Just call me Miss Destructive!

So, apparently my goal today was to destroy everything in my path. Today was our 10 out of 12 rehearsal for White Christmas. What that means is that we rehearse for 12 hours with an hour for lunch and an hour for dinner. We basically go cue to cue so it’s a lot of holding and figuring out where transitions are going and how long they are going to take and what needs to be lit and when it needs to be lit and how can we make it prettier and how can we make it smoother and how can we do this without killing everyone. To give you an idea, this show is 90 minutes long and it took us the whole 10 hours to get all the way through it once. It’s a very slow moving day. I’m running this thing on my side of the stage that we call the Pacman. It’s a computer that controls some of the line sets with scenery on them so we don’t have to counterweight them. Line sets on the things that fly in scenery from above. Well, this Pacman is kind of cool and high tech so today when I was running it, I got a really great quote from the actors around me.

Actor 1: “How does it work?’

Actor 2: “They don’t tell us so we don’t touch it.”

Hehe...that’s pretty much it. It can be dangerous. I almost smashed the stage today because at one point I had the wrong line set selected and I brought in the huge barn that weighs over 750 pounds that isn’t supposed to move and it began to take out everything in it’s path before I could get it to go back up again. It was very scary and I will never do it again. After that I was kind of shaken up so I just couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t even get a gel into a gel holder. It was really sad. Other than me being completely destructive today, it actually went pretty smoothly for being our first time with all tech. And good news, I get to go to the store tomorrow to buy glow sticks! :) We have dark coves on each side of the stage that we have to store scenery in because we have nowhere else to put it and even though we marked the scenery with glow tape, there is nothing in the cove to actually charge the glow tape so I asked the stage manager if I could go buy glow sticks so no one dies hitting their head on scenery. Yes, that did happen today as well. No one died, but we did have someone slam their head into a leg of a bed that was propped up.

So tomorrow morning I get to go to the read through of Mulan because those rehearsals start tomorrow. Chelsie, the stage manager, decided that it would be good for me to be involved with the rehearsal process every once in a while so I’m not thrown backstage again having no idea what is going on. :) Then I have a meeting with the stage manager and the assistant stage manager to go over the shift plot again for White Christmas just so we have everything down. The shift plot is just that, a plot that tells us what get moved at each shift during the show and where it goes. Then we are just working all afternoon and we have our first dress rehearsal tomorrow night. The rest of the week is dress rehearsals and then we open on Friday night! Whooooo hoooo! I’m getting excited! But for now, I am exhausted and it has been a long day and a not so great day at moments so I need to go to bed and say goodbye to this day so I can say hello to a new day!

Oh, and I heard two of the songs from Secret Garden sung for the first time today! Let's just say I may need to keep a box of tissues backstage. They sound absolutely amazing! Amazing! I can not wait to see Secret Garden. It's going to be beautiful! I have no problem saying that these actors sing the songs better than the original broadway cast! It's the truth. There are not enough words to describe how beautiful it is!

You know the nightmare...

The nightmare where you are standing on stage and you have no idea what the lyrics are or what the choreography is. For some of you, it may be the nightmare where you are about to take an exam in a class you aren’t even in. And then for people like me, it’s where I am working tech on a show that I have never even seen and I’m supposed to be moving scenery or flying in drops that I have no idea where they go or when I’m supposed to do it. Well, that nightmare came sort of true on Friday. The actors did their first run on stage on Friday and even though we haven’t done a tech rehearsal yet, we were using some of the scenery so that they actors know what they are in charge of moving. Well, my job for running the shows is to be backstage on stage left on headset to cue scenery and whatever else the stage manager tells me to do. I haven’t been to any rehearsals and I really had no idea what was going on but I was just thrown backstage to move a few things. We weren’t using the headsets or anything so I was lost. But oh well.

