Whew! I’m just going to say that again. Whew! First, opening weekend for Mulan went great! Kids really are the best audience. That show also just moves so fast that you don’t have time to really think about what you are doing...you just do it. It’s just a fun show. It makes me feel like I’m working at Disney. All the actors get to run out to the front lobby after the show to take pictures with the kids. It’s so cool! Oh, and we got our new comm. system so that helped a lot with getting the show running smoothly. So we did Mulan on Friday and Saturday and then changed over to White Christmas Saturday night for our Sunday matinee. Changeover also went pretty smoothly. We saw a bat up in the cove which was not pleasant. I never really want a bat to be that close to me again in an enclosed space where I can’t really run away because I have to duck under pipes and crawl over air ducts. I promise I will take pictures of the cove before I leave this summer. Anyways, I should say that everything with the changeover went smoothly except for the barn being brought back in. Let me remind my readers that this barn weighs 1310 lbs. I’ve actually been told a few different weights for this barn, but the latest weight I was told is 1310 lbs because when we had to call the company who installed the Variable Speed system because the barn was stuck in the fly loft, they informed us that the weight limit on each batten is 1300 lbs. The problem was that the pacman was telling us the barn was already all the way in when it was actually all the way out. Therefore, it wasn’t letting us bring it in because like I said, the computer thought it already was in. So our ATD had to open up the computer and manually tell the computer where the barn was and then reset the system so we could bring the barn in. We had to fix this all Sunday morning though so we were getting very close to the time when we were going to have to start preset for the show. But we got it fixed so all is well. Well, I should say that our ATD got it fixed so all is well. For not doing White Christmas for a whole week, I thought the show went really well. It went smoothly for me at least. After the show, we did another changeover to Mulan. We had to brave the cove again and hope not to see any more bats. We didn’t find any bats, but I did learn that I shouldn’t look around so much when I’m up there because I did see a dead rat. So, I think we finished changeover around 7:00pm on Sunday and then the cast was sitting down with the orchestra in the theater to sing through Secret Garden for the evening work call so we weren’t able to work in the shop. The tech crew left, and then we all had to come back at 10:00pm when the actors and orchestra were done and then we all had to work from 10pm to 2am to get things done. All this week we are on run crew for Secret Garden so we can’t work in the shop during our normal times. At this point, I’m not even working in the shop anymore. I’m only in rehearsals. When Friday comes along and we open Secret Garden, we will then be in rep so all we will be doing is running shows and doing changeovers. I’m very very excited to get some rest! I think this week is reaching every one’s breaking point. We are all exhausted and small things are setting us off so the big things are just insane to have to handle. I thank the people who are keeping their cool and having patience with the ridiculous stuff going on and I don’t judge the people getting frustrated because I completely understand. We are so close to having all three shows open and then I think we will all be able to get recharged and into a new groove of doing the rep. I love our cast though! They rock! I appreciate their patience with me because I am new to this whole Assistant Stage Manager thing and it’s been really hard for me because I’m not actually an Assistant Stage Manager so I was never at any rehearsals so I am still learning the show. I’ve told a few people that I think for doing three musicals in rep, it is more important to have a second ASM with sound and lighting skills than an Sound and Electrics Assistant. I feel like it’s been forever since I actually did anything for sound and lighting besides un-muting mics backstage.
So for Secret Garden, I’m basically flying one thing in and out one time during the entire show. The rest of the time I am just cuing people and moving a few things around backstage. There is a lot of scenery backstage in this show and not a whole lot of room for it. Traffic jams are an issue, but every rehearsal we figure out a problem and we fix it. It’s kind of a slap in my face when I worry about how something is going to work and then it just works. That why our cast is awesome. They make things work. When my brain is on overload, I just forget how to make easy fixes. But we had our last 10 out of 12 on Tuesday and it was long! I mean, it was the 10 out of 12 hours, but it just felt long. I was actually just sitting on the floor backstage reading a book the majority of the day because I cued people like once an hour. So, I guess today is Wednesday, but it’s after midnight now so I guess it’s actually Thursday. My days are completely mixed up. So our 10 out of 12 was only yesterday, and then this morning was our first dress rehearsal. This afternoon we did a shift tech where we only did the scene shifts with the ensemble. Then tonight was another dress rehearsal, but we had the orchestra for this one. Tomorrow we are having just a run through in the morning without orchestra and without costumes. The afternoon tomorrow is to be announced and then our final dress/preview is tomorrow night. And then I’m not sure what we are doing during the day on Friday, but we open Friday night and then changeover to Mulan for Saturday matinee and then changeover to Secret Garden for Saturday night and then changeover to White Christmas for Sunday matinee. Like I said in the beginning...whew!
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