#Technical Theater

[stagefoot]

[tortonin]

tim would be such a good stage manager

[woodscreature]

Caught.

[upstagetraveler]

Round 2 of our Shrek the Musical pics! Not my designs or pics. @mtishows-blog

[needlesandnilbogs]

A short snippet from a better world

(Alternatively, a double drabble from the murderbot high school au still living in my brain despite me being a college student now)

"So the thing is, we don't actually have follow spots for this--" "We have follow spots, we just don't have Iris." Perihelion interrupts, and Mensah sighs. "Let Rin talk. I asked it for its opinion, not yours." "We don't have follow spots because we don't have an operator while I'm board op. So I'm imitating Broadway conventions for musicals using what I have. We have two basic modes of lights: full, and what I'm terming 'singing' to imply the front, back, and side lights are dimmed and we'll be using the LEDs controlled from the board, at full intensity and some shutter, as down-spots on specific areas. It's not perfect, but if Iris is really out all week this is the best it's going to get." Mensah nods, smiling at Rin to make sure it knows she's happy to hear what's going on. "Alright, is that everything about the set-up that I should know?" "Do you want to know about the color choices for the wash." Its tone is flat, but she knows her sibling. "If you want to tell me, yes, but maybe after this meeting?" It nods. Mensah makes a note, then continues. "Great. Indah? How goes sound?"

[yagoodoobee]

working on a show [ASM] where i am doing a lot of movement on stage while needing to keep my headset in place. thoughts and opinions on this innovation?

[dipper-in-a-trenchcoat]

The Crew - VII

And The Crew watches on. They watch as the world blazes to life and light for the very first time. At last ending it’s gestation and rehearsal and finally showing itself in all its majesty. And The Crew watches on. The beats and cycles begin to make themself know. Not just the story the audience sees, but the little things that hide in the shadows. A movement that happens like the tick of a clock or a pulse. A motion repeated night after night. And The Crew watches on. The story ends and they reset the world for its birth once more, like a phoenix from the ashes. And The Crew watches on. The story draws them in, rushing along with a incessant pulse. But always with the certainty that it will end the same. It can only ever end the same. After all, it is their job to make certain it does. And The Crew watches on. After so many births and deaths and rebirths, the world dies its last. And they bear witness to the final ending. And the crew watches on. They, who bore witness to the tale again and again, finally put it to rest. And The Crew watches on. The stage is once more returned to its barren state, awaiting the next world, the next story that will occupy it and give life to it. And The Crew watches on. The cycles repeat themselves over and over. Tales and worlds and births and deaths. All of it ushered through its paces in a rhythm that has been ticking on since stories were first told. And The Crew watches on. And The Crew watches on. And The Crew watches on and on and on.

[iisadvs]

worked as the audio two and ASM at my colleges Sweeney Todd

[midsummernightsscheme]

i stayed after school for a few hours today with the lighting team because they had a lot of work to do and i'm trying to learn more about their department. and idk if any of you have spent time on a friday afternoon/evening with four teenagers in an auditorium fucking around with lights while florence + the machine is blasting on the fancy ass sound system but moments like that are why i do high school theatre. never felt more at home and more contented.

[owenthetokencishet]

You may be autistic but are you 'kitbashing a tiny ETC source 4 parabolic Leko light out of parts left over from Warhammer model kits' autistic?

[abstractpenny]

i love my vent posts about theatre from last year starting to pop up again cuz everyone's doing shows

[stagefoot]

what sort of tools/gear do you bring on calls.

Thanks for asking! 😊

As someone who primarily does lighting, the most important thing for me is my wrench (6 inches. Anything more than that is overkill 😉 and will get in your way).

My wrench hangs from a locking carabiner, which I clip to my belt loop. (I had a non-locking one for a while, and the first time it opened and my wrench fell I went to a fortunately nearby store and got a mountain climbing one 😅)

Also on the carabiner is a piece of tie line that loops around my wrist as a safety, and a widget (which I don’t honestly use all that often, but it’s really handy when you do need it! I also can’t find a link to one right now, but if you’re not sure what I mean, just let me know!)

I also clip a roll of electrical tape (very useful!) to the carabiner when I’m not using it.

