This past weekend was the performance weekend for a show I've been working on called The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful. It was a wonderful show experience.
I was the assistant technical director (ATD). I had never been on a set team before, so I learned a LOT every day. After the set was up, I was able to look at it and touch the pieces I had helped construct: hinges on doors, lots of painting, and the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus ended up being a bit of a pet project for me, and I had put doors on it (with hinges!), painted the entire inside and outside with metallic gold spray paint, and rigged a fake back for it. Seeing the things I had a hand in constructing or painting was really gratifying and an amazing experience. I went from being power tool incapable to impact driver competent over the course of three weeks.
For me, the thing that makes any experience special is who I work with. This team was AMAZING!! I had been going to themed production meetings since February (cardigans, everyone wear red, super heroes, spring break, pirates vs. ninjas, sea life, pajamas, and tech week), and I already knew many of the people on the team. The producer and my TD had both worked on Ragtime with me in January and the rest of the team I either got to know through the process or met when I was tech hopping in the winter. Every single person was good at what he/she did, wonderful as a teammate, and truly collaborative as artists.
The nature of this show makes every component completely dependent on the others. Yes, this is true of any show, but it felt more interwoven than many shows I've seen. Our actors were amazing; they could turn any moment into a comic bit to make the audience laugh. The lights guided the storytelling, as did the sound, which included underscoring and not just effects. The set was extremely important because of the various doors, and the costumes were all rigged for quick changes, which necessitated a crew of three people per actor to get through the show.
Watching four of the five performances was a great experience, particularly to see how the different audiences reacted as well as finding new things in the text and performance. Our closing audience was my favorite; they all laughed a lot at every joke, were completely invested in the play, and there were a handful of people who had returned to see the show again. My favorite audience moment was when a plot twist was revealed and before the other character could react, a girl in the front row said, "What?!?" very loudly. It was awesome!
After that performance, we struck the chairs, risers, and front of house lights, then had a really fun cast party before returning to strike the rest of the equipment on Sunday. It was a wonderful process from start to finish, and that type of process is hard to anticipate but amazing to have.
It's strange to already be onto my next show (I'm the master electrician for Into the Woods--I'll blog about it when it's over), but Vep will always be remembered as an epic part of this year.
Today is awesome because I had time to blog, and I've been wanting to write for a long time.
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