So, the last few days I have just been tossed from one person to the next. I’ve decided that the reason they have a Sound/Electrics Assistant is for the actual running of the show because there isn’t really enough to do before the show starts to keep me busy with sound and electrics stuff. So on Thursday and Friday, I was helping the scenic charge (the person who paints everything). On Thursday we painted the train for White Christmas. It’s a very patriotic train. it’s got a ton of stripes and it’s all red, white, and blue. This train is huge by the way. And guess where it lives during the show? That’s right! Stage left. Did I mention that I’m probably going to have to stand on the train during the entire show because there is no room in the wings? Yeah...it’s pretty awesome. I just hope I don’t get caught on the train when it gets put out on stage for it’s one scene. On Friday I just did some random painting here and there touching up things. Then we had the rehearsal Friday afternoon and then I went back to electrics for a little while Friday night because had a little more focusing to do. All day yesterday, I worked in the costume shop. I helped the sound engineer for about an hour in the afternoon, but other than that I was sewing all day. At one point I accidentally sewed to male side of a snap on a dress and then realized that it kind of ruins the point of a snap. Then right before I was about to hem some white pants, I poked myself with a needle and made my finger bleed. It wasn’t bad, but I had to put a band on my finger since I was working with white pants and then sewing became a little more difficult. And then I decided that I needed caffeine so I got a coke after not drinking soda for two weeks. Wow...I never really believed my friends when they told me that I shouldn’t drink caffeine. It didn’t take long for the caffeine to take effect. It did what I needed it to do to get me through the rest of the day, but it also gave me a headache. Oh, but we finally got a microwave after 14 days of not having one!!!!! I made microwave popcorn! :)

So I started to watch the live broadcast of Northpoint’s church service online this morning because we had the morning off, but then my roommate came in and wanted to go to the store to get groceries. It was kind of weird watching church online anyways. I would have much rather been there. The next time we get a Sunday morning off though, I’m going to watch the full church service because it doesn’t really feel like Sunday without going to church in the morning. My days are blurring together. I never really know what day it is, and then I remember that it doesn’t really matter because the schedule for each day gets sent out by midnight the night before.

But anyways, my roommate and I are about to eat lunch so that’s all for now.

“Meow” goes the cat...KABOOM goes my head

There is this cat...it lives outside my window. Now, I don’t know this for sure because I’ve never seen it. I have only heard it. It is a loud cat. I live on the second floor so I almost think that this cat lives in the apartment above me and I’m hearing it meow through the vents or something. But this cat is a loud cat.

So the past two nights of working late have been pretty fun. I think my favorite part of lighting is focusing. I just like hanging out in a dark theater with only a few people around focusing lights. I especially like it when we are focusing in the catwalks...at CNU. Let me tell you a little something about the catwalk here. First of all, it’s called “The Cove.” Now, normally I would love a place called “The Cove” because it sounds very adventurous. Well, this cove is definitely adventures, but I’ve been to more fun places. To get to this cove, you have to first walk up all three flights of stairs. Not that bad compared to the 5,000,000 flights of stairs you have to walk up at Ferguson. Then you go through this midget door that leads to the attic. Then you walk through this maze of air ducts while having to hunch over to not hit your head. Then you duck under some really low piping and climb over a very large air duct. At this point you are in pretty much complete darkness. You can’t really see where you are stepping. You duck under some more pipes until you come to a hole in the ground. You climb down into the hole and there is a short wooden ladder that wobbles a little. When you get to the bottom, you are in the cove. It’s like a wooden bridge hidden up in the ceiling. It’s wider than our catwalks at Ferguson and I would say probably safer considering that it’s in the ceiling. It gets really hot up there with the lights on though. I will be sure to take pictures of the process of getting to the cove at some point for you visual people. But anyways, I think we finished focusing tonight. All we have left to do before we open the first show is get the correct gel colors in the lights, set up the spotlights, patch the board, and write cues. When you have a lighting designer, a master electrician, and an electrics assistant, that list means I’m working with paints the next couple of days. The designer writes the cues, and in this situation when you have a master electrician, their only responsibility is electrics. They don’t have to do anything else so when there isn’t anything having to do with lighting to do, they just don’t have to do anything unless they want to help in another area. Me on the other hand, I have to work the same amount of hours every day. Since there isn’t a whole lot for us to do, they are sending me to go paint, but only for a couple days...for now. My stage manager (roommate) saw my scene painting stuff on facebook so she is handing me off to the scenic charge (person in charge of getting everything painted). Lighting is a lot of hurry up and wait so I’ve already had the opportunity to get my hands in almost every area. I’ve done some paperwork for the stage manager, built some crown molding, painted some base coats on scenery, tested some sound equipment (which is a part of my job as Sound/Electrics Assistant), and done some sewing, labeling, and ironing in the costume shop. The only thing I haven’t done is props, but I plan to help wrap presents for white christmas. :)

So I’m taking some stronger medicine for my allergy symptoms now. I went straight for the Dayquil and the Nyquil. I’ve been a little loopy the last couple of days so it’s kind of nice to be able to blame it on the drugs. Genny is the only one who knows that’s how I always act. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!

