Tonight is the brush up rehearsal at 5 pm for High School Musical. No lights or costumes but a run through of the show. After being away from the show for a couple of days you lose the groove that has been developed. The show is still together but the timing sometimes has to tightened back up.
At 7 pm tonight is the Doubt rehearsal. Monday we ran the first 4 scenes of the play and last night we ran the last 5 scene. It was the first time off book for the actors so they called for lines when they got stuck and couldn't remember a line. This morning I spent some time researching Doubt. I came across a great interview with the playwright John Patrick Shanley on the Charlie Rose show talking about the play. Here is a link to view that interview-
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2005/03/14/1/a-conversation-about-the-play-doubt
Shanley's comments are so relevant to the political and cultural discussions of the present. So often people in political discussions or in public are talking at each other to make their points. There is not a dialogue. He used the example of the presidential debates. Candidates try to represent a party or a type of thinking. We never get to hear what the individual thinks. When someone like me says something people think I'm speaking for the theatre. At what point can I speak for myself , express my thoughts and fears without it representing my place of employment or my political party or religious denomination. We have come to a place where Doubt is a sign of weakness. Imagine a candidate or pundit saying- "I struggle with that and I am still not sure what the right answer is."
But that is where the truth is to be found. There is a line in the play where Father Flynn tells Sister James- The truth makes for a bad sermon. It tends to be confusing and have no clear conclusion.
Another great comment from the playwright was about the audience. The audience is always the final act in the play. If a playwright gives away too much then the audience feels cheated. The final act happens after the show at the bar or at the restaurant over dinner or drinks.
Shanley talked of a husband believing one character when they left the theatre and the wife believing the other character. Of people who saw the Broadway show twice. The first time they were convinced of one truth and the second time they were convinced of the exact opposite truth.
It is a joy for me to work on a play like this.
Something that we are also working on is the maintenance of the buildings. The heat was out Monday and Tuesday in the classroom so Greetings cast rehearsed in their coats. It was fixed this morning. The repair man came out and tapped a small fan unit that comes on when the heat first turns on. It unfroze the unit and now works fine. 2 minutes of work = $100. Of course it was something we didn't even know to do. In addition we have water leaking through the brick walls in two buildings. The tuck pointing on the buildings needs to be redone. That will cost us thousands of dollars to repair. Is there a better way to fix the walls? Should we spend the money now even though it was not budgeted and the year is already tight? I realized that each day we all have questions that need answers but we don't always know which path to go down. Maybe that's why Doubt appeals to me. Learning to live with uncertainty that you will never get the full answer to some of lifes questions. You have to learn to live with a certain level of uncertainty.
The continuing water damage will cost even more if we don't fix it. That is what I finally settled on and told the contractor to schedule the tuck pointing work to be done. We need to move forward and to do nothing is also a choice that costs money. It will cost us less now than later even if we don't have the funds. I'm working with the contractor to bill us after June 30, 2009.
I spent some time yesterday designing the set for Greetings and talking it over with Phil Counts the director. Phil is still trying to find someone to stage manage Greetings. Audra Hall and Will Edwards were out sick yesterday. The rest of the cast is hoping that they aren't next with the illness that seems to be going around.
I'm working on a web page for Greetings and Doubt at the present time to go on our website. I will add items like the link to the Charlie Rose show and other articles about the show on the Doubt page.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday afternoon
The first weekend of High School Musical is now history. The cast is off for two days before a brush up rehearsal on Wednesday and then back for 6 shows this coming weekend. (Thursday night, Friday morning school matinee, Friday night, Saturday matinee & pep rally, Saturday night, and the closing on Sunday with the matinee. The costumes are being cleaned and most of the staff has the day off. We sold most of the pink Sharpay hats and all of the wildcat pennants in our fundraising efforts during the show. I just placed and order for more for the next weekend. A big thank you goes to Bill Fox who came in and took photos of the final dress rehearsal on Wednesday night before opening. The photos he took will be added to the theatre's archives and cast members can purchase DVDs of all the photos for $10. The proceeds from the sale of photo disks goes toward volunteer appreciation items like food for tech dinners, water for backstage, and cast party food.
One of the chorus performers for High School Musical was out sick on Sunday so April worked through some of the basketball team scenes to make sure that we had his part covered.
Saturday after the performance a small group came to the Studio Theatre and had cake and punch and celebrated the 45th Anniversary of the theatre's founding. Photo albums and newspaper scrap books were spread across several tables and those who attended had a great time looking at past shows and press clippings. Thanks to board members Heather Dorr for getting the cake and punch and for Ann Counts and Jennifer Hughes for helping serve.
