For the past few days I have been trying to track down a phantom problem.  It is only phantom in the fact that I can’t reproduce the problem outside of the show.  That, I suppose, makes it definable is an intermittent problem.  This of course, is the most difficult of problems to diagnose and to solve.  Certainly a very frustrating problem.

What is the problem?  Well, I have a moving light that seems to intermittently decide to just quit.  For those of you who are not theatre people,  or don’t work with many moving lights, this particular fixture uses an arc discharge lamp.  That means that the light is created by maintaining an electric arc between two electrodes.  It is very similar to the arc that is used in arc welding except that it is contained inside a lamp.  Here is a photo of the lamp, just so you can see what I am talking about:

This is the HTI 700/D4/75 arc discharge lamp. This particular lamp has 99 hours of burn time on it. You can see the "arc gap" in the center of the globe, this is where the electric arc is created. The arc excites gases in the globe and emits light.

So, a few day ago this problem showed up.  We made it through tech and most of the first week of performances before the problem began.  The fixture drops the arc (douses out) and displays a lamp error message.  So my initial thought was that it was a bad lamp.  While this is rare, it is possible, and the least expensive problem to fix.  In fact, with a lamp this “young” (only 99 hours into it’s 1000hr rated life), if the lamp failed I could make a warranty claim for a new lamp.

Unfortunately the lamp seems to not be the problem.  I installed a brand new lamp and the problem persisted.  Thanks to my friends over at controlbooth.com I had lot of other suggestions of things to try.  Some are not really feasible at this point in time, but after the show closes I can try them.  Today I actually got up in a focus chair to string a new circuit for this fixture that takes it off of the dimming system to eliminate any power issues that may have occurred there.

Well, I have been unable to solve the issue, which leads me to believe that the problem lies in the fixture and not the lamp or the power feed.  This probably means a more expensive fix, but I am sure that I can have it fixed.  Though I would certainly take any advice any theatre folk may have!  Such is the nature of life in the theatre.  I just like to look back on my favorite quote about the theatre from the movie Shakespeare in Love:

“…allow me to explain about the theatre business.  The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster!
…Strangely enough, it all turns out well.”

I find that when we get deep into production, my eating habits get tossed aside.  It is possibly worse for my wallet than for me as I still try to eat decent foods, but no matter how you spin it, it isn’t the best of habits.  I like to cook and I like home-made food, but I often find myself on a schedule that doesn’t leave me enough time to go home and make something.  I also often end up needing to eat at odd times due to when I need to be at work.  Ah, the joys of working in theatre.

Look at a day like today.  Fairly typical for a production week.  I tend to have breakfast sometime mid-morning, usually consisting of cereal and a bagel.  Sometimes, when I think about it I get some bananas to toss in my SpecialK.  I don’t usually eat lunch, and then, since I have to be at the theatre at 5:30 I end up eating an early dinner or a rushed dinner.  Dinner usually comes from someplace local to the theatre.  Every now and then, when I think about it, I will throw something in the slow cooker in the morning and then run home and grab a bite.  Sometimes, when I am lucky and our schedules are not similar, Ruth makes dinner, which is great.

I know that I have at least one crewton who will read this and tell me that I should just bring more “fuudz” with me to work.  It isn’t that easy, though it should be.  I am often more diligent about not eating out when I am not in production.  I keep lunch stuffs in my little fridge in my office regularly.  It is really just dinners that I need to figure out better.  I haven’t quite worked out how to re-work my schedule so that it is more conducive to creating better food habits.  Aside from  leaving earlier in the day or making some of our calls later in the evening I don’t have any great solutions.

Beyond that, things at the theatre are going quite well.  I have done two of the three photo shoots for Hamlet and I have also done photos for the U of U Department of Theatre’s production of Alcestis.  We have started to think about our next show, Dracula and I am expecting to get the plot and paperwork tomorrow.  No rest for the weary yet, just heading from one big show to a bigger one!