Today is my dad’s birthday and it’s really hard not being there to celebrate with him. Especially after how awesome he and my mom made my birthday this year! Being so far away from home makes me appreciate home much more...even though it’s only been a little over a week. My brain knows that it’s going to be two months before I see you all so it feels like it’s already been two months. I am having fun though and I don’t regret coming here because this is an awesome experience and I’m learning sooooo much! These first couple of weeks are just the roughest. Having my professor here really helps though because having just one person from home makes it a little easier. Speaking of my professor, I found out today that she has a washer and dryer in her apartment so I told her that I would babysit for her if she would let me bring my laundry over! :) We made the deal so I am very excited! Especially since the baby will probably be asleep by the time I get off work on most nights so I may actually get to just sit and read a book in comfort while waiting for my laundry. And speaking of getting off work late, I’ll be working late the next couple of days. This morning was our first morning off which was amazing! I have never been so excited about a Monday morning! I actually get the next two mornings off because we have to go in to focus our lights in the next couple of days and we can only do that if it’s dark in the theater. The carpenters use the stage as more work space, so we can’t do our focus while they are working. So we are going in to work in the afternoon the next couple of days to do other things on our list and then we get to leave for dinner at some point and come back at 8pm when everyone else gets off. Tomorrow we are working till 10pm and then on Wednesday we are working till 12am or as late as it takes us to finish. Genny (my professor) wants me to bring my brownies so I’m going to the store in the morning to get ingredients and other things I’m running out of like bread and milk. Genny has an addiction to my brownies. I shouldn’t feed her addiction, but I’m here to make Genny happy! :) That’s what she keeps telling people at least. Anytime I am just my normal “crazy look at the bright side” self, she says “this is why I brought her along!” :-D If I am doing a horrible job at my job, at least I’m making Genny happy! :)

So, apparently I have an accent...

The only times I have ever been told that I have an accent, people tell me it’s a southern accent. Well, today someone told me that the way I say doctor sounds very northern and almost like a Boston accent. So for the first time ever, I was told I have a northern accent. So I guess having a mom from Georgia and a dad from Virginia who both lived in Ohio for about 10 years has given me some really strange accent that has no origin. Being told I have a northern accent though just adds to the coolness of being one of the few people in the company not from Georgia!

I broke a nut today. As in a metal nut. For those of you who don’t know what everything on a lighting instrument is actually called, there is a nut on the c clamp [what you use to attach the instrument to the electric (metal pole)] that is used to pan the light [move it to the right and the left]. This nut has a name, but I don’t say it’s name because I don’t like it. Anyways, I was tightening this nut on an instrument today and I literally just broke off the head of this nut. I picked it up off the ground, walked over to the lighting designer (my professor, Genny) and the master electrician, set it down on the table in front of them, and walked away. Then Genny told me that I needed to keep it as a souvenir from my summer at Peach State. I then decided that I am going to make it into a ring or a necklace so that I can wear it and anytime anyone in the theater department at CNU complains about anything, I can just shove it in their face and remind them that at least our instruments aren’t falling apart in our hands! :-D

We got all the lighting instruments on stage hung and circuited in the past two days. Well, I should say that we got them all hung...I got them all circuited. Circuiting is just a fancy word for plugging them into the dimmers. It’s not hard, but it’s time consuming because you can’t just go along and plug an instrument into the closest dimmer. Some instruments have to be two-fered or even three-fered (plugging mulitple instruments into the same circuit) and then a lot of the instruments don’t reach a dimmer so you have to bring in cable extensions and then after you get everything plugged in you have to go back and make it all pretty by tying all the cable to the electric in an organized fashion. Then, you usually have to add instruments in later so you have to find a way to fit them in and still plug it into a circuit that makes sense. So basically everything is hung and plugged in and all we have left to do with the electrics on stage is focus them (point them in the direction they are supposed to be pointing) and put gel colors in them, but we can’t do that quite yet. But I feel very accomplished for getting all that done in two days with just me and the master electrician. At CNU, we usually have about 10 people attack each electric so we can get it out of the way of the carpenters in a timely matter. I was probably in the way of the carpenters more than they admitted, but I got out of their way when they asked nicely.

