Restless

Getting down to the line. I have an odd response to restlessness. I get tired. Really tired. All I want to do when I'm not working (and sometimes while I'm working) is sleep. It happens all the time. Finals is the worst time. I need to work. I have a paper to write, packing to do, cleaning, etc. I need to fill out my exit interview sheets. It's not that I don't like being here anymore, but with the end in sight, it's like my body just wants to hibernate until I'm in the next place. With regard to that paper, I have about 5 days to write it.

Balls.

I need coffee.

Last week was LONG. Between opening Tryst, two showcases, half the interns leaving...I'm drained. I know it's not a party if it happens every night. I think we're feeling that way.

Me? I'm just tired.

Blast from the Past

OK so when I started my own blog I said I wasn't going to transfer entries but now that there's been a big to-do over the blogs I want to give myself credit for my old entries lol so I'm gonna post links to my entries in the old blog here.

http://westportinterns08.blogspot.com/2008/07/theatre-and-religion.html

http://westportinterns08.blogspot.com/2008/07/showcase.html

http://westportinterns08.blogspot.com/2008/07/electrics.html

Why I Watch Scrubs

As everyone at the playhouse knows, Scrubs is pretty much my all-time favorite show. I only own two TV series: Scrubs and M*A*S*H. My mother started sending me a new season of Scrubs every month or so; at this point I have three seasons, one of which I received this past Wednesday. This was the first season (Mom sent the 5th and my brother sent the 6th earlier this year). The first season is when all the characters are still interns. Now, I've loved this show for years because as someone who has not yet stepped out of the academic world, it is easy to relate to these characters, who are learning real world lessons the hard way: by screwing up. As an intern myself now, it is even easier!

I think everyone can relate to the world of Scrubs, and even M*A*S*H. We all have our world, our little cosmos which absorbs us; our hospital, our war, our inescapable situation. We all feel stuck, sometimes. We all have a love-hate relationship with our work, because we are married to it. We all have moments of side-splitting laughter followed, sometimes too closely, by moments of total humiliation or even heartache. In spite of pain and suffering and even death sometimes, on whatever level, we continue to live our lives because, I don't know, we have to? We need to? We want to? Because despite the emotional toll, we don't know how to do anything else? No, we don't want to do anything else. We'd rather go through the mania and depression than wallow in monotony for the rest of our lives. Any of us could get desk jobs. Any of us could make more money working as, I don't know, telemarketers or salespeople for a paper company (intentional reference). This may be why I get more into Scrubs than The Office. The Office is hilarious, don't get me wrong, but the environment is different. It does as much to affect the characters, but in an opposed fashion: they are all mostly apathetic about their jobs. No one is passionate about paper. That's probably why hospital shows work as well as they do: it takes a certain fortitude to even want to be there. M*A*S*H (since I've brought it up) seems to take both these atmospheres: the one no one wants to be in and the one they can't help but care about, and mush them together until the very environment is a spiritual conflict.

I guess I watch Scrubs and M*A*S*H because the humiliation and pain can feel real, but you always feel like things will be OK in the end. It shows me that what makes me ME is not just the mistakes I make, but how I deal with them, and that if I let them, they can destroy me....

...but only if I let them.

Channeling Dead Crazy People...

Something awesome happened tonight. This is sorta narcissistic, but I don't care, it was sweet.

So I walk into the green room and Roux, Holly, Mike and Sarah are all hanging out around the table with Laura's showcase script in front of them. Mike's got his guitar, of course, and they're reading through it. I figured I'd join them since I kinda wrote some of it (by that I mean I responded to Roux's questions). It's hysterical at times, insightful at others, and with Mike picking away at his guitar in the background, kinda feels like an episode of Scrubs (which is great because it's my favorite show and extremely relevant this summer). They got to the part where Roux had asked the question "What should Theatre Be???" (yes this does require 3 question marks!)

This question gets philosophical, and never gets an "I mean, it's whatever" out of anyone here, which is great. Roux chose to end this segment with a poem I wrote to sum it all up, and listening to Sarah read it, and remembering writing it, I believed in muses, because I did not write that shit myself! I mean really, I hate writing poetry. I'll throw it in here for you because I'm so proud of it I want to print it off and post it everywhere so I can remember and 'center' myself. :-P

Theatre should be . . .
a Forum;
a center for thought and the exchange of ideas.
Emotional;
a confrontation, a heartache;
Bittersweet, insightful;
abrasive and simultaneously soothing;
a haven and a beacon for the human story
which is stripped and laid bare
for all to see—
not to punish, but to bring us back
and show us
the something we’re all looking for;
the answer to a million questions
and the question to a million answers;
the stiff drink at the end of the day
and the jolt of caffeine to start the next.
Jaw-dropping.
Soulful.
Perfect imperfection, organized chaos.
Our vice and our virtue, heaven and hell
and everything between.
Our fall from grace, our Paradise Lost,
Pandemonium.
Our struggle, our redemption,
and ultimately
our Freedom.