Our production of 42nd Street opens tomorrow.  That marks the final opening night of the 2009-2010 season here at the theatre.  It is really amazing how it feels like we just started, and yet we have been at it for almost nine months.  As usual, the weeks leading up to this opening (like this week) have been completely chaotic.  I think by the time the curtain falls on Friday night and we head out to the opening night party I will have clocked more overtime hours than regular hours this week.  All things considered this is not a bad thing aside from the fact that I am amazingly tired and I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with Ruth, who just had her wisdom teeth out and could use some TLC.

Even though things will really slow down after Friday, I think this is the time of year where it feels like things will go really fast.  There are a lot of things that are going to happen in the next month.  We of course will have the performances of the show, but we won’t have to be working on the next show (this is nice).  Ruth will be heading off to London for six weeks soon.  I have my photo workshop in Moab, then at some point I have to arrive on the East Coast in time for my sister’s college graduation (I still have to get a plane ticket).  After that I head off to camp where I will reconnect with Ruth.  It’ll all happen pretty fast, it is crazy.

The fun thing about winding down the season at the theatre is that we can start to look ahead to next season.  Next season we are taking on some big challenges and we are switching things up.  We will be producing eight shows instead of our usual seven.  There were a lot of factors that went into this decision.  First of all, we lost the rights to Spamalot on account of the fact that there will be a non-equity (AEA is the actor’s union) touring company in town for a three day engagement.  To me, this seems like the kind of thing that someone at the licensing company gets fired over.  I mean, we would make them a lot more money, but whatever.

So, in lieu of having that big name show to close our season, the powers that be decided that we would assume the risk of doing an eighth show as opposed to having to cut back on budgets and possibly salaries.  We won’t be getting raises (for the second year in a row) but we will get an extra 5-ish weeks of work.  In theory, the season that they have planned should be a pretty good seller, and I certainly can’t argue with the extra work as in those weeks I will make more money than summer camp.  One of the other ways that the theatre will save some money is that one of the shows will be a co-production with Indiana Repertory Theatre.

Hopefully by now you are wondering what the heck those eight shows we are planning to do will be.  Well, guess what, I am going to tell you.  Though I don’t think that the information officially goes public until tomorrow, I am sure that plenty of people know because most of our staff and crew can’t keep their mouths shut anyway.  So, here it is, the 2010-2011 season line up for the Pioneer Theatre Company:

• Hamlet
• Dracula (to play over Halloween)
• White Christmas (to play during the Christmas season)
• Black Comedy
• In (a brand new play, this will be the first performance)
• The Diary of Anne Frank (the co-pro with IRT)
• Sunset Boulevard
• Rent

So, I bet those of you who read my earlier post about possible shows are wondering why we are doing White Christmas when no one really wanted to do it.  There are two reasons for that.  One is that a Christmas show generally sells well at that time of year.  The second reason is that since we have added Rent to the season, we figure that we balance out the edgy show with the classic.  Hopefully all the theories are correct and we have some shows that sell!  It will really be interesting to start the season with a straight play in stead of a musical next season though!

All things considered, the coming season should prove to be a very fun season.  There are a lot of dark shows on the line-up, but they are good shows.  I really hope that Rent does well so that we can prove that we can sell the edgy shows in this demographic.  I also think that it will help bring in some younger audiences.

It also sounds like I will be taking on some additional responsibilities at the theatre next season as our resident sound designer is leaving.  I won’t be going into sound, but he did some other odd jobs like help manage our website and maintain some of our computers, like our ticketing server.  I am happy to take on these jobs, and there is a little kick in pay for it, so it should be good for everyone.  It will give me something to do on the days that I wonder what to do with myself.  Hopefully next season there won’t be many of those days on account of having more shows!

So that is where we are.  Winding down to the end of the season.  In general, things are looking good for next year, which is great.  If any of my readers happen to be in the SLC area next year, give a shout and I can see about getting you in to a show!

Today I ended up having to rush in to the theatre because, for the second year in a row I was not notified of the important meeting that was yesterday morning.  At least I made it there only about seven minutes late, but I was kind of mad that again I hadn’t got the memo.  No, it isn’t because they didn’t want me there, it was merely because I was not on the email distribution list.  Go figure.  It made me feel good that the people in charge felt bad that they forgot me AGAIN!