After tonight, I will not be getting on facebook until I am able to watch the Lost series finale! I do not want to risk seeing any spoilers. So don’t you dare spoil anything for me!!!!!!! I don’t have a TV therefore I can’t watch the finale until it comes online! Grrrrrr!

Oh, and my allergies have been acting up the last couple of days. The scene shop here doesn’t have a ventilation system so there is a lot of sawdust floating through the air. I have my allergy medicine, but it’s not really helping. One of my roommates is going to give me some Benadryl tonight so we will see if that helps. Tomorrow morning is also our first morning off so we are going to the store and I am going to pick up something to try and help with all the congestion in my head and the coughing. Just pray that it doesn’t get any worse and that it doesn’t keep me from doing my best.

Week one is complete and we get tomorrow morning off so I don’t have to go in to work until 1:00! Sweetness!

My body is slowly adjusting

So, this schedule is pretty intense. As of right now we are working 10 hours every day of the week. I found out today that we do get Monday mornings off which is fantastic. We don’t have to go in to work until 1:00pm on Mondays. Those few extra hours will allow me to actually live a little outside of sleep, eat, drink, work, eat, drink, work, shower, eat, drink, blog, sleep. This morning I woke up and I truly had no idea what day of the week it was, and then I told myself it didn’t really matter because I’m doing the same thing everyday. Things are going to change a little bit tomorrow because my professor got here today along with all the actors so rehearsals will begin in the morning and my professor will now be directing me and the master electrician on what to do so we aren’t just wandering around looking for jobs. Todays job for us was to inventory all the gels for the lights. We had been putting it off because neither one of us wanted to do it. When we had finished, we had counted over 2600 gels and had organized them by color and size. After that I continued switching between helping the sound designer set up some stuff and figuring out some of the ancient equipment that we will be using. My professor, Genny, went to college at Valdosta State University and she told me that the lighting instruments we are using are the same ones that were here when she went to college here. Then she laughed when I told her how I had to ask what kind of lights they were on my first day because I had never seen lights that old. :)

Anyways, I’m really excited that my professor is here now because I’ve been missing home and it’s nice to have something familiar. Especially because most of the people here are students at VSU so while I’m adjusting to being in a new environment and learning to do everything the way they do things, they are all comfortable and just doing what they usually do. So I’m glad that I get to work with someone who knows how I work and I know what she expects. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

I have an address!

My address for the summer is:

Brannon Tison
VSU Box 17186
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698

The mailroom is actually in my building so it's pretty easy for me to get mail. You may want to let me know if you send me something though because I will probably forget to check my mailbox. I leave VSU on July 19th so don't send me anything too close to that date because I probably won't get it.

I miss you all already and I wish that I actually had time during the day to talk to some of y'all but we are working pretty much from 8:30am to 8pm and then after I shower and make dinner I'm exhausted so I go to bed. And that's pretty much my schedule every day for the next 6 weeks and then I only get Mondays off for the last three weeks. I haven't even had time to talk to my parents since I started work. When do I have time to do laundry and get groceries you may ask? Well, that's a good question. Let's just say that I'm hoping the mac and cheese and life cereal my mom stocked me with last me a while and for the clothes, well, it's just some saw dust and fiber glass right? :-D

Brief overview of today is that the master electrician and I ran out of things to do until the lighting designer (my professor) gets here on Thursday so he is working in the show and I'm doing some administrative stuff with the stage manager (one of my suite mates) till Thursday. It's means that I can do some work while sitting down tomorrow. We worked till 8pm today and that's going to be the typical schedule. Since I'm not going to be on my feet as much tomorrow, I agreed to go to the gym with the stage manager tomorrow morning before work. We have free membership to the YMCA. Then before I go in to work I have to get this whole "my code doesn't actually get me into my apartment so I have to follow my suite mates around to get in" thing. Yeah. It would be really great if I could get into my apartment. At least once I'm in the apartment I have no problem getting into my room! The positive things!

