Corn chips in the booth.

[tech2000]

You're making me feel better now about my theater's sound!
How did your body mics get stolen? You must not have had a place to store them and lock them up.

 

[Clifford]

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. We left them on the counter near the sound board. Usually the window is locked, but someone left it open. We don't know when exactly, but someone entered the theatre openned the window, saw a black road case and decided to take it. We still have the receivers somewhere.

 

[tech2000]

The person probably sold the mics on ebay or something. Bet now you guys double-check the windows when you lock up. When we leave at my school, I walk around and check every door and padlock in the theater to make sure everything is locked and secure.
What brand/model microphone were they?

 

[Clifford]

I want to say they were Shure. This all happened before I was anything near TD, so I'm not sure of all the details. Checking things are locked isn't actually our biggest priority. We have nothing worth stealing. Seriously. And anything we do have that's worth anything is either bolted to the counter or in the electrical room which the district guards like Fort Knox. Oh, and they fixed the rear door that didn't lock. :neutral:

 

[tech2000]

Our booth, we don't have to worry about getting broken into because if you wanted to go in through the windows, you would have to jump in from the catwalks (it's about a four foot jump away from our back catwalk and is down several feet so if you miss you will fall all the way down to the house floor. (Plus our catwalks are locked so no one is there unless authorized.
Then the door to the booth (The actual way of entry) is always locked, you put the key in, turn it, go through and once the key is removed, the door automatically locks again. So we don't have to worry about it unless we prop it open.

 

[Clifford]

I can't stand self-locking doors. They always lock when you need a door that doesn't lock, and they're held open when you want them closed and locked.

 

[tech2000]

True, whenever I go up there and then come back down, someone else has to go up there and then I have to give them the keys I have or tell them to go find keys to get in. Can be REALLY annoying.

 

[Clifford]

Our booth door actually swings open if not closed all the way. That can be annoying too. Why can't doors just read our minds and do what we want?

 

[tech2000]

You should patent that idea.
There is a door in the shop in my theater where someone took off the bar that slowly pulls the door closed after you go through it, so if you're not careful and you open the door fast, the door will open all the way and swing back in your face.

 

[Clifford]

We only have two automatically closing doors in the entire theatre (not counting the front doors), and they are for the dressing rooms. Our house doors are all on electromagnetics, which is frickin awesome. One switch and all the doors close together. We've scared some people with those. Especially since we can't see the doors from the booth.

 

[tech2000]

Nice!

The doors here are held open by magnets when pushed all the way open. I believe they are electromagnets, but we can't flip a switch and all close all at the same time. I wish we did!
It's funny though whenever the firealarms go off, where ever there is a door held open by the magnets, the doors will close automatically. It's amazing! Not to mention really funny.

 

[Clifford]

Oh, you guys have electromagnetic fire doors. That's cool, and safe. I don't know if ours do that, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

 

[tech2000]

Yeah, at least we don't really need to use door stops around the theater. With the exception of the greenroom and the booth. Actually both doors into the booth. You enter one door from the outside hallway, then walk down a short little hallway where there is a sink and another door into the actual booth.
I guess this is to cut down noise during a show or something.

 

[Clifford]

We have two booth doors (well, one really), and both open from the lobby, right next to the bathrooms. One door is for the elevator though, so we never use that one. The elevator, like numerous other things we have, is broken.

 

[tech2000]

Your theater IS neglected. wow. Hey at least you had an elevator in your booth. That would be nice (although it sounds like you never got to use it).
You should ask the maintenance dept. if they can fix it for you guys.

 

[Clifford]

Apparently it's been broken for 8 years. If they didn't act in that time, I don't see why they would now. But I guess there's no harm in asking.

Incomplete list of things that don't work/are broken/missing:

-Booth elevator stuck in the up position
-Aisle lighting doens't work
-Lighting channels 60-69 don't work
-Motorized electrical battens control panel (we have to stick pencils into the fuse resets in the panel to operate them)
-We're missing the winch handle for the fire curtain apparatus
-The key for the scissor lift broke. In the ignition. Now anyone can use it.
-Lost key for the audience recall bell
-Button for audience recall bell (the only one that doesn't need a key) is broken
-30 or so capless Altman 360Q's
-4 broken/partly disassembled Altman 8" fresnels
-Many other lights that are useless because we can't get lamps for them
-A truly gross cyc; the bottom is all scraped and discolored
-The house was built with 368 seats. You can sit in 351 of them.
-We have 1 hammer, no screwdrivers, 3 1/2 handsaws
--We have 13 drills, 4 work
--We have the what is quite possibly the most useless drill press ever conceived. We don't even plug it in.
-The entire wired intercom system doesn't work
-Monitor channel A is blown
-Four of our eight trumpet speakers have been blown, with one of the basses

There are quite a few more, but I'll leave it there.

 

[tech2000]

That is quite a list...
We have about 10 to 15 capless ETC S4's and barely enough Fresnels to have basic downlight. Most broke this past year.
You should sell the lights you can't get lamps for (unless the only reason you can't get lamps is because of money). Then by selling you could make some extra money.
How do you guys have no screwdrivers and only 1 hammer? Thats amazing, and the fact that you have 3 and a half saws!
You should get rid of the drills that don't work. Maybe someone will buy them even though they are broken...maybe not.
Just don't blow out any other speakers I guess.

What are you using for an intercom system?
My schools wired clearcom system was having problems this past year so I told my director to buy some nice two way radios (I also wanted to be able to walk and talk on headset). Now we only have 5 to start out with, but I'm hoping to get more.

 

[Clifford]

You'd be amazed what we've accomplished without screwdrivers. For most of last semester we also didn't have a hammer either. We had one, but then it walked and we had to buy another one. I would also like to mention the fact that we have one crescent wrench.

We were very surprised when the district bought us a wireless ClearCom system. With everything else that they won't deal with, they got that. We aren't complaining, it works great and allows for a little more flexibility. And we lost our wired beltpacks. Except for the two that don't work, we managed to keep those.

 

[tech2000]

I am truly amazed at how a high school theater can get by with only one hammer and crescent wrench and no screwdrivers. During the spring we ended up buying a couple of hammers and we found one. (We're not sure where it came from!) We also have a lot of screwdrivers and use them all the time!

It is weird that they bought you a wireless clearcom, I guess they think communication is more important during a show? and it would be easier to buy wireless instead? Those are expensive too! Oh well, that's pretty cool to have.

 

[Clifford]

We pretty much screw everything together. We've used nails twice for sets since I've joined. We did use one nail for the tootsie roll, but that doesn't really count I guess. As for the crescent wrench, most of our lights are up all the time, and for shows we usually only have a few to hang or move.

Everyone loves the ClearCom system. It is basically the only reason we love the district. We can get five people on it, which is usually enough (SM on base station, 2 ASMs, TD, followspot lead). And on the high transmit setting, I can out to the parking lot or into the band/choir rooms (behind the theatre) and still talk to the other techies. This is really helpful during musicals when they insist on warming up in their own rooms.