Tonight is play selection at 5:30 pm to look at plays for next season. Doubt rehearses at 7 pm in the Studio theatre.
I will upload some of the photos to the website from Bill and put some photos of the Saturday Anniversary Party as well as backstage Sunday on this blog.
One of the chorus performers for High School Musical was out sick on Sunday so April worked through some of the basketball team scenes to make sure that we had his part covered.
Saturday after the performance a small group came to the Studio Theatre and had cake and punch and celebrated the 45th Anniversary of the theatre's founding. Photo albums and newspaper scrap books were spread across several tables and those who attended had a great time looking at past shows and press clippings. Thanks to board members Heather Dorr for getting the cake and punch and for Ann Counts and Jennifer Hughes for helping serve.
Tonight is play selection at 5:30 pm to look at plays for next season. Doubt rehearses at 7 pm in the Studio theatre.
I will upload some of the photos to the website from Bill and put some photos of the Saturday Anniversary Party as well as backstage Sunday on this blog.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Mid day Monday
The school matinee was a big success. The students and teachers loved the show.
Not only are these kids doing a great job of acting but they are also moving set pieces on and off the stage in very short time periods. Many scene changes have 20 seconds to completely change the stage. In addition to the scene changes they are doing multiple costume changes during the show. In one scene they are a brainiac, the next scene they are a jock, and the next scene something else. Katy Miller and Robert Sharkey are outstanding as Troy and Gabrielle. Emily Yocum and Jacob Waid are extremely funny as Sharpay and Ryan. Eileen Doan and Daniel Pearson who play Taylor and Chad are really enjoyable to watch. Caleb Farley has such great energy as Zeke. Emily Hensel and Oscar Bickerstaff really shine as Kelsi and Jack Scott. In almost every number the actors waiting offstage from the leads to the smallest chorus part are singing along with the group onstage to give a big sound.
It has been a joy to work with Jacquelin Jones who plays Darbus. She has the same enthusiasm and energy as the kids. Sometimes we have to band together for sanity as the only adults in the show backstage. That much teen energy gets a little crazy.
We had two minor lighting problems that the audience wasn't aware of this morning but that caused Todd Yocum on lights to panic briefly. The first was at intermission when we switched memories on the light board from Act One to Act Two. The lights went down at the end of the act and Todd inserted a disk and the light board was supposed to erase the first act cues and load the second act cues. Then Todd is supposed to bring up the first cue of act two which is to bring up the lights above the audience for intermission. When Todd pressed the button to load the new memory and it said "Disk Failed" there was a real panic. Fortunately I planned for that and had several additional cues loaded on the first act disk to get us through a problem. I have experienced this problem before. I told Todd over the headset to take out the disk and reinsert it firmly. Sometimes the disk fails because it doesn't have a strong connection. (These aren't normal computer disks.) He did that and everything worked fine. My fear is that the disk really does fail. Then days worth of work will be lost and they will have to make up the cues as we go along for Act Two. This afternoon I'm going to order two additional backup disks just in case. We used to have 4 disks but they eventually stop working. Each disk costs about $100+.
The other lighting trauma was at the end of the show. I programmed in 3 additional cues after the rehearsal last night for the lights to go out and then come back up for one last bow and then go out again. Unfortunately every time we change disks if the act isn't saved to the disk before I remove the disk the additional cue changes are lost. That's what happened this morning. I reprogrammed those cues again and saved them to the Act Two disk. This afternoon we will do the final touch up paint on the set and call it finished.
Make sure that you go to IListPaducah.com and read the great feature Mary Thorsby did on our show. Adam Shull the entertainment writer with the Paducah Sun did a great photo and article for the Paducah Sun Current edition today. WPSD-TV has also helped promote the show during the morning newscast. Without all these community people it would be impossible for us to promote the shows we do. A huge thanks goes out to Mary at IList, Adam at the Paducah Sun, and Jody Smith at WPSD-TV.
Not only are these kids doing a great job of acting but they are also moving set pieces on and off the stage in very short time periods. Many scene changes have 20 seconds to completely change the stage. In addition to the scene changes they are doing multiple costume changes during the show. In one scene they are a brainiac, the next scene they are a jock, and the next scene something else. Katy Miller and Robert Sharkey are outstanding as Troy and Gabrielle. Emily Yocum and Jacob Waid are extremely funny as Sharpay and Ryan. Eileen Doan and Daniel Pearson who play Taylor and Chad are really enjoyable to watch. Caleb Farley has such great energy as Zeke. Emily Hensel and Oscar Bickerstaff really shine as Kelsi and Jack Scott. In almost every number the actors waiting offstage from the leads to the smallest chorus part are singing along with the group onstage to give a big sound.
