenders in the Serial Killers Series, that were each going to be performed that night to the audience before a winner was chosen at the end of the show. I got the cues for the first show, then I got the cues for the second. After that, any adjustments they had thought of I changed After that, then I ran the cues once with the actors. This wasn't a full run, but more of a coordination of my work with the light op and working on timing with the actors as well. At this time, I went over some notes and planning with the producers. After a bit, everyone involved in the show got together for a big meeting to discuss the evening and talk it through, so that everyone was on the same page. We then did a tech dry run with as much as possible. This including running through the entirety of those two shows. I also practiced the begining few sequences once, which was probably one of the most difficult parts.

I had to disc players total; one that was a five disc player, and an older one that only played one. They were both built very differently and one is known to occasionally stall. I am working both of these in the dark and I have more than six discs, so I am switching them out in one hand while trying to play, pause, switch tracks, and switch volumes in the other, all the while still trying to watch and listen for cues. This beginning sequence, from playing the house music, to cueing the light op so we can sync the theme song intro, then straight into our opening dance montage number which has more cues than anything (and getting this right in all under a minute's time was very difficult to say the least. Another thing I got to try several times was when to play the in and out music for the recipients of the awards and music and effects that were added to different performances or numbers throughout the show.

In between the dry run and the actual performance I tried to stay pretty chill and not think about things, because I knew that would be the best way to be successful at all this. I had done most of the stuff at least once, and just had to go with the feel of it and let the work happen. Well, a few minutes before the show started, I got a few more cds of things some effects actors wanted to add to make some things more funny. I also had to figure out some improv-ed cues and how I was going to work those. I wanted to make sure things went smoother and faster than the tech dry run. I may never have done sound at all before, and in that sense did well, but the audience would not know that. They would expect it to be great and I wanted to do well for everyone else and make the show as good as possible.

Things could not have gone any better during the show. I'm not quite sure how it all happened, but everything just clicked and came together so well. There was not one moment of silence that was not meant to be there. Afterwards everyone cam up to me and said how great of a job that I did. I was so glad to have stepped my game up to their level. I got to meet and work with so many great individuals that night. I could not have asked for a better time.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999

Today was ALLLLLL about the trees. The two trees in our set for the Summer Camp Series. I spent the entire day making them actually LOOK like trees. Brandon brought in tons of fabric, in addition to the standard green base that we are recycling from that last show, that I used to start out with. These other green fabrics and designs were brought in as accents and to make it more dimensional. I cut all this fabric into thick strips and weaved it into the erosion cloth that we are using as the bark, then I make it hang off the edges to create this overhang leaf-like effect. It may sound like a simple and quick job, but it took MANY, MANY hours. The trees are quite large to say the least. I had an idea of how I wanted them to look so I would redo a lot of it and change things when they weren't working.

Brandon was in the theatre working again today as well. We spent most of the time on stage together today. We listened to the Prince's 1999 Album (hence the title of this entry) two times through while we worked. I had forgotten how great it was. After the second time though we figured we should probably put something else in. Well, the only thing that was in the sound booth was a Cher album s Brandon put it on and came back down. We continued working. The first song was her song 'Believe'. I kind of got into a work zone, but when I eventually snapped out of it I realized the song was still playing. I thought I had been working for more than the duration of a song but shrugged it off. After a while Brandon and I decide something is fishy. We know for a fact that one song cannot be this long. Eventually it ends... or so we think. It pauses for a milli second then a dance remix picks up. After another good ten minutes, the song FINALLY ends. Brandon and I anxiously await the next song. We both let out a huge sigh of relief when we hear a new tune, but low and behold after a twenty-some second intro, Cher starts singing THE SAME SONG. Brandon lets out a big scream and dashes out the of theatre, down the hall, up the stairs, and into the sound booth, all while still letting out a holler. The disc player won't let him take the CD. Eventually he gets it out. Turns out the entire cd was made of dance remixes of that one song. The consensus was this must have been a cruel joke.

Enter Terri and JJ (the two guys I mentioned in the previous entry though I failed to mention their names). They were back in the green room waiting for more actors for their auditions when they heard Brandon over the baby monitor. I was still cracking up. SO FUNNY!

