Changing Roles

So, as I've mentioned, I am on the road as ME for The 39 Steps.

In my last post I touched briefly on what I believe to be my greatest stumbling block: acting in a supervisory role. In my previous work, it's mostly fallen to me to do the vast majority of the work, from physical to mental. Every time I've been an ME I've participated in a large portion of the hang and focus myself. Don't get me wrong, I've led crews before. I've taught, directed and scolded. But I've never been in quite the position I am now. I hold sole responsibility for the implementation of my show the way it was designed, and to that end I have a number of crew members that require specific direction to accomplish tasks. In order to finish my load in, I simply can not be 'hands on' and do most of the physical work myself. I have time to hang one of my movers, just to make sure the crew knows how. I've got time to demonstrate what I mean by, 'Run the data to that end,' and have to trust that it gets done. I'm learning to be completely explicit about what I need (one day the strobes missed the DMX train, for example, costing me a good ten minutes while I fixed it) and that I can't sugar coat my requests. There simply isn't time.

I have trouble with that. I find it difficult to be stern. It's hard for me to say "This is what I need and I would like it done five minutes ago." Even though I usually actually want it done ten minutes ago, I just feel like such a tool being any sort of 'boss.'

The worst, though, is when I send a couple folks to retrieve circuiting information or to hang a position, only to discover at my next check-in with that crew that what they've done is just wrong. Now I have to be even more stern, and I just hate that. I don't want to be perceived as 'that dick roadie,' because I really don't think I am. It does seem, though, that local crews don't feel the time crunch the same way, and that's a problem. Why should they rush around if they don't know how desperately behind I feel?

Right now my schedule is something like this:

8am - Truck opens and boxes start coming. I know now how I would approach labeling cases, the next time I'm gearing up for a tour. It's not how I did it this time. Hopefully by now I've taped my electrics so the crew can just start hanging once I get the pipe.

10:30 - First break. My goal at this point is to have my fixtures hung and cabled, and the cables run to the distro. At this point I'll set people on getting my atmospherics set up and cabled, and set up my board. This leads into:

12:00 - Lunch. Right now I would be in a great place if I was ready to start focus right after lunch, though so far there have inevitably been problems preventing that. Conventional focus can be time consuming for any variety of reasons, but it's getting better. The majority of my instrumentation is dedicated to six washes, so with a competent crew I can describe the first area in detail and then just focus the hotspot and they'll get the cuts while I get the next light up. Usually the spikes are going down while I start my focus, so when I've finished the FOH washes I can hit the specials on that pipe.

After I finish conventional focus, I have to hit mover focus. I'm getting more confident in this, but a lot of it still comes down to my SM/ASM to tell me where stuff is. I've only seen this show from the front once, during an understudy rehearsal, which is a big hindrance for me. I just don't know what these things are supposed to look like, so I'm doing what I can.

~6:00 - Dinner. I'm getting to the point where my focus is completely done at this point, and now I can check my practicals and presets, and do whatever other pre-show stuff I have.

--

It's a lot of stuff, and definitely the most responsibility I've ever been saddled with. I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I know I've gained a boatload of new skills that will help carry me forward in my career.

I am definitely looking forward to a summer rep season, though.

On the road again.

So my last post was depressing.

Things have, since that last entry, changed quite a bit. I've just hit the road with a national tour of The 39 Steps. We had a somewhat difficult tech process, owing mostly, I think, to a master carpenter who broke his ankle days before he was supposed to fly out.

Difficult tech weeks are part of the business, though, shit happens right? Well, we got through it. My first load in was... not good. I was much less prepared than I thought I was, and the show looked terrible. I was dealing with a local crew who moved at a fairly glacial pace, and just couldn't seem to complete a hang position without a mistake or two, and circuit information was just not recorded well or consistently.

I pushed through as much of my focus as I could, and managed to at least light the stage, though the show didn't look much like its intended design. I was also learning how to run the Hog, as our tech process had left me with no time to familiarize myself with it. (The lack of any kind of ability to directly control dimmers is a huge downfall in my opinion.)

We did two nights in our first venue. The second day I was able to sort out the circuiting information by being a little more stern than I like with the local crew, but we got it done. Then I was able to push through my focus and get shit looking right. The second show looked great, I'm told, and I'm much happier about it.

