****************************************************EDITED AT END***************************************************
I wish I could say I've been off on grand adventures or blazing exciting new trails, but the sad truth is I've been up to my neck in commitments and stress.
There is this theater festival in town, and of course I'm obligated to help out on it. Last September I worked on this show called The Last Five Years.(Damn! You can find almost anything on Wikipedia.) About a month ago the producers of the show came up to me and said they were remounting the show for Stoneleaf. (the festival) They just assumed I'd stage manage and design the lights again. I've not only got my own show to direct (The Tempest), but I've got rehearsals for Hamlet, and I just finished up working on the last show. However, being the self-sadistic pushover I am I agreed to do it. So in between work and my rehearsals, I had to work on this other show.
This is however just the beginning.
Just when all these projects are starting to converge, my car decides it's time for a new alternator. I get up to go to work one morning a couple of weeks ago, and my battery is dead. There is no one around to jump me off, so I hop on my bike and ride to work. Of course I'm late, then, predictably, on my way home it begins to rain. I arrive home, drenched, and have to immediately leave again to begin my rehearsal tour. Once again my car wouldn't start, so reluctantly I head out on the bike. The dregs of the storm seemed to have passed, so I thought perhaps the gods had pity on me. Unfortunately not. On my way to my second rehearsal, there comes this torrential downpour. I'm soaked once again.
It's not over yet! Are you still with me?
The following morning I get up real early to call AAA. It's a great service (usually) but they always take FOREVER, so I call them like two hours before I have to be at work. Even at their slowest I should be able to take my car to the shop and make it to work on time. Right? Well, to my surprise, AAA arrived like half an hour later. The guy jumps off my car, but advises me against driving to the shop, because, as I suspected, my alternator was shot, and I probably wouldn't make it. He said he would call in a tow truck for me. I wait an hour, no sign of a truck. I call work and tell them I'll be a little late. Hour two still no truck. They're slow but usually not this slow. About fifteen minutes into my third hour of waiting, I finally call AAA, and to my chagrin, they never received a call for a tow truck. I am thoroughly pissed off by now, and it's raining, again. So the day goes much like the day before.
I once again get up early Friday morning, and call AAA. Amazingly, they send a tow truck this time. So that ends my AAA fiasco. The rest of the day goes relatively smoothly. The guys manage to fix my car by the end of the day, which was very fortunate, because I had a friend coming into town that weekend and it would have sucked to have been car-less. The damage, about $200 parts and labor.
With my friend in town, needless to say I get sidetracked from all the projects I have going on and get little done. The lighting hang for the theater festival was to begin on Sunday at 10 am. Not wanting to veer too much from my usual routine, my friend, other friends, and I carouse until about 3 the previous night. Sunday morning comes at least two hours too early. We go out to about 9am to get some breakfast before I have to go get to the hang, and he has to leave. We get seated rather quickly, but our order takes at least an hour to get out to us. Apparently they lost our order somewhere. So in usual fashion for the week, I arrive to the hang about 45 minutes late and still a bit hung-over. Thank god theater people are usually slackers anyway.
This tale is obviously long enough already, so in brief, the following week consists of nothing but work, and theater stress. The festival began Friday. Our first show was Saturday at 4pm. By 6pm Friday I still had to program most of the show. I saved what I had on a floppy disk (which by the way, are hard to find these days), so I could work on it at home. Turns out the floppy disk was corrupted so I couldn't work on it at home. I decide since I can't work on the show I'll to go to the opening night reception and schmooze. I can work on the design in the space early in the morning. I told myself because I had so much to do I should only stay for a little while and not drink too much. I finally stagger home at 2:30 am after the third and final bar had closed. So much for well laid plans. Seven am came at least five hours early that day. I drag my crippled ass to meet the director so we can gather props and set pieces and take them to the space. Our tech is from 9-11am and our show begins at 4 pm. Being the total slacker I am, predictably I don't get the design finished by the end of tech. This time I email the file to myself so in between the tech and rehearsal I can finish it up. I drag my hurting ass home and work on the design. I'm totally stressed out at this point, and I feel trouble hangs somewhere over my head. I finish the design (I think) and burn it onto a CD. I get to the theater bring up the design and realize the file I saved was not the complete show. (I forgot to save the show when I finished.) So I had to make many of the changes on the fly. I got through it, but it was not a pretty sight.
To top it off, all this stress finally caught up to me and made me sick. So I had to back out of a dinner party that I was invited to on Monday. It made me sad.
At least now most of the festival stress is over, now I just have to stress about The Tempest which opens in two weeks. I hope I can survive.
P.S. I've also been bedless for the last four days because they're using my bed in the show. The director was like, "I wonder where we can find a double bed?" and I stupidly chimed in, "I have a double bed." So he was like, "Excellent! We're using it. I'll come over in the morning and pick it up" and I was like "D'oh!"
So now I'm totally ghetto, and am sleeping on a dirty matress on the floor. Anybody have a spare bed?