One day down...a lot more to go!

I’m exhausted so I’m going to make this short. Basically we had to take inventory of all the lighting instruments we have available today. Then we had to fix the ones that weren’t working which involves a lot of re-wiring and replacing lamps and lenses. Well, lighting instruments have fiberglass somewhere in them. I’m not actually exactly sure where the fiberglass comes from, but I have been told that when you are working with lights, don’t touch your face or rub your eyes. Well, everything in that light room was apparently covered in fiberglass because I ended up covered in it. The only way to get it off is to scrub your skin off or stick duck tape to your arm and rip it off. I have done both of those things and I can still feel it on me. It’s quite uncomfortable. Also, I lied about there being no catwalks. There is one catwalk, but it’s pretty safe because it’s sort of in the attic and then there is just an opening in the ceiling. To get there though, you have to crawl over and under a bunch of air ducts and through who knows what else because it’s pitch black. So I have a feeling that I also had some insulation on me. But, this is what I signed up for and even though it’s exhausting, it is fun and I’m working with great people! Still getting along with my roommates as well! One of my roommates and I were actually making dinner at the same time tonight and we decided to just combine our dinners so it was even better. She was making tacos and I was making mac and cheese so we both had tacos and mac and cheese! :-D Oh, and they changed the schedule so that we actually work through what was going to be our dinner break and then we get released at 6:30 which is awesome! It’s especially awesome to have a little extra time at night considering we don’t get a single day off for 6 weeks! And then we only get Mondays off for the last 3 weeks. But I’m here to work so that’s what I’m going to do!

Well, I made it!

First off, I realized I didn’t state this before. I am not a gifted writer! Some people think I must be a great writer with my parents having raised me, but I did not get that gift from them. But it’s not their fault. And they still try to help me with my horrible spelling. I just felt the need to put that out there close to the beginning of my blog.

Now, I don’t plan on blogging every day, but these first few days have a lot going on so I’m going to try and keep up with all the events. This morning we went to North Point Christian Church which blew my mind away! It was huge! The parking lot had to be bigger than Busch Gardens, but the people directing traffic were much better than the people who direct the traffic at Busch. Sorry, but it’s true. So, their kid’s areas are insane!!!! I thought our kid’s hallway looked like a street! It does, but not like their hallway! And their Kidstuff stage is kind of ridiculous! Now, for big church they actually have two auditoriums that back up to each other that have service at the same time. They can flip the video feed between the two auditoriums! Today was their grad Sunday so they celebrated all the graduating seniors. Their had to be about 100 graduating seniors! And when they came in, they played a rock version of Pomp and Circumstance and had all the graduates run in like crazy. The first kid out did a back flip down the isle! There are two worship bands leading worship at the same time in both auditoriums. After worship, the preacher then comes in one auditorium and is on a life size screen in the other auditorium. Andy Stanley was preaching today so that was cool. Oh, and the worship equipment all gets striked off the stage for the sermon. And this is for Brian...I counted at least 22 intelligent lights just in that auditorium! There is probably just as many in the other auditorium and who knows how many in the kid’s worship room and anywhere else in the building! So needless to say, this church is crazy! And lucky for me they broadcast it online so depending what my schedule is on Sundays, I may be able to “attend” a Christian church after all.

Can I just go ahead and say that driving through downtown Atlanta is insane!?!?! It should not be called an interstate. It should be called a speedway because that’s what I felt like I was driving on! And somehow people drive like crazy people but it all works better than in VA. Like, merging is really scary, but you just kind of go over into the lane you need to get into and if the person behind you wants to go faster then they just go around you. They don’t honk at you and wave their arms at you like you are an idiot for merging. The road belongs to everyone here...you just have to be crazy to fit in.