It has been a joy to work with Jacquelin Jones who plays Darbus. She has the same enthusiasm and energy as the kids. Sometimes we have to band together for sanity as the only adults in the show backstage. That much teen energy gets a little crazy.
We had two minor lighting problems that the audience wasn't aware of this morning but that caused Todd Yocum on lights to panic briefly. The first was at intermission when we switched memories on the light board from Act One to Act Two. The lights went down at the end of the act and Todd inserted a disk and the light board was supposed to erase the first act cues and load the second act cues. Then Todd is supposed to bring up the first cue of act two which is to bring up the lights above the audience for intermission. When Todd pressed the button to load the new memory and it said "Disk Failed" there was a real panic. Fortunately I planned for that and had several additional cues loaded on the first act disk to get us through a problem. I have experienced this problem before. I told Todd over the headset to take out the disk and reinsert it firmly. Sometimes the disk fails because it doesn't have a strong connection. (These aren't normal computer disks.) He did that and everything worked fine. My fear is that the disk really does fail. Then days worth of work will be lost and they will have to make up the cues as we go along for Act Two. This afternoon I'm going to order two additional backup disks just in case. We used to have 4 disks but they eventually stop working. Each disk costs about $100+.
The other lighting trauma was at the end of the show. I programmed in 3 additional cues after the rehearsal last night for the lights to go out and then come back up for one last bow and then go out again. Unfortunately every time we change disks if the act isn't saved to the disk before I remove the disk the additional cue changes are lost. That's what happened this morning. I reprogrammed those cues again and saved them to the Act Two disk. This afternoon we will do the final touch up paint on the set and call it finished.
Make sure that you go to IListPaducah.com and read the great feature Mary Thorsby did on our show. Adam Shull the entertainment writer with the Paducah Sun did a great photo and article for the Paducah Sun Current edition today. WPSD-TV has also helped promote the show during the morning newscast. Without all these community people it would be impossible for us to promote the shows we do. A huge thanks goes out to Mary at IList, Adam at the Paducah Sun, and Jody Smith at WPSD-TV.
Opening!
We open High School Musical this morning at 10 am to a sold out school matinee audience. Wednesday nights rehearsal went well. The actors all focused and had a good final dress rehearsal. Every time we get to this moment I'm always surprised, even after a life time of opening shows. When you start rehearsals opening seems like a long time in the future. Then as you get closer it feels like you are running out of time to get everything done. As the play opens, all the hours of hard work begin to pay off and scenes that only a week ago seemed like they would never work out begin to flow. The music takes on a life of its own and begins to soar. The dance steps that never seemed to mesh now feel like second nature. Then you think- we open tomorrow! It seemed so distant just a few weeks ago and now that moment is here.
This show has been very difficult for me on several levels due to all the hats I'm wearing. Trying to run out from back stage and sit and watch as a scene designer and lighting designer, so I can make notes and fix problems. Running backstage to be the floor manager when all of the big scene changes happen so I can help if we have a problem. Then grabbing my props and walking onstage trying to remember my lines and have some semblance of character as an actor.
The joy at the final dress was to watch as the teen actors came off the stage from a scene and high five each other because they knew it went well. Sitting in the wings watching them perform, watching them take the stage and make this their show. A show as good and sometimes better than the adult shows the theatre produces. Thirty performers dancing to choreography by Mary Kathryn Dorr and Emily Hensel who have done an outstanding job on the dances. It does feel like a music video sometimes. April as always has driven everyone hard to get the best out of them and like a great team they come together and do a great job. Cindy Miller as music director is always pulling and shaping the sound to make it absolutely wonderful.
Curtain is in less than 1 hour so it's time to get my head in the game! Hope you get to see the show. It will definitely be worth the effort.
This show has been very difficult for me on several levels due to all the hats I'm wearing. Trying to run out from back stage and sit and watch as a scene designer and lighting designer, so I can make notes and fix problems. Running backstage to be the floor manager when all of the big scene changes happen so I can help if we have a problem. Then grabbing my props and walking onstage trying to remember my lines and have some semblance of character as an actor.
The joy at the final dress was to watch as the teen actors came off the stage from a scene and high five each other because they knew it went well. Sitting in the wings watching them perform, watching them take the stage and make this their show. A show as good and sometimes better than the adult shows the theatre produces. Thirty performers dancing to choreography by Mary Kathryn Dorr and Emily Hensel who have done an outstanding job on the dances. It does feel like a music video sometimes. April as always has driven everyone hard to get the best out of them and like a great team they come together and do a great job. Cindy Miller as music director is always pulling and shaping the sound to make it absolutely wonderful.
