During my second year at Michigan I got to work on many outside projects, some of which even paid.
The local stage hands union (IASTE) was not large and when a touring Broadway show or rock concert was in town they would often need to hire extra crew.
They would use faculty and staff from the Theatre Department to fill out their crews.
The Ann Arbor local was run by a bunch of cool people who were ahead their time and other locals because they were one of the first to allow women carpenters and electricians into the union.
The first show I worked on with the union was a tour of the musical revue Eubie!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eubie!
The master electrician, Janice, was from Ann Arbor and had worked with the local union and I had just worked with her as one of the three lighting designers for the summer theatre repertory.
Everyone on the load-in crew was excited for her return and wanted to hear how the first part of the tour had gone.
Everything was going well but just before noon there was a loud snapping sound and one of the pipe-end ladders with six to eight lights came crashing down to the floor.
As soon as we knew that nobody was hurt the crew chief called "Lunch!" and most of us were sent away as they tried to figure what had happened.
It turns out the batten pipes over the stage had been welded incorrectly without inner pipe sleeves at the joints.
The batten just snapped at the joint under the weight of the hanging ladder.
During the next school break the college had all of the pipes hanging on the stage cut apart and re-welded properly.
The Theatre had been open for about 8 years and they were lucky that it had never happened before and that nobody was hurt.
It was a relief to everyone that it was not Janice’s fault.
I also worked the load-in and load-out for the tour of the play Deathtrap.
The most interesting part of that show was that the road boxes that held the various weapon displays, an important part of the play, that were lifted up and fitted directly into the walls of the set.
The lockable cover could be taken off as needed and easily put back on and locked up after the show.
There were many knives, swords, axes, guns and other fun props that they wanted to keep safe and away from curious hands and stop them from walking away.
I also got to work to load-in crew for some rock concerts.
I worked on the crew for Chicago and Elton John.
The Chicago concert was held in the large Chrysler Arena on campus and one of the first thing I noticed was that the food was much better on rock concerts.
For the stage plays there was only coffee and doughnuts backstage, but for the concerts they brought in a local caterer who put out a wonderful spread of food.
The work was hard but fun.
I had to laugh when I saw a 98 pound woman on the crew trying to move a large rolling speaker cabinet down the loading ramp from the truck and just watched her slide the whole way down.
Oh course I had my own fun when I was a “Human Bungee Cord” as I held on to road boxes as I rode the fork lift up to the stage platform, unloaded them and then rode back down for the next one.
As part of the load-in crew you do not get to the show but I when I returned for the load-out I did get to see and few songs at the end of the concert including 25 or 6 to 4.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvX_YqiM-hc&feature=related
It was fun to hear the song live because it was one of the songs that my friends and I tried to play in someone’s basement back in high school.
I knew just enough to play the basic bass riff as it just repeats over and over.
Tony and the Tone-deafs never got to play a gig and it was a onetime only experience for those lucky few people in the basement that day.
Coming up next: The Elton John Concert.
.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Sound Design
Idiot’s Delight opened in October of 1979 and it was my last major lighting design assignment while at Michigan but I still had plenty of other work to do before I graduated.
Oh course I still had to work on my MFA Thesis which had various deadlines all year long.
A rough draft of my Thesis support paper and preliminary set, light and costume design drawing were do several times before the final work could begin.
As it turned out that the one on the editors of the play collection book from which I got the copy of The Jew of Malta which teaching at Michigan.
The book was one that I had used in my Shakespeare class back at SUNY Buffalo.
I wanted it to look like I really researched the play, which I did, so I thought it would be good to talk with someone who really knew the script and I made an appointment to meet the English professor who edited the play collection and to talk to him about the play and see if he had any insights or thoughts about the play.
In a nut shell he could not care less, he offered some general comments about the period style and the play and at one point he said “I Think the other editor really worked with that play”.
I was able to include a few quotes from him but he was not really any help.
My first year I took costume design classes in addition to the lights ones and the second year I was in several scene designs classes and had plenty of class design projects to work on.
