Meanwhile.... back stage.

Waiting for the first night of tech to start, I felt like blogging a little. Beth is finally in town, and dealing with her cast. We spent the day prepping the stage for tonights dry tech, rechecking trims and the like. My job doesnt really start for another half an hour to an hour from now. The cast is currently getting a backstage tour 5 at a time while they acclimate themselves to the stage and surroundings and where all the hazards are. For example Brian Judd and his automation desk. (see below) Theres plenty to be aware of. The show deck sits 5 inches above the stage floor, so there is a drop off. We have run flat rope light around the entire show deck backstage, and set up run lights. Eric Sprosty, the PSM (Production Stage Manager) is giving the tours. Showing them where drops land, where set pieces are stored, where floor markings are for safe pathways, where props are stored and placed and preset. While some are getting their tour, others are getting their wireless microphones setup. As for the show folk, Randy is surfing the web, Brian Judd is doing some checks on automation, Kevin seems to be strolling, Davison is running around, and Emmit was having fun popping bubblewrap.



Time to head to the spot booth. More another time.

Over and Out

Brian

1.21 gigawatts!!!!

Going to switch it up this time.

Descriptions are above the pictures.

1. As I sat up on the Jump today, watching breakers flip as we tried to get the strobe lights working, I had a realization. In between our dimmer racks is an S400 P.D. system. This is a dimming system that passes power and control thru a mult. Rather Genious i must say. While looking at the panel i suddenly realized the displays looked a heck of a lot like the DeLorean.

2. Another view, sadly i couldnt get the camera to focus on the flux capacitor.


I have some more pictures to post, but im off to make a staples run now.

Over and out

Brian

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN!

It's Brian's birthday! WOOHOO!

$240 later.....

The carpenters (Emmet, Kevin and Brian) are living at the Reserve Square Apartments a few streets away. On the first floor of their hotel is a bar called Scorchers. At this fine establishment, with many a beer on tap and very nice bartenders, there are a variety of games. Simulated bowling, an arcade golfing machine and i believe a Pac Man machine. There is even a lovely claw game where you can win teddy bears and the like. Sadly the pool table is out of order, but that my friends is no big worry because, much to the delight of, myself, Emmet, Kevin, Brian (Judd), Randy, Davison, Keith, Brian (Lynch), Justin, Squeege, Anthony and Diana there is another claw game. But unlike our teddy bear toting friend to the right, this machine packs a little more bite... or rather claw. Yes my friends there is a claw machine based around a tank of lobsters.

You read that right, lobsters. Now we all, for the most part, arrived in town Sunday evening. The carpenters and a few others spent a fair chunk of sunday evening pumping singles into this machine at $2 a try. Well they had no luck on Sunday. Monday came, and with it, more people. The electricians and others joined. We too tried, unsuccessfully. Tuesday night brought no further progress. On Wednesday, evening however we had some more companions. Justin the Head Sound guy, a new member to the Lobster Claw Fraternity approached the machine with new vigor. His new found enthusiasm for the machine brought Emmet back in. Quickly Emmet tossed a 20 spot into the machine. With ten chances we set to work. Spotters on 2 sides of the tank helped him center the claw. 1 miss. 2 misses. Then the lobster we had been gunning for became fiesty. He knew our game and he was prepared to fight. Swinging his front claws at us, we knew we had his attention. Emmet steered the Claw over him. And with a punch of the drop button the Claw swooped down into the water. Time seemed to freeze as the claws closed around him, the front arm of the Claw perfectly placed between his front two claws. The rear arms of the Claw closed in from behind to lift the tail. Slowly the Claw retracted, pulling our catch up. The moment of truth. As the lobster cleared the water he began to wiggle. Many a lobster had escaped at this very moment, slipping from the clutches of the Claw back to it's safe depths. But not this time. Breaths were held as the Claw banged back to the top, and began to shift to the left towards the drop. The cheers rang out as the Claw was safely over the drop, and quickly our catch tumbled down the shoot. Emmet fetched Bob the Lobster from his cage and held him up proudly to the applause and cheers of the establishment. Carrying his proud catch to the bar he posed for pictures, before shipping him off to the hot springs of the kitchen.

