Not Dead (Undead?)
The almost seven month delay was caused by a front-loaded season, which included both “A Doll’s House”, “Oleanna”, and a Halloween production of “Night of the Living Dead” (yes, the zombie movie. On-stage.)
I was fortunate to be cast as the sheriff in “Night of the Living Dead”, and I had the most ridiculous death scene at the very end of the play. My deputy (my friend Charles) and I enter the darkened house, only to be surrounded and overtaken by a gang of zombies. I was also recruited to help with the extensive zombie makeup, as well as helping choreograph the fights I was in. All in all, it was an amazing experience.
This semester, however, I have been taking it easy on the involvement in the department side of things. My new life goal is to graduate by next May with a degree in theatre, and then to go on to medical school. Yes, that’s right – undergrad theatre degree, then medical school. I want to be a surgeon. I figure if I can stand the weird hours a theatre job provides, plus the stress of tech week and dealing with actors, I can help save lives too.
Wish me broken legs.
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And Again…
School has begun. Again. With that comes the absolutely genius idea of running our production of “Love’s Fire” for another two weekends. After having two weeks off, it feels like this show will never die.
Don’t get me wrong – we have a great show. However, it’s been long enough. The cast is no longer actually motivated to do it, and now that we have to actually work to get people to come see the shows, it is no longer fun. On our re-opening night last Thursday, there were ten people in the audience. There are twenty people in the cast.
If there’s one thing most actors can’t stand, it’s playing to houses smaller than the cast. However, I’m willing to forgive all of that if the audience members sound like they enjoy the show, as opposed to sitting there in silence. Thursday last, this was most definitely not the case. All ten of those people sat in their chairs silently, staring at all of us onstage. It’s hard enough to have a good performance when the audience is quiet, or when it’s small, but when it’s both? I’d rather be shot.
This past week, most of us have been pushing the show like mad people – putting up flyers, passing out brochures, and even offering free tickets. Hopefully we’ll have a better weekend.
In other news, we have auditions for two shows coming up! Monday is Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”, which is going to be interesting. The director is usually very non-realistic or surreal in her approaches to her shows. Tuesday, auditions for David Mamet’s “Oleanna” are being held. The fun thing about this one is that one of my professors is going to be playing the male role (who is a college professor). I’m dying to be Carol in “Oleanna”, so don’t hesitate to wish me luck at around 8 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday!
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Finished!
Eight shows in four days. That was closing weekend for all of us. Somehow, we made it out alive, and now have two weeks of freedom before school starts back up. For some, this is spent moving, sleeping, and generally recovering from the past thirteen weeks of mayhem. For me, this means being home in Wisconsin, sorting through my possessions, selling some off, and scrounging for student loans.
It has been a long summer, to say the least, but it has also been very important for a lot of people. Personally, being given the opportunity to work with such big names and professional actors has been one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me. It has by no means been a cakewalk, but there was more good than bad. Like I said, working with such prominent figures has been nothing but fantastic careerwise, and I have learned many things.
Perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that no one is expendable, and that everyone should be treated with a certain level of respect. Regardless of having bad days, being able to be nice to people is an invaluable skill. When working as someone’s superior, it is important to remember that they aren’t to be taken for granted. Students are no different than the head of a department – everyone has a breaking point, and toying with that boundary can only serve to lower morale and make people despise going in to work every day. It’s simple – be nice to employees and they’ll perform better. Why not allow a cheerful attitude in the workplace, and strive as hard as you can to ensure that?
I’m fully aware that I sound like a propagandist recording in the World War II era, but that’s one thing that just does not change. Treating others as they want to be treated never goes out of style, and that is the one lesson that I will continue to carry with me.
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A Mystery
Have you ever realized that you’re doing an insane amount of work, and been kind of surprised at how much you can handle? That’s been me over the past two weeks.
After opening weekend (which was fabulous), the student Apprentice Company, of which I’m a part, started rehearsals for our own show, “Love’s Fire”. This entails music rehearsals, dance rehearsals, and rehearsals for each short play. There are workshops that have to do with costumes, auditions, music, and Shakespearean language, and although our days are about four hours shorter, they’re still feeling pretty jam-packed.
A few weeks back, in the middle of tech week, one of our Equity actors, Jessica, was musing about how lucky we were. We get to work with amazing professional actors and we get paid a fair amount to do it. In most apprentice companies for summer stock, the apprentices have to pay just about what we’re all making in order to clean toilets, mop floors, cook dinners for the Equity people, and essentially be slaves for the summer.