I moved from the scene shop into the electrics shop and I was now the department Master Electrician.
The job came with several duties that included general maintenance and repair of the stage lights and cables, supervising the lighting in the Arena Theatre and creating the sound effect and music tapes for all of the plays.
One of the first things I had to do was to quickly learn how to cut and splice recording tape.
The plays were not underscored with music as much as it is done today.
There might be preshow music, or change music, but it was mostly buzzers, chimes, dog barks and when possible many sounds were done live onstage.
I did some live recordings of actor’s voices, special music and sound effects I could not find on records.
I also had to figure out how to make long endless loop of tape so I could create 20 minutes of rain.
Typically the effect sounds on records last only a few seconds.
I ended up with a 12 foot loop of tape that ran across the electrics work room.
Sometimes I felt like I was doing an old-time radio as I had to make or record my own sounds for a play.
Today it is all done on the computer which makes much faster and a lot easier then back in 1979.
I remember that I had to go to the record shop and was surprised that they still had a listening booth so I could check out a few records to make sure that I got the right version of the music the director wanted.
It took me a while but I found just the right recording of the Lieutenant Kije Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, best known for his ballet score to Peter and the Wolf.
For plays in the Arena Theatre either I did a quick lighting design or most often I would supervise the student designer.
The designers were a mixture of undergraduate and graduate design majors and sometimes a directing student would give it a try.
Usually the small theatre was easy to take care of as there was another graduate student who took care of the scenic elements and I took care of the sound and lighting.
One time there was some excitement when someone who did not know what they were doing plugged the bare end of a speaker cable into a wall outlet thing it was a work light.
There was a big bang and the speaker caught fire.
Opps, you hope that they will not make that mistake again.
.
Oh course I still had to work on my MFA Thesis which had various deadlines all year long.
A rough draft of my Thesis support paper and preliminary set, light and costume design drawing were do several times before the final work could begin.
As it turned out that the one on the editors of the play collection book from which I got the copy of The Jew of Malta which teaching at Michigan.
The book was one that I had used in my Shakespeare class back at SUNY Buffalo.
I wanted it to look like I really researched the play, which I did, so I thought it would be good to talk with someone who really knew the script and I made an appointment to meet the English professor who edited the play collection and to talk to him about the play and see if he had any insights or thoughts about the play.
In a nut shell he could not care less, he offered some general comments about the period style and the play and at one point he said “I Think the other editor really worked with that play”.
I was able to include a few quotes from him but he was not really any help.
My first year I took costume design classes in addition to the lights ones and the second year I was in several scene designs classes and had plenty of class design projects to work on.
I moved from the scene shop into the electrics shop and I was now the department Master Electrician.
The job came with several duties that included general maintenance and repair of the stage lights and cables, supervising the lighting in the Arena Theatre and creating the sound effect and music tapes for all of the plays.
One of the first things I had to do was to quickly learn how to cut and splice recording tape.
The plays were not underscored with music as much as it is done today.
There might be preshow music, or change music, but it was mostly buzzers, chimes, dog barks and when possible many sounds were done live onstage.
I did some live recordings of actor’s voices, special music and sound effects I could not find on records.
I also had to figure out how to make long endless loop of tape so I could create 20 minutes of rain.
Typically the effect sounds on records last only a few seconds.
I ended up with a 12 foot loop of tape that ran across the electrics work room.
Sometimes I felt like I was doing an old-time radio as I had to make or record my own sounds for a play.
Today it is all done on the computer which makes much faster and a lot easier then back in 1979.
I remember that I had to go to the record shop and was surprised that they still had a listening booth so I could check out a few records to make sure that I got the right version of the music the director wanted.
It took me a while but I found just the right recording of the Lieutenant Kije Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, best known for his ballet score to Peter and the Wolf.
For plays in the Arena Theatre either I did a quick lighting design or most often I would supervise the student designer.
The designers were a mixture of undergraduate and graduate design majors and sometimes a directing student would give it a try.
Usually the small theatre was easy to take care of as there was another graduate student who took care of the scenic elements and I took care of the sound and lighting.
