crew night

[propmonkey]

does anyone else have crew nights? if so what do you do? last year we went to this really ionce japanese place(also did some research for last years musical there: The Mikado). this year we're going to this place called the safe house in milwaukee, its a spy themed place. except this time we have to pay, are lighting consult has a meetings in milaukee all day but last time he paied for all of our dinners which was atleast over $150. i hope we go bowling after or a moive.

[RelativeMischief]

We just always went over to one of the guys' house and had a "production meeting"

[SuperCow]

Well, we don't have a designated crew night, but we often get together, go out for some sushi, and then we, uh, play badminton. Yeah, that's it, we play badminton and other things that those under the age of eighteen are allowed to do.

[zac850]

Yeah, that's it, we play badminton and other things that those under the age of eighteen are allowed to do.

Or 21 in the wonderful united states (you can go to war and die for your country, but you can't have a glass of wine when your at dinner. does that make sense?). But, we play cards, and study, thats it, we study a lot.

[dj_illusions]

yes, its called the pub after every show lol

[soundman]

At my intern ship we had a grill out hosted by the set designer in the middle of the summer then after it was all said and done there was a viewing of the rocky horror picture show at the intern house (housing was provided if you were over hte age of 18) They said they were getting dressed up and I thought nothing of it. I was rather taking back by what they maniged to find in the custume room, and embaresed that I went to so little effort, wearing what I wore to work.

but at my high school after strike we go out to eat and there are partys after the shows but no one really makes plans.

[dj_illusions]

omg rocky horror picture show... that was on late night tv when i got home a few weeks ago, i think that it has damaged me forlife... men in tights and makeup inst my cup of tea :|

[soundman]

well the host in the movie sat night next to me in fish net stockings a vest and a very short swim suit but after working side by side on 5 shows over 3 months you get by thoose little things quickly.

[JahJahwarrior]

well, I would go out and party or something after shows, but being only 15, and having parents who think tht 9 is a good time to be home, it's really hard to even stay light to help strike a set, much less go eat pizza or something afterwardss. And everyone freaks out when you play with lighters too.

[ccfan213]

well the host in the movie sat night next to me in fish net stockings a vest and a very short swim suit but after working side by side on 5 shows over 3 months you get by thoose little things quickly.

was the host of the movie a guy or a girl?

JahJahwarrior, im 15 too but i dont think ive ever gotten home from a night of tech before 9:00 tonight i was there until 10 and that was just a rehersal for something we rented the school for, after shows, we usually are done with strike by 9 or 10 the whole cast and crew usually go to a nearby diner to eat socialize relax and for once, not worry about deadlines.

[soundman]

Docter Frank n Furter was played by a male.

[JahJahwarrior]

your parents must be alot cooler than mine in the tech department!! my dad thinks I ought to shut msyelf in my room and do nothing but study math for the next 20 years.

This play though, I will plan a crew thing to do, so my parents will let me!

[JP12687]

Does anybody else run into the problem in HS about some students feeling the need to get REALLY messed up after shows? It just makes it no fun when you have to spend the whole night taking care of kids who are puking up their guts...A good crew party could be fun..but i am somewhat jaded as in my town it normally means exessive drinking.

[ccfan213]

soundman.... ew

no we dont drink after shows, if anyone does, its not alot, not nearly enough to be puking over
and jahjahwarrior, i stay up really late, so for my parents to make me come home early would just be stupid, i wont b sleeping anyway... especially not after a good show.

[propmonkey]

man you guys suck. im 16 now and a junior. are strikes are on closing night after the show. we get done around 3am. and then go out for coffee and stuff and watch the sun come up. the professional theatre i work at in the summer we go down to this bar place after and hang out. everyone usually has a drink or few. i havent. its always a fun time though.

your parents must be alot cooler than mine in the tech department!! my dad thinks I ought to shut msyelf in my room and do nothing but study math for the next 20 years.

This play though, I will plan a crew thing to do, so my parents will let me!

i have the same problum

I am only 17 now, when i used to do school theatre we all (teacher, actors etc - i was the only 'techie' that would go out!! the other were kinda sad) at then end of a production would go down the local pub and all drink lotsand lots of beer and having a great time - Since most kids in england have been drinking in pubs since 15/16 most of us know how to control our drink and be able to get pissed without getting paraletic. At the venue i am the cheif engineer we often (once a month) go out to town, see a gig the go to a club and end up back at the venue until about 6 in the morning running up a large tab ;-). I cant stand those techies or engineers who wont go out for a drink/nite out when the get a chance. Its great to go out and drink with techies and not metion anything technical!!!