We're en route to Iowa now, having stopped in Missouri for the day. That's all I've got for now, I'll try to write about my experiences living on the road later.

Oh, by the way, I have already lined up my summer job as Principle Elec/Board op at Shakespeare & Co. in MA.

The now.

I haven't written anything in particular for a while. It's tough to find the inspiration, motivation, and time for writing. I need to have all three at once, and they just don't coincide often. Now, in the steady grasp of sleeplessness, might as well be as good a time as any.

Tonight we're in Brooklyn, with a show at Brooklyn College tomorrow. Our sound tech (who toured with this company last fall) insists that tomorrow will be an excellent crew, and numerous. That's always nice. Today's (Monday?) crew was pretty exceptional. We had already played the space (Strand Theatre, Lakewood) once on this tour, and just last week Encore went through. They're well practiced this year. I think it was the fastest in we've had. The out was up there, too, but I think it was a few minutes shy of the record. I didn't write the record down so it's hard to be sure.

We've only got two more shows this week, and then we're off for thanksgiving until Monday. We'll be spending the break on Long Island, so I might spend some time exploring the city in somewhat greater detail than I have had the opportunity to, so far. So far, in my somewhat limited experience, I do like New York. It's a whole other sort of thing from any of the cities I've spent time in previously. Granted that's not much of a surprise to anyone, whether they've been here or not, but it is significant enough, I think, to be mentioned; even though we all know it already.

The tour is coming, rapidly, to a close. I can't say I find myself disappointed, and if you've read any of my recent writings I think you'd guess that without any mention. I like the idea of being on the road, but I want to be on the road with a show that challenges me, that gives me more than 15 minutes or so a day of troubleshooting, even perhaps a show into which I had some level of input. I know that I couldn't stomach touring forever. It's not the environment I need, but I do like the travel, the seeing of new places.

So where do I want to be? Really with any company that's regularly producing work (New, old, original, rehashed) with a proper creative team (so community theatre is not a great option, in most cases) who is actually interested in expressing something beyond the text. What role do I envision myself filling there? To be honest I think I could be happy in my electrician/carpenter/welder/audio engineer/wizard role from college, or in a more standard ME position, or as an LD, or some blend of all of those. Give me the chance to express myself and to create again. That's all I really want. And probably all I really need.

ennui

I'm not being challenged.

Maybe this is true of any tour, perhaps the thing to embrace about driving around in a truck and doing theatre in a new location every day (or every week, or every month?) is the part where you're in a place you've never been before. Perhaps you have to accept monotony when you're doing the same show over and over again.

Or perhaps, when saddled with responsibility for 'legitimate' theatre, as opposed to being handed the keys to a 30 year old rig (I have two instruments which are younger than me, the job begins to gain a sort of luster. Okay, maybe the rest aren't ACTUALLY 30 years old, but i have no reason to believe they aren't), given some focus charts and set out on the road. The most interesting part of my job is communicating with the house electrician and patching his front of house instruments and the house lights. Everything else is the same, every day. Here, I'll describe it to you.

1. Wake up. Eat some breakfast (does this hotel have meat/hot eggs? hopefully...).
2. Pack whatever shit isn't already in my bag.
3. Play the ever-changing game of tetris to get my bag into the van.
4. Drive truck to venue.
5. Try to find and talk to electrician very quickly about my power/DMX needs, then get back to the truck.
6. Unload truck.
7. Get back into the venue, see how my tie-in is going. Or, if there's no company switch, start wondering where I'm going to find six or seven different household circuits.
8. Lay out power and DMX cable for each dimmer pack.
9. Set up board. If using house FOH, talk to their electrician and get some reasonable instruments patched. Patch houselights or work out plan for running unison/older control system/light switch (I played a house where ALL of the houselights [for a 700ish seat house] were on a single lightswitch backstage. Baffling). Tell my SM we're patched so she can call the FOH focus. Set up the laptop and make sure the Keystroke is working.
10. Focus my rig. I have two actors who do the hang, thankfully. I'd never be done on time otherwise.
11. I usually finish about the same time as the SM, clear the board and get into preshow. This usually happens anywhere from 10-15 before house opens to a few minutes after. Now I take a couple minutes to hang out, then get on headset so I can make calls for the actors (the SM is in the house by now)
12. Once the show starts, zone out and push go when I'm told. Autopilot here, or else I'll memorize everyone's lines.
13. Show's over? Get a house crew member or two to start coiling cable, get the power killed, pack up my control stuff. Help with cable. Pack boxes. Start pushing shit into truck.
14. Once set's done we start the pack in earnest. Get it done, get the truck closed. On to the next city.

