This past week (and until Sunday), I have once again entered the black hole of tech week. As the title of this post would indicate, the show is Macbeth (The Scottish Play? Blog isn't really a performance space, but I have been reluctant to say it). It's been super fun, and now I'm going to talk about it in depth.
Last Sunday (in the rain...boo), we loaded in our set. After measuring and taping out our space, the lighting designer and I set up the booms (poles/pipes that run horizontally and vertically in the space) so we could be prepared to hang lights on Monday. This went very smoothly, and I was very happy to get to use my new red and black measuring tape. We hung the ten lights we had, set up the board, and called it a day.
Monday was a little odd. The representative of the lighting rental company was fired during the time the order for the show was being placed, so things were a little haphazard over there, and we couldn't get our stuff until 3PM, which is pretty late in the day. I had class until 4:50, so I got there at 5 and except for a break from 8:30-9:30, didn't leave until 1:30AM. In that time, we did all of the cabling, patching, and focusing. The lights were all hung between 3 and 5, so I wasn't as involved with that. We scheduled the hang and cable for Monday and focus for Tuesday, but since we focused on Monday night, we saved some time. It was pretty great.
I got to compensate for my sleep on Tuesday morning, and then after I ate lunch, headed over to the space. The designer was already programming the cues, and I started taping down the cable according to the safety codes. I did run an errand to the theater department light shop to return some gel and ask for a donut, which was fun and also gave me some face time with the guy who runs the light shop that I haven't previously had, so that was good. I had class, then went back, but it was locked, so I headed over after dinner to finish my taping, and I stayed through rehearsal with some reading in my bag. I find that during tech week it's easier for me to go to the space and stay longer than I have to than to motivate myself to walk there once I'm already tired. I stayed until midnight, then went to sleep.
Wednesday, I went in the evening, but the job I was planning on doing was already done, so I watched the run, had the prod meeting, managed the hanging of curtains, then chatted with friends until I decided to go home. Before the run was really fun because we had a massage chain and then went to Starbucks for coffee. I had a lot of coffee :)
Thursday I didn't go to the space. Around 4PM I started feeling overwhelmed by looking at my computer for the work I was doing and had a really bad headache, so after dinner I took a three hour nap then decided to stay home. As much as I love opening night, this was a health decision that I had to make. And besides, if I had left, I wouldn't have found the two-inch scary alien insect on my wall as soon as I did so it could have crawled on my stuff instead of my wall. It went crunch; I'm a little scarred.
I've also had Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog stuck in my head all week, so I've been singing that all over the place.
Anyway, this was a pretty awesome tech week. Things went a lot better than expected. I had planned ahead to get all my homework done before going into the week, but I ended up having a lot more time than anticipated because things were faster and smoother than usual. I love it when things like that happen. The team for this show was fantastic; just a group of friends making art, and that's my favorite type of team to be on. I've worked with this lighting designer before, and he gave me a lot more autonomy and responsibility than in previous shows, and it just felt good to be working with him instead of for him this time around. I think that contributed to the goodness of the week.
I'm very excited to attend the final three of five performances, and I'm really proud to have been a part of this show.
Today is awesome because this project is getting an audience tonight!
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