It’s a mystery how we have all been so fortunate.
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Theatrical Curse Time!!
Hi all… On the day after opening “Rough Crossing”, I thought it would only be right to talk a little bit about the show that opens tonight, “Dark of the Moon”. It turns out this play is also incredibly cursed, not unlike the Scottish Play.
One person, during the revival scene, had a heart attack and was carried offstage by his castmates. The audience didn’t know anything was wrong, since it just looked like it was part of the action. In a different production, an actor collapsed in the wings of the theatre and died shortly after the end of the show. After hearing about these and other events surrounding the play, there are many things that seem unnecessarily dangerous.
I have a great amount of respect for theatre superstitions, not because I believe in most of them, but because sometimes there are some incredibly inexplicable events. I have had my current theatre’s ghost slam doors in my face, I’ve had lights explode when they weren’t connected to anything (after someone naming the Scottish Play).
Tonight, I hope, will be just as successful an evening as last night. Perhaps something will go wrong, and perhaps not. If the crowd hates the show, so be it. If there are set change problems, so be it. If there are dropped lines, missed cues, slow costume changes, and set problems, then so be it.
I wish you all a lovely evening.
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Tech Week Dead Ahead
I’m about 65% sure that I’m no longer filled with plague, but I have been coughing and sneezing an awful lot for the past few weeks. I’m just hoping that it doesn’t get any worse over the next few days.
Tech week starts on Monday. That fabulous, happy, wonderful time starts in less than 30 hours. I am not excited. It’s going to be a lot of figuring out where the actors are backstage, and where my crews and I can be, so as to not be in the way. It’s going to be a lot of random cue problems and timing issues and line drops and angry directors. Hopefully no one will be angry with me, but I have yet to give them a reason to be. I think the only person that doesn’t particularly like me is the director of our 2 Gents musical. She’s very impatient, and clearly does not like having to wait for things or hearing the word “no”. Unfortunately for her, that’s what happens when there’s only one person setting up an entire backstage for a run-through. Understandably or not, her condescending calls of, “Are we ready?” and “Can we go now?” finally got to me on Friday night, which resulted in me shouting from the backstage to just give me five minutes and that I would let her know when we can start. The cast is still wondering how I didn’t get shouted at, much less thrown out of rehearsal.
I’m realizing that, for all the thanklessness this job entails, and for all of the crap I have to put up with, I really do have a lot of pull. I have yet to miss a day of rehearsal, and I can’t help but wonder how many things would fall apart if I did. Would all of the props for the three shows make it to their rightful places? Would actors know who to ask about different things, since our stage manager is usually too busy to answer questions? Maybe that’s why I didn’t get thrown out of rehearsal.
I’m not anticipating particularly regular entries until after we open all three shows, when my life calms down at least a little bit.
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Up and Down
I have to remind myself that if theatre was an easy thing to be a part of for a living, everyone would be doing it.
That being said, last week was mildly crazy, hence the lack of updates. In addition to a hectic week, I’ve gone and acquired the current theatre plague – first one actress had it, then a couple actors, then my stage manager, then a few more people, now me. Not to get too personal, but this is the worst I’ve felt in quite some time, and knowing that I have to cover for the assistant stage manager of the other show tomorrow isn’t helping too much. Nor is my random hunger at almost-2 AM – I just made a bowl of oatmeal, just to stop my stomach rumbling.
Enough about the plague.I managed to score some major brownie points, though… We have production meetings on Wednesday evenings, and somehow our lighting designer didn’t quite catch on that “production photos on June 12″ meant that he had to have lights up and ready to go. Halfway through his explanation of what his student assistants had been doing (which I gathered to be “not hanging anything that could be used for production photos”), I said I would hang the lights. Everyone at the table looked at me like I was god or something (kind of a weird experience, to be honest), and so that’s exactly what I did. I even managed a not-so-shabby hang, getting it all up, focused, and colored within two hours. BAM! I am now on the A-list of: all three (professional) directors, my boss, the lighting designer, our tech director, and the head of the theatre department. For instance, our department head sent me a text message that simply said, “Thank you so much. I’m proud of you.”