Everyone’s wrench setup is a little different, but this works for me. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted, so feel free to play around a little until you find a good configuration!

Beyond that, general safety things like gloves and steel toed boots.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given is to bring a change of socks. If I know I’m working eight hours or more, I try to throw an extra pair in my bag (if I remember) and I change them halfway through the day. It makes such a huge difference!

It’s always good to have a water bottle if you don’t have access to another source of water.

Another thing I don’t use often but is incredibly useful when I need it is a multi tool. Again, there are so many out there (I got mine as a gift, so I didn’t shop around) that you can find one with the features you want/find most useful. I mostly need a blade, pliers, and screwdrivers.

Beyond that, I always have a bottle with ibuprofen, gravol, antacids, and diarrhea pills (but that’s more just general preparedness than for calls specifically)

I also have a mini first aid kit (right now it just has bandaids, but even having those close at hand is very helpful).

I don’t need them often in my specific line of work, but I always have earplugs on me, and I recommend that everyone does! Our work can get very noisy and hearing damage is unfortunately pretty common.

I personally like my belt pouch, which is similar to this one and is exactly the right size for gobos to go home with you. (I also use it to collect tie line and little bits of tape)

I always have a phone charger (cable, block, and a power bank, just in case). I also have a Lightning to headphone jack adapter so I can use my phone to check audio playback (thanks, Apple 😐)

Another thing I ‘bring’ is @neil-gaiman’s advice:

“You get work however you get work, but people keep working in a freelance world (and more and more of todays world is freelance), because their work is good, because they are easy to get along with and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it is good and they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

In my experience, this is true. On pretty much any given day I can at least manage two of those!

Ok. I think that’s everything!

Of course a rigger’s kit (for example) is going to look very different than mine, but for a general call these are all good, common things to have.

Thanks again for asking, I hope this answer helps! Feel free to ask if you’d like to know anything else 😊

[theatrical-penguin]

One of the things I love about working in theatre is constantly learning new skills or tricks to do weird shit.

Today’s trick: making weighted dice by baking them in the oven

[whatislifebesidesrehearsal]

The director demanded that we move all of our set, which we share with another show, back to the rehearsal room after our dress rehearsal so they could use it for thirty minutes to go over tech notes, forcing the tech team for the show we share with to come in early on a Saturday to move it back, as we had to leave on the dot when notes finished.

DSM, mid-moving a desk: Do you have anything loud? Food-wise?

ASM: Why?

DSM: We’re gonna eat really loudly in rehearsal and apologise to him but say it’s because we didn’t get a dinner break because he forced us to move the set.

ASM: Passive-aggressive, I like it.

* half an hour later *

The ASM returns with a handful of incredibly loud and crunchy breakfast bars.

[upstagetraveler]

And just like that we close out another amazing run of our Summer Theatre Series student performances of Treasure Island in our Black Box and Mary Poppins on our main stage. #TalentPerformsHere #TeamworkMakesTheDreamWork

[needlesandnilbogs]

when i think of your writing i always think of your murderbot HSAU fic with all the theater kids in the booth running a rehearsal. it's so fun and captures the fun of high school tech theater so well. makes me nostalgic <3 and i also think you did such a good job of translating the tmbd character dynamics to a setting that feels like it shouldn't work with them but somehow works perfectly. like mensah IS a stage manager at heart and i think you nailed her

(ask game is somewhere but I’m too lazy to find it: tell me what you think about/remember most about my fic) (also I reblogged the ask game then totally didn’t have brains for talking about fic for like a day and a half lol but it’s fine and ANYWAYS)

Thank you! I’m really proud of high school au, it seems to be perpetually unfinished because I’m a college student now and it turns out I don’t need the wish fulfillment it kinda was, but one day I’ll finish the unfinished stories and share them for sure. Nostalgia is a good word for it lol

also I hope you know that I saved screenshots of several really nice comments you left on various hsau fics because you get it in the same way I do <3 theater kids uniting against the world

(Also also I hesitated but I’m pinging @clustxr to finally acknowledge them for their massive amount of inspiration and the stories I picked up from them because until college I didn’t really get to do the design part of lighting design, just board op, so instead I asked them a lot (and another friend I’ve lost contact with) and they gave me the technical terms to use)