Jamie

[Peter]

I avoid parties and drinking (except water) always. If you ask me its a dumb thing to do, I know too many people who have gotten hurt bad or messed up their lives by drinking. I live almost 45 mins away from my school, and when i have someone else working with me, they could very well live 45 mins in the other direction. Considering that the nearest real pizza place is 30 mins in the direction away from everyones houses, it gets to be too much of a bother to have any kind of tech nights. If anything we'll bring candy to school and eat it on stage (where not much can get hurt by a spill) or in the lobby. Of course that happens once in a blue moon, because most of the time I really dont have a crew... It's just me for most of the shows I do. (only really have a crew for bigger shows a few times a year)

so ya, i often sit alone at my kitchen table at 11 pm or later when i get home and have a nice big party for myself as i eat supper! (homework fits in during shows that i dont have to do much for other then setup and take down, and into the wee hours of the morning)

[techieman33]

well when i was in high school, on friday nights after a show, all the techies would go to denny's, and usually that's when most of the old techie alum come to see the show so we hang out and talk, and catch up on old times, then saturday since our TD wouldn't let us strike after the show, so we would go to the company party, with cast/tech, everyone involved, and have some fun, then all the techs leave togeather and we go to a parking lot and make a bon fire with our cue sheet, prompt books everything, it's a fun way to end the show. and as far as alchol, we might have a drink or 2 but don't get drunk.

[ccfan213]

we generally go to the diner after every show with the people involved, but on closing night we go to the cast/crew party.

[soundman]

Heres a better question, do any of you 'bond' with the crew out side of the show like play mini golf or bowl? I hang out with some friends from crew but not every one, I was woundering id anyone did this as a unit. ALso for this show there must of been some strong anti-actor feelings becasue every time we got notes the "its not us VS them thing" came up. SO what about the cast?

[techieman33]

well up until this last year when i graduated the techs were one big family, we were always togeater, hung out at one of the local coffee shops a lot, there isn't much of an actor vs techie feud, we didn't hand out as much with the actors as with the other techs, but we didn't have any problems. As far as college, everyone acts, i'm the only 100% techie at my school, so i hang out with the actors a lot, most of them treat me like a god, cause i'm the only tech, it's kind of funny.

I have never heard of such a thing... what exactly is the point of a crew night? Is it for fun or work? Sounds interesting.

[ccfan213]

its a fun night, where all of us who work our asses off for little or no appreciation go out and chill or party.

we dont really have that, most of our crew acts too. except maybe.... 8 people. so we just have stuff with the actors, or just get together our self. We dont really have actor vs. techie problum. Except one actor is an A******, but none of the other actors like him either.

[Peter]

My school is small enough that most of the people who help me out, are the same people i have classes with, so i get to know them there.

[kirbz60062]

Im 15 and once again we also usually strike untill midnight ish and go out and see a movie and grab something to eat and usually get home around 2 or 3 and our crew is only like 9 people so we are all really close. My parents had a problem with it at first but after a while they just looked at is as normal. But I know if they could have their way i would be home at 7 every night.

[EPAC_Matt]

Usually our plays show thursday through saturday, and on the Friday after the show, we all go down to Denny's (around 11:00 PM)

Last year, during Alice in Wonderland, our theatre manager bought the crew bunny ears, so we went into Denny's last year in stageblacks wearing bunny ears.. it was great 8)

This year after macbeth, those of us who could find them, wore the ears again and we got some funny looks.. good times indeed.

[Peter]

LOL that's great!

(Driving from our place to the movies and back (never mind seeing a movie) would take from 12 till 2! Enjoy living where there is actually stuff to do! (that same time frame goes for the nearest Denny's :-/ ))

The closest thing we have had to your bunny ears are pins that said "Friends of Fenwick" that we were supposto wear a few days before our production of "The Mouse that Roared". It didnt really happen b/c everyone was dissapointed and upset with the show (This was the show that the director yelled so much, 1/2 of the cast walked out 2 weeks before opening). The ears are defanatly a great idea (the perfect antenas for headsets if you ask me :-) )

[techieman33]

walking into walgreens right after a show has to be one of the funnest things we've done, around 12 of us walked on togeater, all in black, the security guard flipped out, and a lot of people were giving us weird looks, and some were definetly scarred, but then we just bought some pop and chips for the company party and everyone had a relived look on their face.

[who_touched_the_patch]

At my theatre we have a tradition called the "Dark Night."