Read it aloud. This could not have been my voice alone.

Changeover

So like I said in my last post, I am sick. Just in time for the busiest part of my life here at the Playhouse: Change-over, where we tear down one show and throw up the next in the space of about 10 days. I got out of the first part of it (the easy part) probably so I could rest up for the not-so-easy parts, which started today. However, out of the 12 hours I worked today, the best part of it was the 5 hours of manual labor at the end. See, we did a children's show today where a group of people moved their show in and did two showings of it (can I say 'show' one more time?) before loading out at the end of the day (show). So they needed lights for all that time, but once they were gone, we got crankin'! We stripped EVERY light and EVERY length of cable from the theatre, organized them, packed up the 60 lenses that did not belong to us, put on new lenses, organized those, struck the truss, moved one chain motor up to the grid, (etc etc) in the space of 5 hours, with about 8 of us to begin with, down to 6 at the end. And in spite of being sick, it was the best night I've had since Scramble! went up! It's a little insane, but I look forward to changeover week. In that tiny condensed time we pull down and then re-hang between 150-300 instruments, patch them into the board, focus them into the right spots on-stage, then write a couple hundred cues before and during technical rehearsals. After that we have 4 days of previews and opening night. I realize that most everyone who's reading this is familiar with change-over, but it's still insane to me! This time I get to program this beast. Holy schnikes. I better brush up...

Mute

So I'm sick. Probably due to what I alluded to in the last post. Now and again, my body has to remind me that I'm not super-human. This happens once or twice a year.

On the bright side, my design meeting for Beehive was yesterday and they loved all my ideas, so...hooray! Also, being mute is kind of nice...a little restricting but at the same time, nice.

Anyway, Jim let me go early so I could get some rest (because I'm gonna be working stoopid-long hours this week) so I'm gonna do that. My bed has never sounded more inviting...

Between Shows

So.

So.

Y'all know what happened today.

Some of y'all know how I feel about it.

K.

My bigger concern is, of course, selfish. I'm insane. I'm pretty much convinced I am incapable of relaxing. I'm working on the lighting design for Beehive, this Fall's mainstage musical revue. I'm overseeing the progress of our intern showcase. I'm about to start working long hours changing over from Scramble! to Tryst. I'm taking an online art history course.

And once all that is over (on the 23rd of August) I'm driving back to Savannah, flying to Seattle for a week to go to Bumbershoot, flying back, and then I've got a week to finish getting settled into the place Allen and I just moved into before I left before launching into a quarter where I am taking three studio classes, including Scenic Design I, Lighting and Field Techniques for Film (notoriously the most challenging film class), and my Portfolio class (independent study). At the same time I will be overseeing the implementation of my design for Beehive, followed by (hopefully) a studio show written by a fellow student. With regard to that, I'll be vainly fighting through all of this to allow that to happen.

Also, I want to go to India with Jodi.

My(Own)Space

So I've noticed this trend with some of the other interns that they're creating their own spaces, and I feel like this is appropriate for me for two reasons:

1. I'm blogging a lot more than I thought I was going to (go figure) and I feel like I may take up more space in the communal blog.

2. I tend to forget to sign my entries. If you're reading in my own space, you know who's writing, lol.

I'm not going to move all of my other entries over, that's a little silly (though I must say I am tempted in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way).

A little explanation of the name of the blog: I mentioned in the Gene Wilder artist hour yesterday that Gladiator is my favorite movie of all time, and for that matter, Ridley Scott is probably my favorite director. Visually, his films are stunning, but there is one trend that makes me happy: he tends to ask of his DP: 'more backlight! more dust (fog, steam, rain, haze, atmospherics in general)!'
Gladiator

Blade Runner

Kingdom of Heaven

You get the idea. So I feel the quote from Oliver Reed's character, Proximo, fits his style (and I'd like to think my own tastes) quite well. The quote is "we mortals are but shadows and dust".

Geeky? Yes. Obsessive? A little...

Anyway, right now I am sitting in the Fairfield Starbucks listening to the White Stripes on rather loud volume to cover up the sounds of teeny-boppers >< high schoolers...

Also working on my concept work for 'Beehive', the 1960s musical revue I'm designing for the fall. Pondering some psychedelic projection patterns :-D but not certain about those, could be a total bitch but could be SUPER SWEET! Thoughts on projection? Anyone? Simple stuff like stripes and swirls; not sure if I need a projector or just some creative gobo-usage but we'll see.