Emmet with Bob

Yes, i still exist...

Hi there... sorry for letting Brian take over the blog. I'm still here. I'll write more once i get to Cleveland, but here's the quick version of what's going on in management land:

1)Cast is rehearsing

2)Denny and Beth are work work working

3)i am trying to pack my life into 2 suitcases for a year (ahhhhh!)without overpacking (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)

4)Grease youretheonethatiwant opened on sunday... good times... and bring... you're makeup case! (that was for you Tinsley)

Here are a few exciting moments from Sunday evening:
#1-Beth almost tumbles down the stairs at the theatre... like literally, if i hadnt grabbed the railing, i would have fallen to my death... ask Greg... he was right behind me.
#2-Mary Lou Henner, who had on the cutest dress ever, totally brushed up against me with her enormous boobs when we were leaving the theatre.
#3-DeDe Conn, the original Frenchy from the movie "Grease" was at the party... Greg and i had a moment.
#4-pigs in a blanket... so good!
#5-While dancing with... Carmine? Robert? Greg?... well, one of them, i was spun around the dance floor, my cute beaded purse from the 60's (thanks nana!) hanging off my arm, when suddenly, the purse smacks denny's martini RIGHT out of his hand... alcohol everywhere... too funny!

and last, but not least,

#6-Carmine on roller skates and Margaret dancing to "Build me up Buttercup" while singing their hearts out to each other. Classic. I will miss those crazy Charlotte Wilcox Company kids.



5)Tonight was taco night at our apartment

6)i have fallen/tripped/done some other klutzy thing about a billion times in the past week (see Part 4 #1 and #5)... i'm getting more and more like my mother... (love you mom)

7)It's friggin COLD in new york

8)Going out with the 6th Floor crew tomorrow night for a last goodbye drink (::tear::)

9)Who knew getting an Actor, or 3, into physical therapy was such a challenging task?

10)I am trying to track down these fancy locks we need for the trunks to go on the truck... if anyone knows where i can find a MasterLock Pro Sport resettable combination lock... or 30... let me know! (And yes, i tried staples... while it does show that their website carries them, IT'S A LIE! And yes, i also tried the MasterLock website... did you know you can't actually PURCHASE masterlock products on masterlock's website? True story.)


Well, on that note, i am going to hit the sack... i need my beauty rest!

(And also, i have to get up early to go to staples and make photocopies of our wallet cards and city sheets... these are the things we give the everyone in the traveling company before we head to each city... wallet cards have the theatre info, company and stage management info, and what times the performances are for the week. The city sheets have information about the city(duh!) such as the hotel, theatre, laundry, doctors, cab services, local grocery store, coffee shop, restaurants, and our travel information. Basically, every piece of information one could possible need for our stay in that city.)

Until Cleveland...

Beth

Alternate Position

Today was a good day. I felt like we got a bit done. May no look like much but in the long run, it was a very productive day. We got the hard-patch done for the front of house transfer circuits. We got work lights plugged, and some more mults plugged. I spent the afternoon working on the Stage Left Sound Tower. We marked the heights for the side arms, and i ran the cable, hung in the instruments, ran the date lines, added the top hats and gobo's and color. After i had everything zip tied in, and all neatened, I ran it by the A2 (Squeeg, one of our sound guys) and he said I wasnt going to cause him any problems. So as i gathered my tools to head to the SL Sound Tower, Anthony, the Assistant Lighting Designer rolled in. Took one look at the sound towers and said, "we're going to need to move those to the alternate position." Oh Lordy. Well luckily, the day was over at that point, so i hadnt started on the other side, and didnt have to go back to that tower yet.

But here are some more pictures. Descriptions Below.