Seems fine enough, but I'll be damned if this isn't kind of incredibly unfufilling. I'm not challenged, I'm not engaged (the whole process is autopilot, to be honest) and we don't spend enough time in most cities to even be enamored with the new locations. 

I'm suffering from terminal boredom. 

Detritus and Inertia

I'm in the middle of moving out of my apartment and back to Logan. My last hope at a job for the immediate present fell through, when Valley Fair amusement park in Shakopee, MN, hired the ME/Electrician spot op position before I received an interview, and filled the audio technician position with a local for the sake of expediency, even after taking the time to interview me.

Anyway. I'm writing about the moving process. It's raining and I'm sitting in Wendy's, hoping that perhaps it might let up (though it doesn't appear that it will) a bit before I return to my endeavors.

Over the years and moves I've accumulated a fair amount of shit. Junk. Crap. I hesitate to throw things away because of some potential future value. I hang on to every little thing, every DC adapter, every piece of electronic junk I might use some day. Tools that are obviously barely functional. Pieces of what anyone else might call garbage that I might one day use to build something.

Well no more. Most of it's in the dumpster already. I'm hoping that perhaps my enforced inertia, my seeming inability to move forward and change my state of being, is somehow connected to this debris of life. Like an emotional and mental anchor, lodging me thoroughly in place.

So by divesting myself of it, of anything not directly connected to my work or my amusements, anything that serves no purpose other than filling a closet, I hope that I cut this seemingly unbreakable tether to the status quo. That I am allowed to rise up like a balloon freed of its ballast,

Can it really make much of a difference? I don't know that I can say, but I know that it's a lot less shit to take back home and store there. I'll be glad to be rid of it. I'll return to logan a few hundred pounds lighter for it, and certainly with less shit to worry about.

I'll keep you posted on whether it affects my inertia.

Working, or not

I've applied to a lot of places recently, and so far have had no real success.

This is tremendously discouraging. I have, in the past year or so, accepted the fact that I really am good at what I do. I think this is a big step for me. I believe it's natural for people to be self-deprecating, to not really believe in their own abilities. It's hard to accept that you might, in fact, be better at something than most (or all) of the folks around you. I would never claim to be the best, there's always someone better, somewhere.

At the same time though, I know I have an expansive skill set. I do electrics and sound, which isn't that uncommon of a pairing. I know lighting is my strongest suit. I'm fast with the hang and focus, I rarely fail to get the board to do what I want when I'm programming, I'm good at dealing with DMX networks. I know electricity, so I can build props or wire up any sort of practicals. My biggest failing is that I haven't got much experience with the latest generation of lighting consoles, or HOG consoles, but that's just from a lack of exposure. I know if I had a few hours with some of this technology, I could be well on my way to proficiency. It's just a matter of exposure.

I know quite a bit about sound, I know that there's always more to learn, but this is another area I've devoted a lot of time to. I understand the equipment and the theory. Again, not a lot of experience with the latest consoles (digital is getting big) but they're not that far removed from their analog brothers as far as the way they work. Exposure.

I'm a capable carpenter, I know that. Working in the shop isn't my favorite thing, but it's something I've been doing just as long as lighting and sound. I'm comfortable in a shop, familiar with any tools you're likely to run into in theatre. I can weld reasonably well, with the two most common processes. I even know a little bit of scenic painting.

You'd think that would make it relatively easy to find a job. That's not the case. I don't know if this recession means more seasoned professionals are vying for entry level positions or what, but even a minimum wage (well, $0.25 an hour more than that) in the middle of nowhere was flooded with applications. And that's one that included custodial duties.

I don't know what I can do to make myself more attractive as a prospective employee, or how to convince people I would really be a positive choice. I almost envy the actors' audition process. It's an opportunity to immediately and without a doubt demonstrate your abilities. I get a page or two of skills and work experience, and hopefully they call me for a phone interview. What good is a phone interview in determining someone's suitability? Everyone's going to give the same bullshit answers about dedication and passion, right?

It's immensely frustrating and I don't like it, no sir not one bit.