yesterday was fun...
wow, was this the shortest week in the history of the world. It seriously has felt like one very long day to me. it was/is crazy.
ok, so the dress rehearsal was yesterday. let's just say I didn't think we could pull it off, but we did. my prof (crazy, nothing you do is ever good enough prof... etc (did I say that?))even said that the stage looked great and that Jess and I did a great job! I was like, WHAT?
so. night before rehearsal day (Tuesday night) working on a HUGE project due Wednesday morning (@ noon). 5 am I decided, I will never finish in time. I was literally, LITERALLY falling asleep as I was taping my boards together. it was funny. you had to be there.
and I needed sleep for MIS/the rehearsal. so I went to sleep for three hours, only having had the same amount the night before. I just knew the rehearsal was going to suck.
got up at 8... worked on the boards a little. was going to sleep some more, but did not get the chance. I had not seen Jess (my co stage designer) the day before, so we had no plan for what was happening today. I tried e mailing/calling her... nothin.
finnally she called me back. we tried to find time to meet, but our schedules are completely opposite on Wednesdays. when I was in class she wasn't and vice versa.
but it was cool I was going to bring the sign over at three... and she's help put on the track lighting, etc when her test was done at 3:30ish. then we'd get the fog machine (for the finale) and it would all be good. models were coming at 4 and we should have it all that done by then.
here's where it gets fun...
so.... get done early... bringing sign over around quarter to THREE so the tech guys could put it up. I turn into the hallway leading into the great hall (the lovely location of our show). I stopped dead in my tracks. THERE WAS NO STAGE SET UP!!! and there were tables (from a banquet earlier that day) ALL OVER the room.
I nearly freaked… no on was even around looking like they were about to start setting things up. our name was on the events list for the great hall today… So I knew I didn’t have the wrong day or was going crazy…
I went to reservations to see what was going on… and only the receptionist (who didn’t know anything about anything that was going on) was there….
Shortly after that I saw risers in the hall way… sigh of relief. They’re starting to set up now.
Even though the show coordinator swears she had the great hall reserved for 3, it turns out it was actually reserved for 5 (after people were supposed to be there… ) (she blames reservations, but it’s called checking the reservation confirmation they send you! that is what it’s for!)
but aesthetic judging was first and the first run didn’t have to start till after that, so everything was fine.
So they start putting up the risers. Jess and I went to get the LOVELY fog machine. As we get back, half the risers are set up… in the WRONG direction. I told them and one chick (who had already been slightly bitchy to me earlier) was like: your supposed to tell us how to set it up when you make the reservation. Guess what? We did! another person got the diagram and so first chick realized: “oh, I guess I just can’t read a diagram.” So I didn’t feel so bad when they had to take it down and start over.
So next. Time to put up the paper. (we are using white paper to cover up a long gap in our back drop.) good thing I was able to steal paper earlier…
(tangent: I happened to have ran into Jess earlier that day. she stepped out of class for a second right when I was passing by, that seems to happen to us a lot, it’s weird) She was in visual merchandising putting up a display and she asked me to come look at it and “meet the bitch” in her group. so I did…
after getting her keys to run to her apartment to get white (to white out the gold grommets on the sign) I just about to ask her where she wanted me to pick up the white paper when I saw a HUGE roll over her shoulder sitting all by itself, with no on near it in the corner.
It was like it appeared in front of my eyes. I was like: hi, there’s paper, let’s take some. So I discreetly wonder over to it and start rolling… I needed about 25 feet… so I roll and roll some more… that looks like enough… I pull out my scissors and start cutting…. about done and HI Jess’ teacher comes back into the room. good thing the room was full of small groups all over and she didn’t really pay any attention to me. I grabbed my roll and ran out… end of tangent)
all right. let’s unroll the paper so we can tape it in place: this is me expecting a nice 25 foot stream of paper to beautifully roll across the floor. five feet later… the beautiful rolling ends. my jaw literally dropped. Jess laughed. I could not believe there was seriously only five feet of paper there! I nearly died. I still cannot get over that, though it was hilarious.
great… off to finding more paper. couldn't get it from the promotions lab (location of our prior paper pilfering) cause the door was locked. on to res life (run, they close in ten minutes): sure you can have some paper, go get it. oh, no we don’t have white. will black do? yes.
and so back to the taping. how about everyone asks us WHY the paper is black, wasn’t it supposed to be white… blah blah blah… What are rehearsals for anyway? (phrase of the day)
at least we recruited other to put up the track lighting. it was put on like crap, but what can you do… we’ll make sure it’s right for the show…
What are rehearsals for anyway?
good thing Mike (kick ass tech guy, most of others are kind of jerks, at least in my experience) was there to help us figure out how to work the fog machine. it would have taken Jess and I about a million times longer than the time it took him (30 seconds) to figure that thing out: ok, on and off is there. push that to make fog. sounded easy enough.
damn that thing produces more fog than I ever would have thought.
and we were worried about having enough.
and it smells like burning…
let's place it right in the middle of the stage (behind our backdrop). Jess and are have to manually operate it. so we figure out when our cue is…
we get back there. the thing should be properly warmed up. cause, you know, it started right away when Mike was there…
blah blah blah… say Jess and I, we might have come back here too early. blah blah blah the show seems so much longer when your back stage and not a model, dresser or pusher…. we’re sitting there doing nothing, and HELLO FOG starts coming out of the fog machine. I scramble to turn it off, where the fuck is that off switch when you need it! what felt like 20 minutes later I got it off and unplugged it, it doesn’t even stop right away! so that was fun, wtf?
Jess had been holding the remote, but she didn’t think she bumped it… (secretly I was like, yeah, you bumped it…) we turned it back on, noting to not even LOOK at the remote…
as our hearts begin to slow down, maybe a little, both Jess and I are each a foot away from the machine, no one is close to it and yes, I kid you not, MORE FOG starts coming out. now I know the thing is possessed. we got it off a little faster this time, but now we were afraid to turn it back on. but what are rehearsals for anyway? we waited till the finale to even plug it in. and it seemed to work all right. way lots of fog, it was sort of cool. except for the smell.
break time, and figure out what the hell was going on before the second run through. we had the fog machine unplugged throughout the beginning of the next rehearsal. this time let’s not turn it on till just before the finale. ok, cool… just remember lights out, music (PHOTOM OF THE OPERA OVERTURE, YES!), fog… or so we thought… it went like this: lights down, music, NO fog!!!!!!!!! so, it didn’t work for the rest of the night (even though Tuan tried to exorcize it during the studio zip line up)
What are rehearsals for anyway?
we’d had a random tech guy look at the fog machine between the two run rehearsals… he said he had fixed it, but yeah, apparently NOT! he was too busy flirting with the models to do that.
but Jess and I will get there early on Saturday, before everyone else, so we can set up without annoyance and Mike will be there to hopefully work his fog machine magic, we are bringing him doughnuts and coffee after all. (since he is the guy who made all the lights perfect for us (lots of work) for my prof only to extend the stage, making him have to fix the lights all over again…)
but for a rehearsal, it was ok. my prof canalled the day of the show morning rehearsal, so it must have been good.
oh I hope things work out. we shall see. I’m excited and scrrrd at the same time. we shall see…
days till the show: 1
days till graduation: 17
days till I leave Menomonie forever: 20
days till concert: 148