I wish I could say I've been off on grand adventures or blazing exciting new trails, but the sad truth is I've been up to my neck in commitments and stress.
There is this theater festival in town, and of course I'm obligated to help out on it. Last September I worked on this show called The Last Five Years.(Damn! You can find almost anything on Wikipedia.) About a month ago the producers of the show came up to me and said they were remounting the show for Stoneleaf. (the festival) They just assumed I'd stage manage and design the lights again. I've not only got my own show to direct (The Tempest), but I've got rehearsals for Hamlet, and I just finished up working on the last show. However, being the self-sadistic pushover I am I agreed to do it. So in between work and my rehearsals, I had to work on this other show.
This is however just the beginning.
Just when all these projects are starting to converge, my car decides it's time for a new alternator. I get up to go to work one morning a couple of weeks ago, and my battery is dead. There is no one around to jump me off, so I hop on my bike and ride to work. Of course I'm late, then, predictably, on my way home it begins to rain. I arrive home, drenched, and have to immediately leave again to begin my rehearsal tour. Once again my car wouldn't start, so reluctantly I head out on the bike. The dregs of the storm seemed to have passed, so I thought perhaps the gods had pity on me. Unfortunately not. On my way to my second rehearsal, there comes this torrential downpour. I'm soaked once again.
It's not over yet! Are you still with me?
The following morning I get up real early to call AAA. It's a great service (usually) but they always take FOREVER, so I call them like two hours before I have to be at work. Even at their slowest I should be able to take my car to the shop and make it to work on time. Right? Well, to my surprise, AAA arrived like half an hour later. The guy jumps off my car, but advises me against driving to the shop, because, as I suspected, my alternator was shot, and I probably wouldn't make it. He said he would call in a tow truck for me. I wait an hour, no sign of a truck. I call work and tell them I'll be a little late. Hour two still no truck. They're slow but usually not this slow. About fifteen minutes into my third hour of waiting, I finally call AAA, and to my chagrin, they never received a call for a tow truck. I am thoroughly pissed off by now, and it's raining, again. So the day goes much like the day before.
I once again get up early Friday morning, and call AAA. Amazingly, they send a tow truck this time. So that ends my AAA fiasco. The rest of the day goes relatively smoothly. The guys manage to fix my car by the end of the day, which was very fortunate, because I had a friend coming into town that weekend and it would have sucked to have been car-less. The damage, about $200 parts and labor.
With my friend in town, needless to say I get sidetracked from all the projects I have going on and get little done. The lighting hang for the theater festival was to begin on Sunday at 10 am. Not wanting to veer too much from my usual routine, my friend, other friends, and I carouse until about 3 the previous night. Sunday morning comes at least two hours too early. We go out to about 9am to get some breakfast before I have to go get to the hang, and he has to leave. We get seated rather quickly, but our order takes at least an hour to get out to us. Apparently they lost our order somewhere. So in usual fashion for the week, I arrive to the hang about 45 minutes late and still a bit hung-over. Thank god theater people are usually slackers anyway.
This tale is obviously long enough already, so in brief, the following week consists of nothing but work, and theater stress. The festival began Friday. Our first show was Saturday at 4pm. By 6pm Friday I still had to program most of the show. I saved what I had on a floppy disk (which by the way, are hard to find these days), so I could work on it at home. Turns out the floppy disk was corrupted so I couldn't work on it at home. I decide since I can't work on the show I'll to go to the opening night reception and schmooze. I can work on the design in the space early in the morning. I told myself because I had so much to do I should only stay for a little while and not drink too much. I finally stagger home at 2:30 am after the third and final bar had closed. So much for well laid plans. Seven am came at least five hours early that day. I drag my crippled ass to meet the director so we can gather props and set pieces and take them to the space. Our tech is from 9-11am and our show begins at 4 pm. Being the total slacker I am, predictably I don't get the design finished by the end of tech. This time I email the file to myself so in between the tech and rehearsal I can finish it up. I drag my hurting ass home and work on the design. I'm totally stressed out at this point, and I feel trouble hangs somewhere over my head. I finish the design (I think) and burn it onto a CD. I get to the theater bring up the design and realize the file I saved was not the complete show. (I forgot to save the show when I finished.) So I had to make many of the changes on the fly. I got through it, but it was not a pretty sight.
To top it off, all this stress finally caught up to me and made me sick. So I had to back out of a dinner party that I was invited to on Monday. It made me sad.
At least now most of the festival stress is over, now I just have to stress about The Tempest which opens in two weeks. I hope I can survive.
P.S. I've also been bedless for the last four days because they're using my bed in the show. The director was like, "I wonder where we can find a double bed?" and I stupidly chimed in, "I have a double bed." So he was like, "Excellent! We're using it. I'll come over in the morning and pick it up" and I was like "D'oh!"
So now I'm totally ghetto, and am sleeping on a dirty matress on the floor. Anybody have a spare bed?
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
asrai:
oh yessss... fancy seeing you here. 
theseeman:
bomboleyo