One time there was some excitement when someone who did not know what they were doing plugged the bare end of a speaker cable into a wall outlet thing it was a work light.
There was a big bang and the speaker caught fire.
Opps, you hope that they will not make that mistake again.
.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Funny Incident and Hello World!
After working in Theatre for forty years you would think that I have seen almost everything.
Well in last night’s rehearsal something funny happened.
We were getting ready for our second technical rehearsal for our production that opens this Friday.
The scene designer had bought a new piece of furniture for the set and several students had just assembled it and placed it on the set.
It was a low shelf unit designed for shoes in a closet.
While working on my blog and posting a recent entry I found a button I had not seen before.
It gave statistics on how many people have read my blog and which countries they are from.
I was very surprised and happy to see how many readers that I have from all over the world.
The top countries outside of the US for readers of my blog are: Germany, Russia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Israel, Vietnam, Australia, Finland and Poland, but there are many more.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of my readers and I hope that you will leave comments or drop me an e-mail and let me know who and where you are.
As soon as the current play opens I hope to get back to writing my normal, if you can call them that, blog entries.
.
Well in last night’s rehearsal something funny happened.
We were getting ready for our second technical rehearsal for our production that opens this Friday.
 |
| Boy Gets Girl, 2010 |
The scene designer had bought a new piece of furniture for the set and several students had just assembled it and placed it on the set.
It was a low shelf unit designed for shoes in a closet.
We use students from various Theatre intro classes on the run crews and a girl who was setting up props walked out on the set, across the office platform and stepped on the shelf unit and snapped it in half but kept going up into the bedroom platform without stopping, but when she did she just turned around looked back and said “What!” as everyone was laughing.
Then the student said “I thought it was a step”.
While working on my blog and posting a recent entry I found a button I had not seen before.
It gave statistics on how many people have read my blog and which countries they are from.
I was very surprised and happy to see how many readers that I have from all over the world.
The top countries outside of the US for readers of my blog are: Germany, Russia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Israel, Vietnam, Australia, Finland and Poland, but there are many more.
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of my readers and I hope that you will leave comments or drop me an e-mail and let me know who and where you are.
As soon as the current play opens I hope to get back to writing my normal, if you can call them that, blog entries.
.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Idiot's Delight
At the end of my first summer and a short trip home to Long Island, I moved into my third and final apartment in Ann Arbor.
It was about three or four blocks north of the Theatre building and close to the Farmer’s Market.
My two housemates were both grad students but not theatre majors.
It was very small, but served its purpose well.
Like my first year, I designed the lighting for one of the first productions of the year.
The play was part of the Guest Artist series in the large Power Center Theatre in which I had just designed in that summer, but now I could design for my play alone.
The play was the Idiot’s Delight by Robert E. Sherwood which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936.
Early on in the production process Jim invited the design team to go see an old movie playing on campus because he wanted us to see the style that was used in it.
We did not have VCRs back then so you could not just order any movie any time you wanted so it was just lucky that some group was showing it on campus.
We went to see My Man Godfrey from 1936 staring William Powell and Carole Lombard.
The large set was Art Deco in style and I was asked if mirrored panels as part of the design would be a problem.
I said that I could work around them and that they should not be a problem, but I was not really sure.
In between the mirrored panels were frosted plastic panels that I lit with blue and white lights.
To add to my fun the costume designer had gold glamee costumes for the dancing girls.
Black, white, silver and gold: it was challenging but fun to do.
In the play a war breaks out at the end and we needed an explosion outside of a big window that was rigged to fall apart.
We were lucky that one of the MFA students had just come off the road where he was the pyrotechnic for the band KISS.
Now I do not know for sure if it was Doug who blew Kiss’ drummer up so many times that it became the basis of the joke about killing numerous drummers in the movie This is Spinal Tap, but I do know that his flash pots were so big that they burned the curtains in the set window and had to be replaced each night.
Like everyone else from the show, Doug went on to have success in Theatre and was the production manager of last year’s Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall.
