April 14

I'm trying to dash this off before I jump into the day. Saturday morning was spent recording music for Story Theatre's touring show. The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent hanging, focusing, and setting lights. At 2 pm Tuesday with Morrie Director Phil Counts and stage manager Jim Roush met with me and we spent 5 hours setting light cues. There are over 70 cues in the show. We also talked about the sound cues needed for the show and worked through the scene changes that need to happen.

We finished just in time for me to jump across the street for the dress rehearsal of the Story Theatre show The 3 Little Kittens. I set up the portable sound system with the wireless microphones for the performers and we worked through their first time with body mics. We finished up about 9 pm and then it was time to head home to search for the sound and music cues for Tuesdays with Morrie. Last summer I moved to a lap top as my primary computer for work because it allow me to at least work from home instead of staying at the theatre until midnight. It was just after midnight when I finally found the last piece of music. I was looking for specific songs as a piano solo that Tom Dolan can pretend to play in the show. I must have listened to over 50 versions of The Very Thought of You. I never knew so many people had recorded the song (including Regis Philbin and other unusual singers).

Sunday morning was an early start at the theatre trying to transfer all the music I had found. First I had to set up the sound system in the main theatre because it was used in a different configuration for Harriet the Spy. After that it was loading the music into a computer program call Sound Cue. It does a great job for a relatively inexpensive price of running sound cues for a show. You can overlap, fade in and out and use specific segments that can be looped. One of the cues was a tennis ball being hit by a racket. I used that cue and looped the sound to repeat over and over. During the show there is a segment that the sports reporter Mitch is at a tennis game and his life gets crazier and crazier. The tennis ball hit is supposed to go faster and faster through out the conversation. I used the same tennis ball sound and shortened the amount of time between hits and looped the effect. This makes the tennis ball sound get faster and faster. In addition the character Mitch gets 5 cell phone calls during the match. I recorded the cell phones and sequenced them so that Jim Roush who is also running sound can play the cell phone rings and it automatically triggers the tennis ball cues to move to an increased speed. The tricky part for Jim is that he has to stop the previous tennis ball sound cue after the new one starts or he will have the sound of two tennis balls hit instead of one. The actors arrived at 2 pm and we worked through the first act of the show and took a break at 5 pm when Dick Holland showed up with food. Dick Holland and Stephanie Young volunteered to make food for the cast as a way of saying thank you from the theatre board and the other volunteers for the cast and crews hard work. Dick's food as usual was excellent. He and Stephanie both are wonderful cooks!

We went back to work on Act 2 and finished up about 7 pm in time for me to jump back across the street for the final rehearsal of 3 Kittens. While the cast rehearsed I ran out and got a large supply of 9 volt batteries that are used in the wireless mic packs and gassed up the theatre van. It costs over $100 to fill up the van. It has a 30 gallon tank. I got back to the theatre and we practiced setting up and taking down the set and the sound and we packed it into the van. The actors left at 6:45 am this morning to drive to Sikeston MO to perform two shows.

Today will be spent finishing the set construction for Tuesdays by Jim and doing a base coat. I will adjust some lights and hang some more lights. Fix some of the sound cues from yesterday and we will have a dress rehearsal at 6:30 pm tonight. Zink rehearses at 5 pm tonight. Tomorrow I meet with Diane Byrd to finalize the set for Anything Goes.