Once upon a time...
So the last 48 hours have been such a high and utter low. Must be a familial throw back from Laura. It was the Hart House Drama festival and I was doing the tech for the Adult Toys show - great script, great crew. Evidently, the director tells me the cast needed more time and more polish - not being a drama student, they looked just fine to me...
Anyway, the day started on Wednesday morning and didn't finish until Friday morning - another marathon of no sleep and frantic problem solving. This is where I live, and I love where I live. I had been prop building for the last few weeks and everything was in order: the crate, the sandbox which reversed into a platform, a "fe/male" store sign and logo; I was also responsible for the projections. We did our tests and setup at 9am downtown on Thursday, which meant the crew was up at 6am and was on the bus at 7. I had too much work to finish and ended up not sleeping.
We got there and set up everything, everything tested out ok, the Hart House staff was even nice enough to roof mount the projector so that we wouldn't have it sitting on stage for the actors to trip over. So all was good and when our time was up, we turned our attention to fixing all the little problems: a water cooler that we didn't have yet (we ended up using an overturned garbage can with a water bottle taped to the top); some string that we didn't have enough of (we "borrowed" some small pieces of string and tied them together with reef (aka "windsor", as I'm told) knots. And that was pretty much it. I had lunch with my stage manager Soo; Jenny, the backstage headset runner; and Mel, Soo's friend from highschool.
We went to Japanese where, disappointingly, I could only eat a veggie donbury. They had lovely things like california rolls and tempura boxes... one day, I'll eat again. We get back to Hart House and just bide our time, going through the motions, making sure everything's set. I took a nap. Soo wasn't afforded that opportunity since the other show's cast came in with a big ruckus. Anyway, yes, these are the running tallys of the timeline of the happy times.
Did I mention this was the last show I'm working on? Since I'm (hopefully) graduating: this is it.
I thought I would go out with a bang; another show under my belt, another amazing performance. I already grunted and shoved blood, sweat and tears to get all the props made and the projections finished and rendered, the actual shows are just a walk in the park for me.
Anyway, suffice to say, I screwed up. The sound didn't come through on a few cues (our soundboard operator Jess was having a time trying to figure out what changed during the other shows' setup and run) and we had some screwed up cues. There was a photomontage that failed to show up, even though the sound ran. And the resolution of the projector was just soo small and dinky so that stuff got cut off. ugh.
The cast is pissed; our director, more so. The playwrite, i have no idea how he feels. I just feel bad about everything, about letting them down, about crippling - what I thought was a brilliant show - technical difficulties. I triple checked everything before we went on and stuff still went wrong. The audience had no idea of the drama backstage as we frantically tried to put something - anything - on stage. The end result was ok, but, it was a train wreck from a technical stand point.
My last show. Mired by a slew of technical problems. One of every problem that could have happened. It's like a Noah's Ark of glitches - just only barely floating above a sea of total collapse.
Needless to say, that was the low.
After cleaning up, I ran off with Soo and Jenny to go find some food. I was too embarassed to face the cast again... Now, we come to the point of the show where things level out. We talked about nothing, really, but it was nice to be around people again: the last few weeks have been just a rush trying to get everything prepared for the show. There's this fanciful trip to NY sometime in the summer that they're planning. At one point, it was a trip to Cuba. Or Dominican. Or Punta Cana.
We ended up eating at Frans. My lousy Rainbow Eggs Benedict a poor comparison to Soo's Monte Cristo (oh meat, how I miss you). Though, Jenny's soup caused many a grimace, so I'll conclude that it was a poor choice. We left, only barely able to move about, nearly completely overcome with exhaustion from the effort of the show.
Everyone got home safely, and lived happily ever after.
I'm going to miss this. The shows, the crew that I've worked with forever, the sleepless nights putting things together that make all the actors smile from ear to ear when they see it in rehearsals.
edit: this post is way too freaking long and there are certainly not enough pictures.
edit edit: and as long as it is, it still doesn't say everything I want to say.