| White padded cell here I come! |
[Jul. 13th, 2005|09:42 pm]
Tales from shows
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| [ | Current Mood |
| |  drained | ] |
I haven't posted in about a year, but to day was one hellish day and it needs to be shared for my own sanity. Sorry for the length and thanks for letting me vent.
I am stage managing Bye, Bye Birdie in a community theatre we are half way through the run off the show. Today was the Children’s Camp Matinee. Which is a pain in itself; many, many small to medium sized children screaming during every black out, cat calling at every romantic moment; basically being loud and obnoxious. My actor’s are moaning about having to be up and in the theatre at 8:30am for a 10:00am show (most decide to show up at 9:30 and one not at all).One actress and a tech are throwing up but are still there. We were missing 4 of the 6 member band because they didn’t know about today’s performance (same with the tech crew 4 out of 12) we had replacements for the tech crew. The band on the other hand, well we have an amazing musical director with a synthesizer.
During pre-show light check the light board op informs me that the 2nd elec. is out along with the top of house booms. The opening of the house was held for almost half an hour while we try to problem shoot. I would now like to remind you of the audience many, many small to medium sized children. Nothing we try works, the LD is in another city, but we get a hold of him. We have already done most of what he suggests. Finally, I had almost been driven to near mental collapse (with the actor’s, techs, musicians, children, light’s and a house manager who has her nose in everyone business but her own) and make the executive decision that we were going to run in ten minuets. This resulted in turning on the work lights for the 2nd and running with what lights we had on the other elec’s. The light’s weren’t that bad, the few black outs we have weren’t, and a special for “Talk to Me” was a flashlight pointed at Albert’s face from offstage (held by our set designer aka Mr. McAfee).
The show was actually turning out ok, until the 16 or so teens in the cast decided the audience didn’t like the show or the actors and so they decided they didn’t want to do part of the closing number. They thought the audience didn’t like them because they didn’t laugh; these are kids 7 to 13 who are watching a show with comedic references from the 50’s; of course they didn’t laugh, they didn’t understand. I had to threaten them into performing and I am still furious about it.
After the show my light board op and I spent an hour and a half on the 2nd elec. With the help of our LD by cell we discovered that the brain to one of the dimmer packs is dead and might be replaceable in three day’s (the last show).
On the bright side I get a free Starbucks from a late cast member. I know that it could have been worse as in someone could have been hurt or worse. And I know that I most likely did something that is causing someone else grip today. Most of the time I love the cast and crew, except for a select few. |
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