This was not written for the accolades. I am not writing this down to say, “Look at how great I am!” I’d rather like to point out how much of a team effort the theatre really needs to be, so that one person isn’t stuck doing someone else’s job the night before. I’m not blaming the lighting designer or any of his assistants, but I should not have had to spend those two hours in the grid. My job is to sit in on rehearsals and, y’know, ASSIST THE STAGE MANAGER. I don’t have the time or energy to keep saving the day because other people fall through on their agreements.
The upshot of this is that, in the eyes of three professional directors, the head of my theatre department, my stage manager, and the designers, I can do very little wrong for the next week or so. And honestly, that grace period is something that can only be attained by sucking it up, buckling down, and working as hard as humanly possible.
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What A Peculiar Day
Sometimes the strangest skills can impress people.
For instance, during rehearsal for “Dark Of The Moon”, the director asked if anyone knew how to chop wood. My hand flew into the air, and everyone looked at me like I was insane. I explained that my family heats our house with a woodstove during most of the winter (except for those REALLY cold night), and that I knew how to swing an axe with decent accuracy. The next fifteen minutes were spent teaching two actors how to split wood, essentially. It was incredibly surreal, but the director said it was the coolest thing he’d seen all day.
There are so many weird and off-the-wall talents, and it’s very gratifying to know they can actually serve an artistic purpose.
The other big event of the day was learning that one of my actors had been hospitalized last night. I went to visit him with a friend after rehearsal this evening, which was good – he’s fine. He took some supplement and didn’t drink enough water, so some compound built up in his muscles, liver, and kidneys, causing him to pass out. I’m very glad he’s alright, because it came as a big shock to learn he was in the hospital. I mean, people get sick and all that, but I don’t really remember the last time someone I had seen and talked to yesterday had to go to the hospital.
I’m being trusted with two days of rehearsal for the two shows I’m assistant stage managing, which is really cool, but kind of scary. My brain says, “Hey wait a minute, there’s Equity actors in there! Agh!” I’m pretty sure it will be alright, as long as no one sets anything on fire.
More to come later!
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Runaround Ahoy!
Today I realized that I should find a pedometer. I’ve begun counting how many steps it is between the stage management table in our rehearsal space and the copier in the office (39). Multiplying that by the number of times I visit the copier during a day (anywhere between five and twelve), that’s 195-468 steps right there. This doesn’t include traveling to and from my dorm, going up and down stairs, or the apprentice company meetings.
I have had a terribly difficult time sitting through music rehearsals for our musical. We are doing “The Two Gentlemen of Verona: The Musical”, and I simply can’t get into it. The music is simple, the phrasing is awkward (on the page), and there are things that have been changed about Shakespeare’s Two Gents that simply don’t make sense! It’s mildly bothersome, but hopefully that won’t matter to audiences. Given the talent we have in this cast, I doubt most people will notice a few things here or there.
As assistant stage manager, I am at the beck and call of our stage manager. I make copies, get her coffee, call people to organize things, and generally do whatever I’m told. It’s the most thankless job I’ve ever done. When I was stage managing by myself, I had to do all of this stuff anyway, but it didn’t seem like no one appreciated it, it just seemed like I was doing what was necessary. After this past week, I’m beginning to get the feeling that someone is taking complete advantage of me simply because they can, which sucks, but that’s why I’m here. If you ever feel like your career sucks, think about this – at least you’re not getting paid to be someone else’s lackey.
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Summer Stages Are Go!
It started. The fantastic summer job I have has started, and holy cow have I been busy. I have been through almost fourteen hours of rehearsal, ran two miles, did an hour of FitzMaurice voice technique work, half an hour of yoga, one evening get-together, plus I moved. And just think – that’s only the past three days!
Tomorrow holds more of the same, with a lot of faith being placed in me next Friday and Saturday. As assistant stage manager, I am at the beck and call of a fantastic person named Eileen, who is our stage manager. She will be gone those two days, leaving me to run rehearsals and keep people on track. It’s incredibly flattering, but also incredibly terrifying.
One of the best things I’m realizing is that I can make little changes to my lifestyle and see and feel near-immediate results. For instance, going cold turkey on cigarettes, running for at least twenty minutes every day, doing a good half an hour of stretching every morning, and, perhaps most importantly, eating ONLY the serving size of any sort of food, the two exceptions being water and coffee. I feel better than I have in a long time, and I think this summer season is going to get me to become that person I’ve always wanted to be.
There will be more that actually gets back to theatre later on… Thanks for reading!
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