Neverending story, woo-oo-oo-oo-ooo-oooh

This tech is going exceedingly well. Granted, the show has already been 6 places in two years, and most stuff is hammered out, but still. 9 Parts of Desire had been two places before and we had a ton of notes for that. I really like the designer. Calm, laid back guy. He was easy to focus with, part of the reason I was able to keep it moving so well.
Days pass very strangely when you�re in tech. Marcus (the designer) asked me where paces to get dinner would be. I gave him a bunch, adding to a few �if they�re still open now�, and then realized that it was 3 30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I had really thought it was more like 8pm. When you sit in a dark room for 12 hours a day, it all starts to fuzz together. Honestly, it is a little boring. I�m glad we�re not all stressed out and hurrying and fighting the carpenters for stage time, but I could be doing something. Meh. I have a 3d drawing that I�m working on, so that keeps me busy. And because of the nature of this tech, I can sit here and read if I get tired of staring at a screen. I think Marcus has adjusted all of 4 cues. In a day and a half. He sits here and sends email and reads the Times.
As for the play itself, I can�t judge it yet. We�ve mainly been doing transitions, so I haven�t gotten a clear sense of the flow of it. I will say that the script is pretty interesting, it�s a creative translation, and I feel like the acrots use the stage well. The lighting is all really long slow cues, 4 and 5 minutes, linked to another 3 minutes. It takes place over the course of a day, and the lights are set up that way. In the paperwork, the purposes are all 9am, 10 am, sunrise, moonlight etc. And there�s lightning. Strobes are really cranky. When they�re in a club and they just turn them on, then that�s all well and good. But when you have to figure out where to set your intensity, rate and duration, and program it all, then they�re a pain in the ass. That was really the only thing that�s taken significant effort so far. Other than the actual hanging and circuiting.
Hey, so I saw MI 3 on Sunday. Did I mention that already? Who knows. It was good. I mean, it was everything it needed to be. Lot�s of split second tming, cars, explosions, and I like Philip Seymour Hoffman. I really can�t tell if it was a good movie, I suspect that it wasn�t really, but any movie that you don�t mind how much you paid to see it and makes you sweat along with the actors is good in my book.
Marcus is designing Mother Courage here next fall. I asked if he needed an assistant. So I may be doing that. I don�t know if I can, though. School starts September 5th, previews start the 8th, and it opens the 13th. I could assist through the first day of tech. I don�t know how helpful that is. I mean, I could for more than that, but I don�t think flying back and forth nearly every day is a good use of time. Or money. But we�ll see. Maybe it would be helpful to have me work on the plot and paperwork and assist with the focus, but during tech next year�s intern would be around. Who knows. But I like having plans. Or ideas of plans. Or plans to have plans. Or something.
Dante�s interning at Seattle Rep next season. Good for her. I�m really not sure what it entails. She�s been mainly talking about being the design assistant, and doing some theoretical work (?? What professional theatre does theoretical work? There�s no time for that). She makes it sound like some of her time will be spent updating the plot and paperwork, maybe running a few focus calls, but realls, mainly just �assisting the designer�. I don�t understand. It kind of sounds like she won�t be doing anything. In order to assist a designer, you need to be there from the beginning, or close to it. That means to assist them, she has to be in communication with them a few months before the plot is due. And designers tend to like to pick their own assistants. It seems kind of weird for a theatre to say �hey, so we�ve got you all contracted to do this show next October, and we�ve got an assistant all ready for you! Here�s her phone number and email, get in touch.� I dunno. I�ll visit her next fall and see if I can get a better sense of what-all it really entails. Which sounds kind of like entrails. Hey, have you ever noticed that succulent and truculent rhyme? I learned succulent first, so now I can never quite get a fix on truculent. I always have to think an extra second when I hear or read it.
I�m reading East of Eden right now. I have a feeling I mentioned that already too. Oh well. I really like it. It�s a small thing, but one of my favorite thing is how Steinbeck describes cat. It really is an appreciation of his descriptive style in general, but it�s particularly vivid for me with cats. Like in Cannery row, the early morning cats oozig over the fences, and in this, the cats ripple across the street and disappear into the tall grass. Greatly engaging stuff.
I�m a big fan of my dad. I owe him quite a lot of who I am. Like that he read me The Red Pony when I was 8 or 9. And Alice in Wonderland when I was 7. And Archimedes when I was 4. And Huck Finn, and Gogol�s Dead Souls. He�s largely responsible for my literary tastes now. Which is to be expected, you�re tastes and habits are always strongly influenced and shaped by your parents. But still. Anyway, now that I�ve written about it for a while, I�m going to go back to reading it.
Random thought of the day- moonlight doesn't exist. It is merely reflected sunlight. I know, of course. But it's a different thing to know of it, and to come to this conclusion on your own, and think of the implications. I don't know that there are any implications. But in any case-moonlight! It isn't what it says it is! Sunlight! Suddenly, the day seems so much longer. Maybe.