62 Days: Bringing MouseLife to Life

I mentioned in a earlier blog that I've been working with some new Twitter friends on creating a podcast. I volunteered to be producer and take on the technical side of things. Well, tonight is our practice show. I'm calling it a Tech Rehearsal, and I'm feeling about like I do before one of those.

It's been a fun few weeks, really. Everyone is pitching in and doing what they can to get this thing off the ground. Thanks to our Social Media Dude, John, we have a Facebook page and a Twitter (@MouseLifepod) account (Hint: you should go like and follow them). Shelby, who has volunteered to do the news, has done a bang-up job gathering tidbits and writing a truly professional-level script. Everyone has been offering great ideas, offering expertise in all sorts of Disney-related stuff and cheering each other on. Barry, who brought this group together, is the biggest cheerleader of all and we all owe him one for this incredible opportunity.

For my part, I've been having a ball. I like fooling around with tech, so while it took a few tries, getting to the point I was able to record a conversation on Skype was fun. I'm fascinated with the capabilities of the freeware Audacity, so playing with that today in preparation for editing tonight's show next week was cool. But the part that really blew me away has been talking to a real composer guy about show music.

We were in a quandary over intro music, not sure how to find something we were allowed to use.  Kathy in our group mentioned she had a composer friend and put me in touch.

Since then we've been back and forth over what will work best. We've chosen a song and now we are working on finding what kind of pieces he can break it up into to serve as intro, outro and even bumper music (for between segments). It's so cool, and a bit surreal, to be talking about this stuff wit a professional.

Speaking of professional. I got to buy Real Radio Announcer Headphones for this gig. Let's hope they are good luck. We begin less than an hour from right now. Wish me luck!



  

Stiteses In The Swamp Pt 1: J5, the Unsung Hero

I haven't written a word on here about Shrek the Musical. This is strange because because it was such a huge part of the Stites Family Summer 2015, but it's also precisely BECAUSE it was such a huge part of the Stites Family Summer 2015. I've not had time to write much.

My own experience was overwhelming, in terms of what I learned and what I did. But more importantly, and so firstly, I have to blather on about how proud I am of Lisa and John. These two followed me into this whole theatre thing like Tonto follows the Lone Ranger. Two finer companions couldn't be wished for. Let's talk about John first.

John has embraced the role of Sound Tech. The wonderful Katie Deese took him under her wing and taught him the basics on Wizard of Oz three years ago (and stepped up this year to help John with sound checks and teaching him even more about the finer points of sound engineering) and he handled Into The Woods pretty much on his own last summer, so he was a shoe-in for sound guy for Shrek. Turns out we ask a lot from the guy. Hannah Funderburke, John's newest mentor and friend in theatre tech (and source of his J5 moniker), was pretty horrified that we expected John to handle over 20 actors being mic'ed. She said pros would refuse to do that, it was just too difficult. John took it in stride, he had that many in Into the Woods last year after all. This time he had 24 actors (give or take, the equipment was constantly breaking down) with microphones, three choral mics hung from the flies and a reverb effect to deal with. In addition, he played the fart machine during one song, something that sounds funny but required him to basically play a percussion instrument along with the pit orchestra but do so from the tech booth. It was a great gag as long as it was perfect. The actors made body motions along with the sound effects so the timing had to be spot on to work. If it did, it was hilarious, if not, it would have shown. It WAS perfect. Every night. Oh, and I, in my wisdom, saddled the kid with sound effects and a video projector on top of everything else.

John realized what I didn't realize, or didn't want to think about. He had too much to do himself. Now, he was not the only one to be stretched too thin on this show. Our tech director had a heart problem and missed tech week and the first weekend of performances, throwing Hannah and I into the roles of co-acting-tech directors, and both myself and Jen were trying to fill simultaneous production and stage roles. John, I must say, handled it best, far better than Jen and I anyhow. He saw he was in the weeds and asked if he could ask for help from the director, the wonderful Cal Chiang, who was already in the booth watching the show each night. John recruited Cal to run sound and video effects, but had to cue him. But hey, it at least allowed him to keep his hands on the sound board, right? Cal, by the way, claimed John was "bullying" him (and saying so with a HUGE smile on his face). John said Cal kept "leaving his post" and needed to be called back. John is 15 and taking it upon himself to tell the director to keep to his work. Many adults in community theatre wouldn't do that.

