Monday, November 3

I have a day off today, and it's lovely.

Over the last several days, I've been working on tech stuff for the 2nd-Years' production of Wilder! Wilder! Wilder!, which is a series of five one-act plays by Thornton Wilder.

I actually really like Wilder. I've been in two productions of Our Town (Mrs. Webb in high school, Mrs. Soames in college), and I'd read a few of the one-acts from this show before I got here. I like that his stories unfold slowly and leave you (as an audience member) in a completely different state of mind in the end than you had at the beginning. I like how he finds both the comedy and tragedy in human existence and lets them play out the way they might in life.

The first year class all has tech duties, but they change for every show. Big Show is assistant stage manager, All-The-Way and The Pro are on costumes, Two-Shots-Up is on sound board, Iceman is on light board, and Thrill, D-Train, and I are on stage crew. Wifey, and Killer are on box office right now, and O.D. is house managing, so they haven't been around for tech for this show.

Stage crew (which people here have also referred to as "deck crew" or "props") doesn't have a ton to do on this show, as the set is minimalistic and the actors move a lot of the set and props themselves.

Here's what I do:
- Help with sweeping/mopping the stage.
- Prepare all the food props (refilling boxes of chocolates and marshmallows, refilling bags of potato chips and crushed pretzels, refilling the "whisky" with half iced tea and half water)
- Move some props on stage from their storage places
- During the 1st play, I move props, costume pieces, and wigs into the voms (hallways on the sides of the audience), and set up a table to put things on during the changes)
- In the 2nd play, I help with 2 quick-changes
- Between the 2nd and 3rd plays, I help with 2 quick-changes
- During the 3rd play, I dissemble the table and put away all props and costumes (this requires several trips)
- I go on stage and assist with moving set pieces during the intermission
- During intermission I empty the "whisky", and wash the container and the glass
- During the 4th play, I put away more props (I have to wait until the audience is seated because some of the storage closets are in the hallways that audience walks through)
- I move set in the scene change between the 4th and 5th plays
- I reset the rest of the hand props after the show ends

It actually seems like more when I write it out, but there's a lot of down time, (particularly during the 1st and 5th shows). When I'm not doing anything else, I'm usually watching from the voms. The five plays complement each other nicely and are fun to watch.

It's really fun being a part of a production again. It's been so long since I've done tech work for anything (I think the last time was... March 2007, when I helped my roommate set lights for a show he was directing. But I really had very little to do with that, and wasn't there for the run of the show). I forgot how nice it is.

We're being let out of our afternoon classes tomorrow and are instead called for tech stuff at noon. There's a preview performance tomorrow night. It's really rather exciting. :)