Week 6:
Another Opening, Another Show

June 26, 2016

I just finished my sixth week here at Creede Repertory Theatre which means I only have six weeks left.  I can’t believe my time here is halfway through.  It feels like I just arrived, but it also feels as though I’ve been here long enough to make a home.

This week has probably been the most difficult week since I’ve been here.  It was tech week for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  Every day was very long, starting with a 10 out of 12 on Tuesday and an 8 of 10 on Wednesday.

Last week I mentioned being excited to learn how to use the rail system for the show.  I was hoping to start practicing on Tuesday, but the system wasn’t rigged yet.  By Wednesday night, the system was set.  That means I had very little time to practice using the system before we had an audience on Thursday for preview.  However, with some good teaching and good rigging, the system was very easy to use.  I felt confidant going into the preview performance.

For the majority of the show, I am on the grid above the stage standing by for rail cues.  This means that I get to watch most of the show from above.  It’s a really cool perspective.  I could see all the actors, but I could also glimpse backstage.  I could see all the lighting fixtures close up and tell which ones were on for what scenes.

Preview was much needed for this show, meaning I don’t think anyone wanted to go another night of rehearsal without an actual audience.  Without an audience, the comedy was starting to fall flat.  When the only people in the room are people who have heard the jokes a thousand times, people stop laughing.  The preview audience was energetic and it was wonderful to hear real applause and uproarious laughter.

After preview, the whole company was invited to a campsite in the woods for a post show celebration.  Remembering how much fun I had the last time, I decided to go.  It was a beautiful night full of bright stars.  It rained a little, but not enough to put out the glorious campfire.  It was a relaxing end to a long day.

That brings us to Friday – opening night!  But Dirty Rotten Scoundrels wasn’t the only show on my mind.  In the morning, I had a meeting about The Kid Show, Rodeo and Juliet.  Rehearsals are scheduled to start soon, so we have some preliminary meetings to take care of.  I will be assistant stage managing this show, with Dana as the stage manager.  This is the most responsibility I will have had so far this season, so I am very excited for the opportunity.

My meeting in the morning was a meeting to discuss trapeze.  Rodeo and Juliet is about a rivalry between the rodeo and the circus.  A trapeze will be featured in the show; three actors will use it.  Since we are putting kids on a trapeze, safety is of utmost importance.

After this meeting, there was a full company meeting at the main stage.  At this meeting I was reminded of just how special a place Creede is, as a company member’s dog jumped on the stage and starting roaming around.

Afterwards, we had one more tiny meeting about Rodeo and Juliet.  The show will be performed in the Ruth theatre, where Watson is performed.  We went to the Ruth to discuss where exactly a trapeze would be placed..

We had a quick rehearsal to brush up certain notes for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, then we had a dinner break before we came back to get ready for the show.

Before the show starts, it’s the responsibility of the stage management team to sweep and mop the stage and make sure all the props and set pieces are preset correctly.  I find sweeping and mopping the stage relaxing.  It always feels like a good start to the night.

Opening night was lovely.  We had a great audience, the cast gave a wonderful performance, and little to nothing went wrong on the technical side of things.  The whole company celebrated afterwards at “shop shots” and it was a fun night.

By Saturday, a lot of people were exhausted after a long week.  But we couldn’t lose steam quite yet, because we had both a matinee and an evening performance.  Despite how tired I was, I made it through the two show day and both performances went smoothly.

On Sunday, there was a matinee of Kind of Red.  That means before the matinee performance, the entire set had to be changed over.  To prep for this changeover, we stored all of our props in bins.  To keep track of everything, we kept a list of which props were in which bins and which props were being stored elsewhere.

I am not on the main stage changeover team, but I know how much work the team must have done to get the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels set stored and the Kind of Red set up.  Both sets are very large, but they managed to pull through and find ways to make room for everything.

My Sunday was extremely low key compared to the rest of the week.  As I mentioned earlier, I am getting ready to assistant stage manage Rodeo and Juliet.  On Sunday morning, I had a brief meeting to talk to my stage manager Dana about working on the show.  We discussed our styles of working and our expectations of the breakdown of work.  It sounds like Dana and I will work really well together.  We seem to have similar styles and we are both very excited for the show.

After the meeting, we needed to prep the rehearsal space.  All the spike tape from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was still on the floor in the rehearsal space, so first we had to pull that up.  Then we had to tape out our stage.  This involved taping out the rectangle of the stage at the Ruth based on where we could place the rehearsal trapeze.  The scenic design includes a circus ring painted on the floor.  So in the rehearsal space, we also taped out this circle.

I had never taped out a circle before and was skeptical about how exactly to measure it and make it look nice.  First we took a marker tied to some yarn.  I held the yarn at the center point, we measured out the length of the radius, and Dana walked in a circle around me drawing the circle on the floor.  Then we taped over that circle by carefully guiding the tape with our hands.  It was much easier than I expected.

Lastly, we swept and mopped the floor to make it clean and safe to start rehearsing in.

My Sunday work day may have been done, but my Sunday adventures weren’t.

Though Creede is the smallest town I’ve ever lived in, they still managed to do a gay Pride festival this year, and it took place on Sunday night.  A group of us from the company and community hopped from different restaurants in Creede, tasting whatever they had on special for Pride.  We then had a candlelit vigil in the park for the victims of the Orlando shooting.  It was very emotional.  Many people spoke, and I stood up and read one of my poems.  Then we had a party at the local bar, Tommy’s.

It was my first Pride celebration and I never imagined that was going to take place in the middle of the Colorado mountains.  But it did, and it was beautiful.

You may recall last week I mentioned my costume for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels might include tacky Hawaiian prints.  We tried that one night, but ultimately the designer ended up making us maids.