As with all shows while I was Michigan lighting designers had to give a talk back after the shows open to discus and explain what you did with the lighting to our fellow students.
I felt lucky that people enjoyed my work but I was puzzled when someone said that they liked my lighting especially the little red tint that I had put into the set.
I did not know what they were talking about, and except for the explosion at the end, there was no red in my design.
I thanked them all for their comments and after they left I walked around the Theatre and found out that it was the Exit signs that were reflecting off of the set.
It was about three or four blocks north of the Theatre building and close to the Farmer’s Market.
My two housemates were both grad students but not theatre majors.
It was very small, but served its purpose well.
Like my first year, I designed the lighting for one of the first productions of the year.
The play was part of the Guest Artist series in the large Power Center Theatre in which I had just designed in that summer, but now I could design for my play alone.
The play was the Idiot’s Delight by Robert E. Sherwood which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936.
 |
| Idiot's Delight, 1979 |
I felt lucky that we had a good production team.
The director, Jim, was a young faculty member who I had met on my trip first to Ann Arbor for my interview to get into the program.
While working as an actor a few years earlier Jim had guest roles in Room 222 and The Partridge Family, both of which were still being rerun at the time, and he would be teased whenever someone saw him on TV.
 |
| Program Cover |
The scene designer was also a young faculty member who was in the "second year" of a one year visiting professor position.
Dick would go on to have some success as he is the Associate Head of the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University.
Nancy Jo, the costume designer, was a fellow MFA design student who now teaches at California State University, Long Beach.
I served as the lighting designer for the play and would go to; well, write this blog and a few other things here and there and maybe a thing or two over the years.
 |
| Idiot's Delight, 1979 |
Early on in the production process Jim invited the design team to go see an old movie playing on campus because he wanted us to see the style that was used in it.
We did not have VCRs back then so you could not just order any movie any time you wanted so it was just lucky that some group was showing it on campus.
We went to see My Man Godfrey from 1936 staring William Powell and Carole Lombard.
The movie is a lot of fun and still is one of my favorites.
The style and design of the play was defiantly affected by the movie.The large set was Art Deco in style and I was asked if mirrored panels as part of the design would be a problem.
I said that I could work around them and that they should not be a problem, but I was not really sure.
In between the mirrored panels were frosted plastic panels that I lit with blue and white lights.
To add to my fun the costume designer had gold glamee costumes for the dancing girls.
Black, white, silver and gold: it was challenging but fun to do.
 |
| Late at night |
We were lucky that one of the MFA students had just come off the road where he was the pyrotechnic for the band KISS.
Now I do not know for sure if it was Doug who blew Kiss’ drummer up so many times that it became the basis of the joke about killing numerous drummers in the movie This is Spinal Tap, but I do know that his flash pots were so big that they burned the curtains in the set window and had to be replaced each night.
Like everyone else from the show, Doug went on to have success in Theatre and was the production manager of last year’s Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall.
As with all shows while I was Michigan lighting designers had to give a talk back after the shows open to discus and explain what you did with the lighting to our fellow students.
I felt lucky that people enjoyed my work but I was puzzled when someone said that they liked my lighting especially the little red tint that I had put into the set.
I did not know what they were talking about, and except for the explosion at the end, there was no red in my design.
I thanked them all for their comments and after they left I walked around the Theatre and found out that it was the Exit signs that were reflecting off of the set.
 |
| Puttin' on the Ritz |
Monday, September 20, 2010
Renovation Update
I have been writing about my life in Theatre and I am about to start commenting on what I did in my second year in Grad School.
I thought I would jump ahead briefly to comment on what is happening right now.
The new school year has begun and we are at the start of the fourth week of school.
Our first production is well under way and opens on October 8th.
For the past two years we have been dealing with renovations to the Tower Fine Arts Center and its two Theatres and classrooms.
Most of it was supposed to be done by the start of this school year and surprise there is still a few issues.
As of today we still do not have working dimmers in the Mainstage Theatre.
New dimmers were ordered but the New York State budget delayed caused a delay in dimmers being ordered.