1. Dimmer Land. Up on the Jump, which i don't know how high it is, but it's the 4th elevator floor. Those are all the Mults plugged into 2 Dimmer racks. And in the middle is an S400, which is Mult cable that carries both power and dmx. Very Crafty.

2. Those are the hemp lines for all of the pick points for our swag. We use points to pick up all the slack on the electrics.

3. From the jump there are stairs that work up to the grid. The grid is at 80 feet above deck.

4. A look at the deck from the Jump

5. Another look at Dimmer Land, and the pick points.

6. Just a cool picture of the back wall.

7. A picture of the house from the stage. Its big.

8. The Center Cluster being rigged to fly out with our "center cluster" attached to the bottom.

Thats it.

Over and Out
Brian

Load in Day 2

Today was the second day of load in. Technically it was called "electrics prehang" but that happened yesterday. Im going to toss up a few pictures. Descriptions below them.

1. The Swing-wing truss in the air. Took alot of adjusting but we got them in the air, centered, and at trim.

2. 4th Electric, and behind it the fly rail. Holy moses it's not a hemp house. A first for me.

3. That Bob, a local, hanging Box Boom Left, out in the house. 14 instruments, 2 to a pipe. He used some climbing gear, makes it really easy. Uses a sheave (spelling?) to haul the lights up. Meanwhile he is in a half-harness clipped to the ladder so he can lean back and work with both arms, and not have his legs wrapped into the ladder. Im just wondering if his back gets tired.

4. A view of the stage, plus Andrea, a local (props person, on an electrics call? but she was really helpful to talk to, because she was on the road for a while) On stage there are a few scenic pieces hung. On the pit, we have the sound stuff.

5. Perch's. From almost right below them. I will get a better angle from the stage some day. We arent using them, and those aren't our lights. But when you look at them from the deck, all i can think is.... man, some designer is going to want to use them. To Be Continued...........

And to really get on the good side of the electrics crew... we humped all 3 spots and stands up to the spot booth. 100 steps, on the dot. A real hike. I need to get a picture of the whole stage, so you can see how massive the house is. But needless to say, the spot booth is really far away from the stage. But it is nie and roomy, and AIR CONDITIONED. WOOOOO HOOOO.

Time to unwind, and grab some dinner and sleep. Back is feeling tight. Lycian 1290XLT's are heavy.

Over and Out
Brian

T-minus

That's all for Secaucus folks. The party will resume in Cleveland at 11:30am tomm. Hopefully Beth will be checking in from NYC with her end of the happenings.

Over and Out,

Brian

Insider info

Just for those curious. Examples of other shows prepping while we were there.
The National Tour of Jersey Boys was prepping the entire time we were there. They are doing their tech in Sacramento, CA. The National Tour of Wedding Singer was prepping for the last two weeks. This was a Networks tour (Networks is a company that puts together tours, both union and non.)My Fair Lady began prepping at the begining of this week. Whistle Down began prepping as Jersey Boys left on Thursday.
And I saw some moving lights being prepped and loaded out for Billy Joel.

That's that, off to the city now to watch the broadway spot ops.

Brian

3 weeks down....12 months to go.

So we are done loading out of PRG. After 4 and a half hours, we packed 1 and a 1/3 trucks. The one full truck is headed for Cleveland, and the one 1/3 full is heading to Yonkers to pick up scenery at Hudson Scenery. Im doing some packing now, before doing some laundry, before heading into the city to shadow on Drowsy Broadway again, and then meet up with Beth and the G's for drinks or a bite to eat when they are out of curtains. Below is a picture of our prep area after everything was loaded.

Picture Time

Time for pictures.
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1. This is Randy's test rack. 4 at a time, we throw moving lighs up, connect them together and to power and to the board. in the board, Randy has a few programmed moves and checks. We do this to make sure all of the colors mix correctly, the gobo's are seated correctly, the pan and tilts work and the iris and focus works.

