Ok... so the latest problem I have had was not with a director... but a member of the board of directors at our community theater.
In the middle of show week he went into the booth and took it unpon him self to make the sound louder than the night before when he was there. He did not contact anyone that was a part of the show. Then... on top of that... he did not have a clue what the hell he was doing!
So he's how the night goes...
I arrive...
I do the normal stuff like flip on the breakers, I had completely walked by the note on the bullitian board. I go and open the booth through and unlocked window. I turn on the light board and bring up the lights to do a quick light check and switched on the sound rack to bring up the mic's to do a mic check at the same time. It was at that time I noticed someone had changed the setting on the board.... but I had completely missed the biggest problem so far. About the same time that this was happening I could here the light board operatior yelling for me, but I did not go and find him because I thought he was just going to tell me that he had found the keys (which he had gone off to find while I just opened the window to save time). Instead I went off to find the director to inform him that someone had been in the booth. On the way I passed the guy who had been yelling at me... he told me that I needed to check out a note on the bullitan board. Once again I put it off and continued my pursuit for the director... When I found him... the first thing he said to me was, "Didi you see the note?", At this time I had not... so I said I would but before I did I wanted to tell him that someone had been messing with the board. He just responded by saying that I needed to go and read the note. On the way to the note... I picked up my
cell phone and called the TD who was not in
house that night. He had not been in the booth... so i finally read the note... well... skimed it anyway...
After I had concluded the note was B.S. and after seeing who had written it (a very bad man who hates computers and thinks he knows everything, esspecialy about sound and lights) I went back to the booth because I wanted to check EVERYTHING.... All I really gathered from the note was that he had no clue what he was doing... and that he had said something about red lights that should not be on.
When I got back to the booth... I soon reliezed that the little red lights he was talking about included the mutes on the sound board.... but I had already knew that those were messed up...
When I glanced over the rack I thought that at first the
feedback filter was not on because its 9 red lights were not on.... nope.... it was on.... I checked to make sure that it was not set on bypass... nope....
THAT DAMN FOOL HAD RESET THE THING IN THE MIDDLE OF SHOW WEEK!!!
It is now 45 min before
house opens... I had to reset the entire board and the
feedback filter. This is great... While starting this... I called the TD again to get his help with this disaster.... plus he is very infulencial at the
theatre... but he would not be able to be there until after the show because he was stuck at a rehearsal for a show he was directoring. So anyway... I had finished ajusting everything as good as it was going to get for this performance just before there were ready to open the
house.
Pardon my french... but what an ass....
Instead of making the sound better, he made it worse...
but o well.... because we closed that show last night.... and there will be several people at the next board meeting to protest the fact that he went into the booth without the director's permission....
the bylaws at the
theatre clearly state that during each shows 3 weeks on
stage... the
theatre is theirs and theirs only....