Fission
Member
I've lurked on this board for such a long time, it's almost a little bit bizarre to be posting. This is such an incredible site - I've had so many questions answered here, without even having to ask them.
I first got hooked on technical theatre in High School. Attracted to the shiny ETC Express 24/48 on a tour of the high school, I joined (became the sole member of) the lighting team and designed the lighting for "Robin Hood" and Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution".
I overhauled that theatre's lighting system by senior year. Re-hung multiple systems of lights and a few curtain warmers, found a bunch of shinbusters in a back room, and tracked down the wired control system for our incandescent houselights. (Previously our house-to-half cues involved abruptly turning off the fluorescent fixtures.) Learned lots about gobos, and colour selection and fell in love with that dusty smell of warm theatrical luminaires.
In my senior year, our drama teacher was retiring and I was graduating, so we went out with a bang. I took on the role of Stage Manager/Technical Director, and we put on "Peter Pan" - an appropriately technically complex production with stage combat, dance choreography and flight cues. We had 40 cast members (primarily from a very large ensemble, and two dance numbers with the fairies and mermaids), and 20 crew from the brand new Technical Theatre class.
We were the first public school in our district to fly student actors - all of it was rigged by licensed riggers who knew what they were doing. (And the stage combat was supervised by a stage combat instructor). Unfortunately, the engineering review of our grid only let us fly one actor at a time, but through careful blocking, they all went up at the right moments.
There really is nothing quite like calling "Go" and having an actor fly into the air right at that moment. I was hooked.
After Peter Pan closed, the head of the company that did our rigging, who was also the Technical Director of a local improv company, asked me to stage manage a production of "Aladdin", as part of their children's theatre shows. I was thrilled when I got the call, and it was a great learning experience.
University, and my first few years of work put a bit of an end to my theatre days for a while, but as you know, it's an itch that won't go away once it's in your blood.
So these days, in addition to a regular 9-to-5, I still freelance as a Stage Manager for a local theatre company - I average about one show per year with them. They rent a theatre in one of the local PACs for each show and it's a great experience to work in the "big leagues". I also once had a walk-on role as the Mayor in one of the first live productions of "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", which was a (metric) tonne of fun.
I enjoy attending live shows, and have had the pleasure of seeing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra twice (they don't tour much in Western Canada) but they put on quite the show.
The majority of my technical theatre time now is spent volunteering with a local church coordinating the areas of Video, Lighting and Projection.
You'll probably hear more about that in some later posts.
I first got hooked on technical theatre in High School. Attracted to the shiny ETC Express 24/48 on a tour of the high school, I joined (became the sole member of) the lighting team and designed the lighting for "Robin Hood" and Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution".
I overhauled that theatre's lighting system by senior year. Re-hung multiple systems of lights and a few curtain warmers, found a bunch of shinbusters in a back room, and tracked down the wired control system for our incandescent houselights. (Previously our house-to-half cues involved abruptly turning off the fluorescent fixtures.) Learned lots about gobos, and colour selection and fell in love with that dusty smell of warm theatrical luminaires.
In my senior year, our drama teacher was retiring and I was graduating, so we went out with a bang. I took on the role of Stage Manager/Technical Director, and we put on "Peter Pan" - an appropriately technically complex production with stage combat, dance choreography and flight cues. We had 40 cast members (primarily from a very large ensemble, and two dance numbers with the fairies and mermaids), and 20 crew from the brand new Technical Theatre class.
We were the first public school in our district to fly student actors - all of it was rigged by licensed riggers who knew what they were doing. (And the stage combat was supervised by a stage combat instructor). Unfortunately, the engineering review of our grid only let us fly one actor at a time, but through careful blocking, they all went up at the right moments.
There really is nothing quite like calling "Go" and having an actor fly into the air right at that moment. I was hooked.
After Peter Pan closed, the head of the company that did our rigging, who was also the Technical Director of a local improv company, asked me to stage manage a production of "Aladdin", as part of their children's theatre shows. I was thrilled when I got the call, and it was a great learning experience.
University, and my first few years of work put a bit of an end to my theatre days for a while, but as you know, it's an itch that won't go away once it's in your blood.
So these days, in addition to a regular 9-to-5, I still freelance as a Stage Manager for a local theatre company - I average about one show per year with them. They rent a theatre in one of the local PACs for each show and it's a great experience to work in the "big leagues". I also once had a walk-on role as the Mayor in one of the first live productions of "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", which was a (metric) tonne of fun.
I enjoy attending live shows, and have had the pleasure of seeing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra twice (they don't tour much in Western Canada) but they put on quite the show.
The majority of my technical theatre time now is spent volunteering with a local church coordinating the areas of Video, Lighting and Projection.
You'll probably hear more about that in some later posts.
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