John put a tremendous amount of time into this show, showing up two hours before call each day to try to make the sound work with whatever equipment was functioning that night. The mics were old and the replacements cheap. We had some very intense movement on the part of some actors and that was tough on the wires. Every time a mic was replaced, that meant a new place for that mic's actor on the soundboard. So with 24 actors' mics to keep track of, John could never count on all of them being on the same buttons two nights in a row. They never were, not once. And yet, John had the correct mics on and off when they needed to be and kept everything in balance throughout trios, duets, solos and big ensemble numbers. I have no idea how he didn't lose his mind, but not did he not, he was having fun.

John is looking at a career in sound design/engineering. The experience he's gotten has been wonderful, but what I think will serve him best is his attitude. The guy is rock solid. You can't teach that. And I couldn't be more proud of him :-)

What A Long, Strange Trip It Was

Ok, so the show didn't include any Grateful Dead (for which I am eminently grateful myself) but I couldn't resist. For nine glorious days over the last couple weeks, I got to play roadie to a rock band. How many people get that chance? I had done this last year on a similar show and loved it, so I was really looking forward to this run. I had to cut it back a bit. Last year I spent well over 40 hours the first week at Franklin Square Park, but this year work just wouldn't allow me the same flexibility. It all worked out well, though. I put in a respectable bit of work and the director stepped up and helped set up and break down the show to a much greater extent. Director Mark worked his butt off on this show, I gotta say he IS pretty rock and roll. As it was, I ended up getting to the park between 4 and 5 pm and leaving about 11:30 each night. Let me tell you, the 4:30 am alarm comes early on that schedule. I think I'm still recovering. But oh my Lord, was it ever worth every killer second!!!!

My main role, the one I volunteered for, was light guy. I had my first experience with this last year at the British Invasion park show and have picked up a little extra here and there since then from Frank Blackmon, our resident tech guru and a retired electrical engineer. The light set-up for our park shows is necessarily simple, we have two metal lighting bars we erect and are able to screw some more lights into the frame of the gazebo that serves as our stage. We started with eleven lights, three facing the stage on each light bar, one over the piano, three over the drums and one aimed out towards the audience in the general direction of the port-a-potty.

While Frank and I were sitting on a park bench congratulating ourselves on getting all these lights hooked up in such a way that they came on and off at our command from the light controller (not as easy as one would hope), along comes the show's director with his vision for the lighting of the show printed neatly on two pages of paper. I was kind of tickled that he thought to put thought into the lighting, so I wanted to make things look as much like he wanted as possible. The problem was our lighting isn't so much traditional stage lighting, used to set mood and affect color and such, as it is essentially a series of spotlights that can illuminate certain areas of the stage. They are too close to the performers to blend together or light any more than one or maybe two people at a time. But Frank isn't the kind to be deterred and always likes making anything more complicated (he IS an engineer after all) so he immediately decided we could add more lights, ones with definite color to them. "We need back lighting, anyhow" he announced and we set about finding some smaller lights and hanging six of them, two each red, yellow and blue, in the back left and right corners of the stage. I'm not sure how well they conveyed the moods the director was looking for, but I diligently attempted to light the songs as he directed. Upon hearing they'd be backlit, the costume queen/vocalist Jen turned to her sister, another vocalist, and announced they'd need slips under their hippy dresses. That's why we have costume people, the light guys wouldn't have thought of that. :-)

Here you can see all our lights but the drum and piano lights, they are facing towards the back attached to the gazebo itself. See the little one aimed towards the audience? Supposed to light the way to the port-o-potties. I labeled it "PP" on my light board.

