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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