2. Here is an example of a "meat rack". We use these to move strip lights, par strips, and lamp bars. Lamp bars are pieces of unitstrut used to hang instruments. We then attach the lamp bars to batons using "clancy" clamps.

3. A picture of the chaos spread out about or prep area. All of the boxes seen at the bottom have been packed and labeled.

4. A unit box, that will contain in the bottom, spare units, and in the top deck units.

5. The work box. Full of tape, gel, rope, everything.

6. Towers. Made of unistrut, they hold instruments and cable. They are 7 feet tall a piece and get stacked 2 high. Bolted together. At the top of the top section there are 4 Eye-Bolts are used to pick it into the air. There is one tower stage left, and one tower stage right.

7. The Grand MA, our board for the show. Im still learning it. A different language than i am used to. I am used to ETC.

8. Swingwing truss, freshly stacked... i think it works this time. We shall see

9. More Meat Racks.

Live from PRG

Im reporting live from Prep #3 at PRG in North Bergen, NJ. I am sitting amongst chaos as myself and 9 others try to get this show packed into box's and ready to load out. We spent the past 5 days working on the swingwing truss. (See pictures) This is, and will be the source of many problems, strike that, A LOT of problems. First of all, some of the units, mostly moving lights, cannot ride in their correct position, because of the wheels needed for movement. So we decided to ride them in an alternate position and they can just slide over. Not so fast Tonto, the pipes needed to be welded up to the truss so it didnt bounce when in transit. Well they got welded. Next problem they moving lights drag on the floor in transit. Solution, netting to hold them up while in transit. So we got the netting. Next problem..... The moving lights hang so low... that when we stack the swingwing 2 pieces high.... the moving lights hit the truss below it. Solution, build blocks to make them ride higher. Problem, they fabricated big wood blocks that go across, and someone forgot that there are WHEELS that have to hang there. So the picture below is of Keith and Davison trying to figure out a solution. God help them. I will post more tonight, once i gain some sanity.

The Big Leagues

On Tuesday night, the entire company, cast and crew, was invited to see a performance of Drowsy, on Broadway. Randy and I arrived at the stage door at 6:30, and were able to go back stage with Keith (Production Electrician) and got a tour, got to watch them do their nightly check, and just see how everything was set up, and how vastly different our package was, compared to the one on broadway. Brady, the Moving Light tech for the Broadway show, talked us thru some of the major problems he encounters with their moving lights, and things we can expect to deal with. We are getting 19 brand new VariLite 2500 Spot's. That probably means nothing to most people, so click here:
VL2500spot

So the good thing about brand new units... Randy doesnt have to pray quit as hard that they dont break. We also have 18 "gently used" VL 2000 Wash's. These are going to cause us more problems, but thats expected.
VL2000wash

So after we got a tour, we dropped back outside while they finished prepping the stage and the house opened. Randy and Davison went to watch the show from the front, and Keith took me to the spot booth to watch the show. Up in the booth, they have, 3 Lycian 1290's (Spotlights, the same ones we are touring with, link to follow). 2 HOG's (Moving Light Board) 1 Obsession (Conventional Light Board, which controls all cues and links all the boards), 1 very large and comfortable couch, a fair sized mini fridge, a fair sized tv and an Xbox, or PS3. Certainly a different view of the show from up there, but one i will get used to. I am most likely going to return next week to practice calling a show. The three spot op's dont have the show called, they just know it. Rick, the head spot, has been with the show since production (Tech, Previews, Run). They know the show very well. They say it took about a week and a half to have a good idea of the show. Unfortunately for me, i will both be running my spotlight, and calling the cues for the other two. They will have spot sheet's but for the most part i will be talking them thru their cues, giving descriptions for characters. Things will certainly be easier on the longer stops as they become accustomed to the show, but on the one week stops, i will be calling to two knew people every week.

