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.

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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.

Harvey

Currently my only theatrical pursuit in this town is a lighting design at First Presbyterian Theater, for their production of Harvey.

I've got a production meeting today with the director and other designers. As yet there hasn't been a lot of progress on my end of things. I helped with the set build, but I haven't been in all week to see what's happened with the painting. So that will be a surprise I guess.

Being a straight play, it won't offer a huge amount of opportunity for creativity and mind-blowing techniques, but I think I'll be able to lend a unique hand to the space. I've previously designed two shows at Pres, The Underpants and You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and I think both of those definitely showed a little bit of deviation from the norm.

I'll try and find something to push for, anyway.