Curtain is in less than 1 hour so it's time to get my head in the game! Hope you get to see the show. It will definitely be worth the effort.
Monday, October 20, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tech Sunday
We are in the period traditionally known as "Hell Week". It is a time when 16-18 hour work days are more the norm than the exception. Tomorrow is the cue and level set for High School Musical. I've been working the past few days on hanging and focusing the lights in preparation for cue and level set. Tomorrow afternoon about 1 pm we will begin setting each of the light cues for the show. Every time that a major mood change or location change happens in the show there is generally a lighting cue to help define the new location or a light cue which helps to amplify the mood. Today I divided the stage in 20 acting areas. Each area has at least one light focused on it to provide natural daylight scenes. In addition we have 12 lighting bands of color from the sides of the stage and and 5 lighting bands of color from above the stage. There are special lights only focused on the area that one of the actors stand in when the rest of the stage is dark. Setting the lights for each area, color band, and special on the stage including followspots is a time consuming and challenging job. The Yokum family (Todd, Kim, Emily, and Daniel) have most graciously volunteered to "walk the stage" during the cue and level set. They are filling in for the performers in the different areas. For instance I will ask Kim to walk from Stage right to Stage left so that I can watch the lights on the actors face to make sure it remains consistent. Other times I will have the actors move from one area to another to see which area is the brightest so that we don't pull the audiences focus during an important scene with lots of people. In staging the higher the person is the more dominant they often are. We have a set that at the back the actors head is 10 feet in the air. Jim Keeney is building about a dozen windows made out of shrink wrap weatherizing sheets. We are spray painting these with white flat spray paint and then shining colored lights on the back of them so it can change the mood during the scene. These dozen windows also have to have the light balanced on them so they aren't brighter than the person standing in front of the windows. Musicals are generally much harder than non- musicals. Children's plays which rely on lights of location changes are always harder than adult shows. High School Musical has about 20 location changes in the script and also has music. In designing the lights for a musical each time the songs emotion changes generally the lighting also reflects that. Some musical have taken 15 hours to set lights. Some non-musicals 2 hours.
Today was spent trying to free up dimmers. We have 48 dimmers each able to hold a maximum load of 20 amps or 2400 watts. Since most of our lights are 500 watts, 750 watts, and 1000 watts we can only put so many lights on each dimmer. April needs specials on the school announcer, and various people in different isolated areas for cell phone calls. Since I can only put one 500-750 watt light in each special that means I have a limited number of dimmers to work with for my color bands, and for the main acting light on each area. I spent part of the day trying to put two areas together onto one dimmer instead of two to free up a dimmer to be used for a special.
Our current lighting system was bought approx. 20 years ago. The technology has changed a lot since that purchase. Many of the lights I used today were purchased used when the theatre was founded 45 years ago. The stage lighting industry is slowly moving towards more LED lighting instruments that are far more energy efficient and much easier to handle while running since a lot of the energy isn't transformed into heat. A single 500 watt light puts out so much heat that you have to wear gloves just to touch the metal housing for each light. Last years electric bill for the theatre was almost $20,000.
So tomorrow Kim, Todd, Emily and Daniel will we spending lots of time sitting in the dark while April and I work out what the design will be. We add lights for the first of 4 dress rehearsals. Wish us luck!
Today was spent trying to free up dimmers. We have 48 dimmers each able to hold a maximum load of 20 amps or 2400 watts. Since most of our lights are 500 watts, 750 watts, and 1000 watts we can only put so many lights on each dimmer. April needs specials on the school announcer, and various people in different isolated areas for cell phone calls. Since I can only put one 500-750 watt light in each special that means I have a limited number of dimmers to work with for my color bands, and for the main acting light on each area. I spent part of the day trying to put two areas together onto one dimmer instead of two to free up a dimmer to be used for a special.
Our current lighting system was bought approx. 20 years ago. The technology has changed a lot since that purchase. Many of the lights I used today were purchased used when the theatre was founded 45 years ago. The stage lighting industry is slowly moving towards more LED lighting instruments that are far more energy efficient and much easier to handle while running since a lot of the energy isn't transformed into heat. A single 500 watt light puts out so much heat that you have to wear gloves just to touch the metal housing for each light. Last years electric bill for the theatre was almost $20,000.
So tomorrow Kim, Todd, Emily and Daniel will we spending lots of time sitting in the dark while April and I work out what the design will be. We add lights for the first of 4 dress rehearsals. Wish us luck!
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