Space Monkey...Away!!!!
Straight from the Ballet to the Opera. This sets a huge bugger. Which I couldn't do show call on as it conflicts with "The Producers" at ACT. And that's nine weeks of work versus two and half. right before the QET closes for the summer for the next portion of it's refit.
A bunch of the senior guys turned down the Opera. The back to back shows are burning them out, at age 50 -70. And they're probably all getting EI and chilling til the PNE in August. Which meant I was E1 on the setup.
The production electrician wanted me to be A.E. but the conflict made that impossible. Plus, there's one guy senior to me who took the gig. Which once again made me focus guy for the setup. The venue has about 200 lights in the air for major musicals and Operas. And this particular set is on a raked sub-stage with huge flying set pieces. very awkward to focus on so it's been a 4 day focus for me. And all the Electrics crew other than me are green to the venue. Or they're those lazy old guys ( or the others... the confused ones... ) Who don't setup and get the gig done. So I work rings around them, often out of frustration.
All this day was flying up in the grid on the bosun's chair focusing lights over the immovable set portions that are the upper decks and cantilevered windows. basically, I hung like peter pan for a few hours grunting around lights with my upper body. It's physically exhausting, stressful work... hanging in midair, 35 five feet above the stage deck. The rising heat from the mass of 1 and 2k lights all around you. Strapped into I really tight body harness. perched on a plank of wood covered in straps. Trying to focus and move fast and efficiently keep up the pace so the lighting designer isn't kept waiting on the deck below.
The best part are.... it's like floating in space sometimes. Your totally focus on you as well as your surroundings. Suspended in air. heart pounding while gravity pulls at you and everything else in your hands. I forget every shitty moment, up there. All your little gripes about the world. thoughts of my X... it's all replaced by focusing past your lizard survival instincts that tell you your going to plummet to earth. Being a trooper and doing your job.
Plus, you have to trust... in the ground riggers and their work. The fly-man on the fly deck your now staring straight across the theatre at. The, impossibly light steel rigging clips, carbiner's, the tight flex-y harness, belay lines and safety lines that rule your every move. I keep telling myself to bring a camera one day. Just to show people how wild my job can get at times. It's like rappelling, rock climbing or bungee jumping for a living. While working on art. There's a real visural sense of life or death and creation by sweat and blood. All while really working outside of your basic comfort zone every minute......
And you feel really alive when you finally touch earth... And the thanks you get for a good job feels really earned. And the old cats give me respect. I don't get yelled at, I don't get mean nicknames or bullied. I get left to get the gig going. the day passes quickly. And when I do finally get home, I know that glass of beer and a shot of Tequila has been earned.
I worked hard. I defied gravity.....I deserve respect.
Straight from the Ballet to the Opera. This sets a huge bugger. Which I couldn't do show call on as it conflicts with "The Producers" at ACT. And that's nine weeks of work versus two and half. right before the QET closes for the summer for the next portion of it's refit.
A bunch of the senior guys turned down the Opera. The back to back shows are burning them out, at age 50 -70. And they're probably all getting EI and chilling til the PNE in August. Which meant I was E1 on the setup.
The production electrician wanted me to be A.E. but the conflict made that impossible. Plus, there's one guy senior to me who took the gig. Which once again made me focus guy for the setup. The venue has about 200 lights in the air for major musicals and Operas. And this particular set is on a raked sub-stage with huge flying set pieces. very awkward to focus on so it's been a 4 day focus for me. And all the Electrics crew other than me are green to the venue. Or they're those lazy old guys ( or the others... the confused ones... ) Who don't setup and get the gig done. So I work rings around them, often out of frustration.
All this day was flying up in the grid on the bosun's chair focusing lights over the immovable set portions that are the upper decks and cantilevered windows. basically, I hung like peter pan for a few hours grunting around lights with my upper body. It's physically exhausting, stressful work... hanging in midair, 35 five feet above the stage deck. The rising heat from the mass of 1 and 2k lights all around you. Strapped into I really tight body harness. perched on a plank of wood covered in straps. Trying to focus and move fast and efficiently keep up the pace so the lighting designer isn't kept waiting on the deck below.
The best part are.... it's like floating in space sometimes. Your totally focus on you as well as your surroundings. Suspended in air. heart pounding while gravity pulls at you and everything else in your hands. I forget every shitty moment, up there. All your little gripes about the world. thoughts of my X... it's all replaced by focusing past your lizard survival instincts that tell you your going to plummet to earth. Being a trooper and doing your job.
Plus, you have to trust... in the ground riggers and their work. The fly-man on the fly deck your now staring straight across the theatre at. The, impossibly light steel rigging clips, carbiner's, the tight flex-y harness, belay lines and safety lines that rule your every move. I keep telling myself to bring a camera one day. Just to show people how wild my job can get at times. It's like rappelling, rock climbing or bungee jumping for a living. While working on art. There's a real visural sense of life or death and creation by sweat and blood. All while really working outside of your basic comfort zone every minute......
And you feel really alive when you finally touch earth... And the thanks you get for a good job feels really earned. And the old cats give me respect. I don't get yelled at, I don't get mean nicknames or bullied. I get left to get the gig going. the day passes quickly. And when I do finally get home, I know that glass of beer and a shot of Tequila has been earned.
I worked hard. I defied gravity.....I deserve respect.
I'm auditioning for Peter and I'm going to have to fly if I get the part!
I'm terrified.
anyhooo
How could you get punished for singing the Canadian national Anthem in French? Did they think you were being disrespectful? Or as it was in French they thought you were a real Pinko Commie...
Neither. I was 8 and I grew up with a father who was a hockey nut and I thought I was singing the USA national anthem, I had no idea that I was singing the Canadian National Anthem.