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.