Today in the shop, Randy, Davison and myself had a tutorial of the board we will be bringing on tour with us. The Grand MA. A 3 screen, touch screen, mouse and keyboard weilding beast. A very smart board very capable for both conventionals and moving lights, but mostly used for moving lights. A large track ball helps for the pan and tilt of the movers. We got taught some of the programing basics for about an hour and a half, and after lunch we were on our own to play and learn a bit. Once we had a feel for how to move around the multiple screens and set up views to our liking, we began to patch the show in. A disk had come from the Lighting Designers office with our plot in it, with some changes. And we began to piece them together along with our paperwork. Randy and I were left to patch individual unit's to their dimmer in which ever universe they were operating. (DMX, the signal used for carrying information from the Board to the Dimmers, uses several Universes depending on how many dimmers you have and need) We are running 4 universes for the show. This includes, conventionals, moving lights, scrollers, TPR units and Multi dimmer units.

Lucky for Randy and I, we were following one of the more important rules. Save Often. As we were patching our way thru the conventionals, we stopped to save, and continued working. Just about finished with our section, i went to patch a final dimmer to a scrollered unit, the board froze. Luckily we had only lost about 10 minutes of work (Really 5 now that we know the system better).

That was it for today, tomorrow brings some new fun. Randy gets to work with Brady and Jason ( a moving lights guy) on the movers and the board, getting them set up and ready to be put into the truss. Davison and I will be prepping the truss, building it, and getting things rocking and rolling on that front. Then it's off to Astoria, grabbing Beth and Jonathan Renoni and head to the Boro for the Wedding Festivities.

Sorry for the long post.

Over and Out

Brian

Greetings from Sunny Times Square...

Finally, it's time for Beth to post something. You would think that since i sit in front of a computer all day i would have posted more than Brian, but apparently that's not the case. Hmmmm... what to write about...

Well, i started work last monday also. I moved to the "company management" side of the office, no longer a part of the charlotte wilcox company staff. My company manager's name is Denny Daniello. He's pretty awesome so far. He's been touring for the past 10 years so he knows what he's doing - big plus since i dont have a clue! My work pretty much consists of arranging travel and housing for people, writing the Actors' contracts and any other little odd job, like setting up tumbling and roller-skating lessons for 2 of the actors.

Today we finally made a deal with the last cast member! We now have a completed cast to start rehearsals with on Thursday. So far everyone seems really nice and really excited to be a part of the show. Most notable in the cast is probably Georgia Engel, of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the original Broadway Cast of Drowsy.

Tomorrow evening most of the cast and crew will be attending a performance of the Broadway production of Drowsy so we will all get to finally meet eachother.

Well, back to work for me... more later in the week.

Beth
Assistant Company Manager
Drowsy Chaperone National Tour

(hehe... sounds all official doesnt it? :) )

The Hole in the Wall Gang

So Friday night, Randy and I ventured into the city to go to dinner with the Carpenters (not the musical group) and Stage Management. We met them at Frankie and Johnnie's steakhouse. A much fancier place than we had been expecting.
Upon arrival we met, Emmet (Head Carpenter) Allison (ASM, also married to Emmet), Brian (Automation Carp), Kevin (Deck Carp), Eric (Stage Manager), Jason (Production Assistant), and Tom, another ASM.

A great group of people who know each other very well. They have all toured together extensively. They all toured on Movin Out for a long time. They seem like one big family and more than willing to bring in Randy, Davison and I in. It was great just hearing some of the stories they have, and some of the places we will go and what it's like. They seem to know the local's at each site, and know which ones will be fun, a pain or just frustrating. It seems like they will be great connections in years to come. Eric seems to know everyone in the business, Kevin has big contacts with the Disney shows, and Emmet it seems knows everyone and everyone raves about it. It also is a small world, as im starting to find out people know everyone, and it's never more than 2 degrees to someone you know.

Im off now to Beth's Pub Crawl. Should be a blast. I will update later. Pictures next week. We are starting to get gear together so things are a little more defined to look at.

Over and Out,
Brian