But I digress. I talked with JJ and am going to help out with the auditions next month for the fall show titled 'Savin Up for Saturday Night'. He is one of the producers. We exchanged info, so I am going to start going to the production meetings for that, and shadow (starting with auditions and then into early rehearsal before I head back to Oxford).

Anotehr thing that I have learned since being here is just how small the world really is. While I was on the ladder working on the tree, Terri comes up to me and starts asking about my t-shirt (Oxford International Film Festival one). I explain to him that my friend runs the festival and that the first movie I was in premiered there last year. He tells me that he acted in a dark comedy (about the Andy Warhol blood painters) that played in the fest the year before that. So we ended up taking a quick break from our work to discuss film and that part of the biz.

I was glad that today I finally got to meet Jaime as well. Jaime is the Managing Director of the theatre for this upcoming season and she was my initial contact who hooked me up with Brandon for the internship. She had been in NY and I didn't know when I was going to get a chance to meet her, so that was a treat.

By the end of the day, I got to know some of the company members a lot better, and had a great finished product for our set that Brandon and I were both very pleased with.

Other business that got taken care of today: Hans got a hold of me and said that his idea with the prop check that I had been working on the specs for was not green lit, so I'm done with that. It was good practice though. And Megan Crocket, the other producer for the Summer Camp Series contacted me and we had a brief dialogue before deciding to meet up on Friday and game plan about what tech stuff I am going to work on during the run of the shows.

Busy day. Good day.

Under Construction

So technically I started work yesterday. I got my first few assignments and penciled them in. Hans (production Manager at SF) contacted me about getting a giant check made for the Thursty Awards on Saturday. I started working on that (possible designs, dimensions, etc...) just to get a jump on things because I knew today would be a busy today.

Hans also asked me if I would be interested in running sound at the Thursty's on Saturday. I have never ran sound before (and made sure to let him know this before accepting the offer) but thought it would be a good experience for me. So Saturday is going to be a jam-packed day. I will be arriving at the theatre at 10am for a half hour tutorial on how to work the board. Then things officially kick off at 10:30am (call time for everyone). And I'll be there until the show lets out at 11pm.

Now to today, my first day working IN the theatre. I get there around noon, and notice there is a sign on the door that reads "truTV Auditions". There is a sign-in sheet, some audition forms in the lobby, and a sign that says to wait in the lobby. Since I am about 15 minutes early I figure that these auditors are renting the theatre til 12:30pm, when I am scheduled to meet with some of the company members to work on the sets. After about five minutes a few guys come out, introduce themselves, and ask if I'm there for the auditions. I explain that I'm interning with SF and we chat for a bit. Turns out two of the three guys are company members (the third guy strictly works with truTV). They ask for my headshot and resume... They explained that they like to try and help out fellow company members as much as possible and give them priority with stuff when they want it. They mentioned getting your SAG card from it. I definitely need to follow up with that. I am pretty familiar with all that is SAG but I wasn't quite sure if I followed that entirely so I am going to follow up. They will be at the show on Saturday as well.

Eventually I made my way into the theatre and met Christina (Scenic Designer). She has done shows with SF before but also works with other companies (and is comping me tickets to go see a show at another theatre called the Arc). We worked together for the entire 6.5 hours (Brandon joined us after a bit), and we talked about everything from our "real lives" to our shared loves for Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin. 

When I first arrived at the theatre I did not know exactly how extensive the work was going to be for the day, or how long I would be there, but the three of us ended up building a whole set. It was not the most complex set, but it looked great by the end of the day. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow we are going to tear the half down that we are not satisfied with and start over :-D

"The Start of Something New..."

No, I am not a fanatic of Disney's High School Musical. In fact, after the past fews days, getting adjusted to LA and going so many places, and learning so much, Disney is actually one of the few studio lots I have not been on. 

One of the locations that I can now cross off my list of "Places I Still Need to Go to" is Sacred Fools (just in case you slept through my last post, that is the theatre where I a, interning ;-)). The theatre has been dark all this week, but Brandon Clark (my internship coordinator) called me up and asked if I would want to meet him there and get a tour of the place. Needless to say I jumped at the chance. He was so great and I am really looking forward to starting work next week. He, welcomed me to my "home away from home" and gave me my first assignment(s).

I'll report back after my first day of work to let you know how it goes...