I think that they could have been ordered six months earlier but that did not happen.
We did get about 150 new stage lights to replace the old ones that had asbestos wires.
They will be a nice addition to our inventory; that is after we get some dimmers hooked up to run them.
I did use 4 of the new LED Strip lights for a music concert last Thursday.
They work without dimmers and I had them just doing a slow color blend from red to blue in an endless loop that one of my students programmed in the lighting board.
The Lab Theatre has gone through some major work this past summer and should be ready for use some time before the end of the year.
A new SkyDeck lighting grid is being installed.
The Lab Theatre will not look the same as before and the new work lights are very bright.
More photos of the SkyDeck being installed can be found here:
Other photos of the renovations can be found at the following links:
There is a list of many things that are not yet done with the renovations, some big, some small and some just a pain in the butt.
The new air blowers are very noisy and the one in the lobby sounds like a jet engine.
I had them turn it off for the music concert but the other ones that were still on made it hard for me to hear the concert in the control booth.
We are also getting new pass card locks on the doors in place of keys, of course that is not ready and there are some doors that I cannot get in.
I thought I would jump ahead briefly to comment on what is happening right now.
The new school year has begun and we are at the start of the fourth week of school.
Our first production is well under way and opens on October 8th.
For the past two years we have been dealing with renovations to the Tower Fine Arts Center and its two Theatres and classrooms.
Most of it was supposed to be done by the start of this school year and surprise there is still a few issues.
As of today we still do not have working dimmers in the Mainstage Theatre.
New dimmers were ordered but the New York State budget delayed caused a delay in dimmers being ordered.
I think that they could have been ordered six months earlier but that did not happen.
We did get about 150 new stage lights to replace the old ones that had asbestos wires.
They will be a nice addition to our inventory; that is after we get some dimmers hooked up to run them.
I did use 4 of the new LED Strip lights for a music concert last Thursday.
They work without dimmers and I had them just doing a slow color blend from red to blue in an endless loop that one of my students programmed in the lighting board.
The Lab Theatre has gone through some major work this past summer and should be ready for use some time before the end of the year.
Roof off and new "I" beams in place
A new SkyDeck lighting grid is being installed.
SkyDeck panels being installed
The Lab Theatre will not look the same as before and the new work lights are very bright.
More photos of the SkyDeck being installed can be found here:
Other photos of the renovations can be found at the following links:
There is a list of many things that are not yet done with the renovations, some big, some small and some just a pain in the butt.
The new air blowers are very noisy and the one in the lobby sounds like a jet engine.
I had them turn it off for the music concert but the other ones that were still on made it hard for me to hear the concert in the control booth.
We are also getting new pass card locks on the doors in place of keys, of course that is not ready and there are some doors that I cannot get in.
I thought I would take a break from my normal writings and share with my readers what is currently going on with my life in Theatre and I will get back to my regular postings soon.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Geoffrey E. Guja
Nine years ago we lost too many good people and the world as we knew was changed forever.
It turns out that I had met one of those heroes thirty years ago while I was in college.
He was the twin brother of one of my friends and I enjoyed a few beers and many laughs with him during his visit to Buffalo.
Please take a minute to remember all of those who we lost that day.
Geoffrey E. Guja
Age: 47
Hometown: Lindenhurst, N.Y., USA
Occupation: Firefighter, New York Fire Department
Location: Ground, World Trade Center
.
.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger
The lease for my first apartment in Ann Arbor ended in May so I needed to sublet a place to live for the summer.
I found a place just south of the campus near the Student Union.
It was a little further to walk but I would suffer as I got to live with three women and one guy who spent most of his time at his girlfriend’s place.
They guy I sublet my room from had several large fish tanks and did not want to move them and asked me if I would feed them over the summer as none of the girls would do it.
The biggest tank had just a few fish including one large Jack Dempsey (Rocio Octofasciata for those who care).
The fish looked cool and was very aggressive.
It would bite onto anything you put in the tank, like the end of a pencil and your fingers should not to go near the fish.