So, I made it to VSU and got all checked in a moved in. Granted, it took me forever to find the front door of the residence hall I’m staying in. Whoah. You know you go to CNU you when you take the time to type residence hall instead of just saying dorm! Anyways, I pretty much had to unload everything into my room and then walk over to the fine arts building for our first company meeting! They just went over basic stuff and then we all had to take an ethics test as employees of the college. The theater itself is not quite what I expected, but it’s a good size. I think they said it seats about 300. And my parents can relax because there are no catwalks. I will probably still be on some ladders, but no catwalks. My apartment is pretty decent. I found out it’s a handicapped accessible apartment so it’s a little bigger than other apartments. I also have the corner room on the street side of the building so I have two windows that have a decent view of a parking garage and a cemetery. :) But my suite mates seem great so far and we get along so that is exciting. I have a room to myself so that is also nice. And I just put my Christmas lights up so it feels like home. My call time is at 8:30 in the morning and we work from 8:30 to 12, then 1:30 to 4:30, and then 6:30 to 10. So we put in a lot of hours and I need to get my sleep now! The homesickness kind of comes and goes but I think now that I’m here and preparing for a busy schedule, I’m feeling pretty good. It’s kind of cool being one of the few from out of state! It’s like “woah...you’re from VA? That’s a long drive.” I’m not really used to that considering I go to college 10 minutes from home! :)

Oh it's a jolly holiday with Mary...

I got to start out my summer of working in a theater with seeing a show that I had nothing to do with. Mary Poppins happened to be playing at Fox Theater in Atlanta this weekend and my parents bought tickets for us to go see it. It had been years since I had been to Fox Theater and if you have never been there, you should google pictures of it. It’s amazing! We had tickets about as far back as you can get, but we had binoculars so we were still able to enjoy the show. The tour manager came out before the show started to announce that the 1,000,000th person to see the tour was in the audience. It’s a huge milestone for the show because the only other Disney shows to make it to this point are Beauty and the Beast, Aida, and of course Lion King. At the end of the show they gave a trip to New York to see Lion King and Mary Poppins on Broadway to the family who bought the 1,000,000 tour ticket. Even though it wasn’t us, it was still really cool to be at that show! The thing you have to understand about me going to see a show is that I don’t take anything for granted. The fact that when the show ends I don’t have to stick around to clean up the theater is awesome! If you don’t already know, I work as an Area Manager at Ferguson Center for the Arts so I’m used to working any shows that come our way. And then if I’m not Area Managing, I’m usually doing something technical with show whether it’s at school or church. So being able to sit in the audience and just enjoy a show is kind of nice. Although, I really like the feeling of knowing I had something to do with the production so I don’t plan on getting too comfortable sitting in the audience. That’s why I’m here, right? :-D

Roadkill, Rubber, and Rest Areas...oh my!

So, I had talked about doing a blog while I was in GA so people could keep up with what I’m doing, so here goes. I made it to my first stop in GA. I’m at my Papa’s house in Suwanee, GA right now which is just outside of Atlanta. We are staying here for a couple of days before driving down to Valdosta. The drive here wasn’t too bad actually. We rotated driving so I didn’t drive the whole way, but I drove through a lot of North Carolina and from the GA visiter’s center on the border to here. When we have come to GA before, I’m usually laying down in the back of the car reading or watching movies so it was kind of cool getting to drive because it’s a really pretty drive. I could have done without seeing all the roadkill though. And apparently everyone’s tires just fall apart in GA because there was so much torn up rubber on the side of the road. We only got stuck in traffic once and it was because of an accident that took the idea of a “compact car” to a whole new level. But we made it here safely and we are visiting with my Papa. I haven’t been to this house in about 4 years so it’s really weird being here. I spent so many summers and Christmas’ here when I was little and so many things have changed in this house since I was here last. For instance, my room no longer has a bed in it. So I have to stay in what was my brother’s and my cousin’s room. Oh well. I can play with all their action figures that are still here. :)

Today we are just going to do random stuff (like going to eat at the Varsity which people from Atlanta know what I’m talking about) and then tomorrow we are going out to dinner for my Aunt’s birthday and then Sunday we are driving through Atlanta and going to Northpoint for church in the morning and then driving the rest of the way to Valdosta to check in and get situated. My parents are planning on getting a hotel Sunday night and then heading back to VA Monday morning.