This is my light board and the notes I made myself so I'd know what to turn on and off when. The notes got soaked in a rainstorm and needed repair. The beer just seemed to fit this show perfectly.

So, I tried very hard to light the show as Director Mark hoped while also putting light on the singers and instruments that were involved in a song. I tried to time bringing lights up on background vocalists just before they began to sing, to bring lights down on the vocalist during instrumental breaks and to focus attention where it should be at any given time. I'm pretty happy with the job I did there. But the most fun part of the job was what Frank called the "DJ Light". It was affixed center stage aimed up above the band so it hit half on the gazebo and half into the tree canopy behind and above with funky, multi-colored lights in a variety of patterns. It looked pretty cool, but I figured it should be used sparingly, especially since most of this show's songs weren't of the hard rockin', funky light needing variety. I saved it up in the first set for Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. It turned out perfect.

You see, no one notices the lights, they shouldn't notice if you are doing a good job, I think. But in this instance, the debut of the DJ Light timed with the opening words of the song got audible gasps and "ooooo's" from the crowd. My father asked me if I paid the folks sitting next to them to "oooooo" on cue, actually, the first night he came to the show. This really made me happy. White Rabbit was Jen's first solo number of the show and she killed it every night. The timing of the song in the set had something to do with the crowd reaction as well, I think. Concerts ebb and flow as they go along and this song marked the end of an ebbing of the energy level and a reminder that this was a rock and roll show. It was one of those Walt and Roy moments, Jen in the spotlight on stage as artist and me under the tech tent helping things along in the background, both combining to create a great moment that actually got real response from a few hundred souls each night. I'd never experienced anything quite like it and it was really, really fun. Here's a link to the YouTube video, it's cool :-)

Aside from the actual running of the lights, my roadie work was much more mundane. I set up and broke down much of the non-music related equipment, ran cords (lots and lots of cords) hither and yon, plugged said cords back in when over-exuberant fans pulled them out causing black-outs and loss of half our sound, and provided tape and staples and velcro as needed. I was sort of stage manager of the operation, though less so than last year. One quasi-stage manager task I sort of adopted for myself was attempting to get the audience sat down after intermission and ready to hear the first song of the second set. It began with Crosby, Stills and Nash's Find The Cost of Freedom, which is beautiful and this band did acapella to wonderful effect. Harmonies were their strong suit. Problem was, without "house lights" to blink, people had a hard time knowing when intermission was over. Mark wanted the song to start quietly on a darkened stage, which was an awesome idea and a great effect, but because it was so dim and mellow to begin with, and it's a really short number, the song was over before anyone really knew they were singing. I tried a variety of methods to find out when the band planned to begin the second set and get the audience's attention, but none worked. The sound person was often just as confused and still out visiting in the crowd while the band was trying to begin. No one knew what was happening and it was sort of a frustration each night until the last. That last Sunday, during church actually, I had an idea that actually worked. Before the band took the stage, but while they were about ready to come out, I used our microphone in the tech tent to announce that BLT was dedicating the next song to those who gave their lives in defense of freedom. It was heartfelt on my part, it fit right in with it being Memorial Day weekend, and it got people's attention. For the last show at least, that beautful song got the attention it deserved :-)

 After three nights of tech rehearsal and six shows, we were all exhausted. My experience ended in an entirely appropriate manner. The band had all left for a cast party and it was just roadies, tech folk and groupies left in the park (Lisa and I, the Awesome Flow Family and Frank). Everything was finally packed away and locked up. We looked at our tech tent. It was old and took a beating during a storm the first weekend of the show. We had decided earlier to retire it, but Frank wanted to take it home to try to combine with another broken tent to make one good one. Did I mention he was an engineer? Anyhow we set upon the poor thing trying to fold it's broken and bent frame into something that would fit in a pick-up truck. For some reason, we all found this hilarious. So there we were, five nerds wrestling with aluminum sticks in a city park at near midnight, laughing our butts off. It may not be the first thing you think of when you think rock and roll, but I wouldn't have it any other way.