I did not see any fish food and asked what I was to feed it.
The guy just pointed to the other fish tank that was full of goldfish.
Every day or so I was to catch one of the goldfish and drop it in the tank with the Jack Dempsey.
It would be gone in a flash.
Occasionally one of the goldfish might last a few seconds to swim around but soon would be gone.
It was a quiet place and I enjoyed living there and did not mind when the girls would sunbathe on the roof right outside of my window.
This was still a time before microwaves were in every kitchen and our most modern appliance was a toaster oven that one of the girls used to make burnt cheese.
She would just put some cheese on some tinfoil and crisp it up.
It seemed odd to me at the time until I realized that it was the burnt cheese part of real baked macaroni and cheese that I liked best.
They invited me back to the house in the fall for a 60’s party.
Peace
Just down the street from my house was what quickly became my favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor; Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger
I was surprised to see Guy Fieri do a feature on it during Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network.
You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVTcAkfuRFw
I was glad to see that it still there, with some of the same staff, and that it does not seem to have changed too much in 30 years, but there is little on the menu that I would eat these days.
If you watch the video you will see the same lady working the grill who was there when I was used to eat there back in 1979.
At the end of the summer the Theatre Grad Students had a big party to celebrate those graduating and also to make fun of ourselves.
Gag gifts were made for everyone, many in bad taste and some flat out rude.
I do not know what the girl who got the “Round, Round, I get Around Award” thought about it but I got a flashlight with a little color wheel attached to it.
Guess I talked about working at Lycian Stage Lighting too much, but hey it was just the previous summer which seemed ages ago after the crazy first year at Michigan.
I moved into my third and final apartment at the end of the summer and was ready for my second year at Michigan and all of its work and new adventures still ahead.
I found a place just south of the campus near the Student Union.
It was a little further to walk but I would suffer as I got to live with three women and one guy who spent most of his time at his girlfriend’s place.
They guy I sublet my room from had several large fish tanks and did not want to move them and asked me if I would feed them over the summer as none of the girls would do it.
The biggest tank had just a few fish including one large Jack Dempsey (Rocio Octofasciata for those who care).
The fish looked cool and was very aggressive.
It would bite onto anything you put in the tank, like the end of a pencil and your fingers should not to go near the fish.
I did not see any fish food and asked what I was to feed it.
The guy just pointed to the other fish tank that was full of goldfish.
Every day or so I was to catch one of the goldfish and drop it in the tank with the Jack Dempsey.
It would be gone in a flash.
Occasionally one of the goldfish might last a few seconds to swim around but soon would be gone.
It was a quiet place and I enjoyed living there and did not mind when the girls would sunbathe on the roof right outside of my window.
This was still a time before microwaves were in every kitchen and our most modern appliance was a toaster oven that one of the girls used to make burnt cheese.
She would just put some cheese on some tinfoil and crisp it up.
It seemed odd to me at the time until I realized that it was the burnt cheese part of real baked macaroni and cheese that I liked best.
They invited me back to the house in the fall for a 60’s party.
Peace
Just down the street from my house was what quickly became my favorite restaurant in Ann Arbor; Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger
I was surprised to see Guy Fieri do a feature on it during Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network.
You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVTcAkfuRFw
I was glad to see that it still there, with some of the same staff, and that it does not seem to have changed too much in 30 years, but there is little on the menu that I would eat these days.
If you watch the video you will see the same lady working the grill who was there when I was used to eat there back in 1979.
At the end of the summer the Theatre Grad Students had a big party to celebrate those graduating and also to make fun of ourselves.
Gag gifts were made for everyone, many in bad taste and some flat out rude.
I do not know what the girl who got the “Round, Round, I get Around Award” thought about it but I got a flashlight with a little color wheel attached to it.
Guess I talked about working at Lycian Stage Lighting too much, but hey it was just the previous summer which seemed ages ago after the crazy first year at Michigan.
I moved into my third and final apartment at the end of the summer and was ready for my second year at Michigan and all of its work and new adventures still ahead.
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