Tech Begins
Monday’s great flood threatened our stage, mere hours after our tech director screwed in all the wood planks to the deck. The flood wasn’t quite like the Van Ness Muni station, and happily our extremely calm and quick-thinking TD diverted water away form the stage, averting disaster. I would have hated to see him crawl around on his knees for another three hours reinstalling that floor.
Today the set was finished, lights and speakers hung, and even microphones hung. (If you know Thick House, can you imagine the effect of having actors on microphone?) The actors were so happy to be in their performance space. Our first tech, mostly with sound. If I heard our stage manager’s call right, I think there are some 40 sound cues in the first five minutes of the play, and today was the only day we had our sound designer, Cliff.
In fact, nearly everyone is working on two or three shows at the same time. Director Rob Melrose is also directing his own company’s show, Bald Soprano, which he also translated and which techs and previews the same time we do. Cliff Caruthers worked on The Chosen at TheatreWorks, which just opened, is doing sound for Bald Soprano (I believe) and is spending the rest of the week teching November at ACT, which opens a few days after us. Lighting designer Stephanie Buchner worked on American Idiot, and is also lighting Bald Soprano. Set designer Michael Locher is designing the two Kolvenbach plays at Magic Theatre and also–you guessed it–Bald Soprano. Technical director Jim O’Sullivan is the assistant tech director at TheatreWorks and has had to go down to Southern California to work on Daddy Long Legs, TheatreWorks’ coproduction with the Rubicon.
So, tech was going well, the soundscape sounded great, actors were happy, everyone in great spirits. I decided it was the perfect time to make my exit for the day and work on marketing.
