Monday morning review

We made it through the tech rehearsal yesterday. Saturday we started at 8 am getting ready for to set the light cues that afternoon. I had been working on the lights for 3 days prior to Saturday. We began setting the first cue about 2:30 pm and called it a day without finishing at 10 pm that night. Our light board has a limited internal memory that will only hold up to 120 light cues. We have approx. 140 light cues for the show with still more being added daily. In order to accommodate 140 cues we have to special disks that will store the cues and then load them into the light board. Unfortunately when you switch from the first disk loaded to the second all the lights controlled by the board go black for a second before it brings up the next cue. So if you watch closely at the end of Act One when the curtain closes there will be a blackout. At that moment we will have to switch memories before we can bring the house lights up for the intermission. (The house lights are controlled by the light board as well.) That is a very tense moment for the light board operator and for me as the lighting designer. If it isn't properly accomplished the audience will be left in the dark until we fix the problem.

One of the performers in the show hurt her ankle after the second week of rehearsals and has been on crutches ever since. She assumed that she would be off the crutches in time for opening. She learned this week that will not be the case. So April has incorporated her character into the show on crutches.

When we were discussing the lighting for the show April wanted two follow spots. That is not possible the way our control booth windows are set up . So Saturday during the lighting cue setup Jim cut a larger window into the control booth so two follow spots can sit side by side. This will make the control booth a better space for future shows as well.

We recorded April as the Math teachers voice yesterday. She is layering that with the music so that it is timed out perfectly during the toughest moment in the show. At that moment we have 3 locations on stage simultaneously and the lights and action switches between the three locations. That song alone in the show has about 25 lighting and sound cues.

I arrived at 7:30 am Sunday morning and left at 7:30 pm.

I think I have over 40 lighting notes to work on. The set has been base coated but still has lots of detail painting left to go and that is about a 3 day process. Today will be another long day. Rehearsal starts again at 5 tonight. I'm sure I'll have another 20-30 lighting notes from tonights rehearsal. While the painting continues. Jim is building metal railings today for the tall platforms at the back of the stage.