Basically, its a night that happens after tech week the night/day before opening. The only thing on stage, apart from the set, is a ghost-light, and the entire theatre just basically sits there ready to go.

(It is quite common to find a lonely techie working after hours to get a last minute job done, but that happens on a black-night about once every two years!

ANYWAY - the whole idea of a blacknight is to give everyone, cast and crew both, a 24-hour period where they're not thinking about the show!

It actually works really well to focus the entire cast and crew.

To relate back to the topic, blacknight will normally see the entire tech crew at a movie, pizza place, club or bar - just having a holiday after the stress of tech week.

[OldGrover]

*grins* Tech /week/ ? LUXURY. We're lucky to get a tech /weekend/ - and by weekend, I mean we get access to the theatre on Saturday noon and we're supposed to be ready for a cue-to-cue by Sunday afternoon.

Why, I remember one tech weekend not too long ago where I showed up as a volunteer carpenter, just to pitch in for a few hours, and discovered that the show's master carpenter had bailed.. and thus nobody had any construction plans, nobody had bought any wood, nobody had done ANYTHING with regards to making the set a reality. In fact, the TD and Director will still trying to sort out what they wanted things to look like. Oh. And they had almost no budget left.

That was... fun. It worked - by Sunday afternoon, they had a full set, including a brandnew bed, a hospital operating gurney, full sets of walls, including some cutaways, doors and windows and moving walls.. but it was a lot of hours at no notice.

Of course, the show then proceeded to flop, but that wasn't the fault of my set.

-OG

[scarlco]

At my theatre, the crew spends so much time together, we're like a family almost. The actors rarely join us on our nights out - they reside primarily in NYC, and just want to get home. Usually, the crew will get together on any given night of the week, and I'll be there waiting for the hangover victims on a matinee day. I'll sometimes join them on Friday nights, when they go to a local restaurant / bar for karaoke.

We play this great game sometimes called 'theatre tag' or 'flashlight tag'. We wait until the building is empty, and just go nuts. Always fun with a comlicated set. Of course, we're all careful - each crew member knows that if they break something, the game is off to fix it... and if they break themselves, the whole thing loses it's purpose. It's just a blast to blow off some steam occasionally. In our situation, that's a necessity. After all, we're sometimes working 7 days a week, and once every three months we're putting in an average of 100 hours in a week. Lots of steam to blow off!

[moojoe]

heh. you guys are taken aback by rocky horror. oh dear.
our entire company loves rocky horror, we've even preformed it for the audience participation midnight showings. but if you think that a guy wearing fishnets is creepy, oh wow i hope you guys never see what we wear. >.> <.<

[avkid]

wow,some people scare easily! The things that go on at cast parties(the insanity)

[jammers]

Working in live music full time we tend not to do much socialy after gigs. However the once or twice per year i do theatre type stuff (once per year at my old school) on closing night the hole cast (ages 13-18yrs plus teachers) goes to a local pub and we all get wasted, well tho older looking ones - typically 16yrs plus. Its great, get rid of all that tension and usally end up throwing up after one too many snake bites and vodka! Rock On.

[cutlunch]

heh. you guys are taken aback by rocky horror. oh dear.
our entire company loves rocky horror, we've even preformed it for the audience participation midnight showings. but if you think that a guy wearing fishnets is creepy, oh wow i hope you guys never see what we wear. >.> <.<

For you Rocky Horror Fans here is a news story from New Zealand, where it's creator Richard O'Brien lived for many years. Checkout the statue made by Weta Workshops (Lord of the Rings ).

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=6500547

[SketchyCroftPpl]

We have a few crew traditions. The first is that before every show for the three days that it runs we do something called "Techie Love" its where we go and get together at one of the techs house after school and write a mean skit about actors (they write one about us as well) and then we perform them during the cast party. We also go as an entire cast to a mexican resteraunt called "tortilla sams" after the second night show. After the third is the cast part and the first is nothing. The day of the opening show is black and white day and anyone involved in the show either a actor or tech or music wears only black and white. And every play we get shirts for the play and one day we're allowed to wear them and then they become in dress code.

~Nick

[techieman33]

I miss that part of a show in high school, now it's just a big drunken party every night, which gets old really fast.

[avkid]

wow, someone else with my dress code. Last year I mandated black dress shirts shoes, slacks and dark or silver ties for all tech crew at all formal events.For local bands and such we just wear jeans, industry t-shirts,steel toe boots or sneakers and credentials.