Why is this meeting so important you ask?  I mean most meetings I probably wouldn’t care about missing, but this one is somewhat important.  This is the annual meeting where we talk about potential shows for next season.  Sure, it really all comes down to our artistic director’s choice, but I think that he does consider many of the comments that we put forth.  I can tell you though, we don’t really pay too much heed to the audience survey that we put out.  We do a little, and this year more than others, but not always.

Amazingly, the meeting this year didn’t go on for as long as it has in the past, but I think that there were some good ideas.  I am probably not really supposed to talk about the shows that we discussed, but since the decision will have to be made within a week or so, I can’t imagine that it really makes a difference.  I am also pretty sure that I would not be the only leak.  Also, I am interested in opinions from outside of Utah, since our survey only looks at our patrons.

Here are the shows that made the “short list,” a list that our artistic director is seriously considering (in no particular order).  Also keep in mind that most of the time we like to do the musicals as the first and last shows of the season.

I crossed off White Christmas, because no one really wants to do it, and the odds are very much against it.  I believe it was only on the list to see if there would be any favorable reaction to it.  The * by Anne Frank is there because there is the possibility that it could be a co-produced show with another regional theatre, however the thought was that if the co-production doesn’t happen, we would probably not pursue the show on our own.  There were also other shows on the  survey that I think might be good choices that were not on this list.

My personal thoughts are that in musical land we should do Rent and Spamalot.  I think that it would be a big mistake NOT to do Rent because people come out of the woodwork to see that show.  I also like the show, I know there are many who don’t.  I think that it has the potential to really kick off the season with some high energy.  I would only put Rent at the beginning of the season because of the business end of things, inevitably we will turn some people off by producing Rent, and having it at the end may affect season ticket sales more than at the beginning.  I think that Spamalot would be a really fun closing show, who doesn’t like Monty Python?!  Also, we would probably be the regional theatre premiere of the show.

In the world of plays, at first look it is kind of a dark list, but they are all pretty interesting/good shows.  I think with the current vampire craze Dracula would be a good choice.  It would also probably go in our second slot so it would be running around Halloween.  I think pulling out the original vampire and getting away from sparkly, virgin, teenage, angst filled vampires is a good thing, and I think people will come.  Dracula also ranked number two on our audience survey.

I would like to do Cat as it is a great American classic that I have never worked on.  I think that would be interesting.  I haven’t read or seen August, but I hear that it is similar to Cat in themes but right now is pretty popular which could make it a good choice.  Anne Frank is a great show and the co-production possibility is kind of interesting, I just wonder if the show is overdone.  I like it though and would be happy to do it.  Out of the Shakespeare choices I would lean a little towards Shrew as otherwise we are really lining up a dark season.

Beyond that, I don’t really know Fallen Angels (I am told it’s a comedy), The Philadelphia Story, or In.  I think that would make my picks: Rent, Spamalot, Dracula, Anne Frank, Black Comedy, Shrew, and Cat.  I could probably go either way on Cat or August though.

So what shows would you pick?  There is a poll below, you may choose five (5) plays and two (2) musicals.  By the way, if you pick White Christmas, you are fired

I apologize for the long-ish post, but I thought it would be fun to see if anyone had ideas/thoughts/input.

If you don’t know the significance of the title then you should read Our Town.

I mentioned in an earlier post that last week and this week would be kind of crazy and of course they are!  I didn’t really even have a full day off.  While I did find the time to hit the slopes for a little bit on Sunday, I still had the photo call for The Rocky Horror Show and then I had to move a couple lighting fixtures from that show up to our theatre and focus them.  So, even Sunday was not much of a day off, but getting out and getting some sun was really nice.  It was also great to be able to see my cousin who is here for a ski vacation.

I do have to say though, I think that I really do have a much better understanding of what Our Town is really about.  In fact, it is actually interesting to me that so many people read this play in high school.  I would imagine that it will have even more meaning when I am older than I am currently.  I think it also hits home for me on account of the fact that it takes place in New Hampshire, which is a place that I really love.  I know almost all of the places that are talked about and life in New Hampshire is still pretty similar.  The small towns there are sometimes on the same wavelength still.

Looking out the window at the moon pondering the universe. This is why I have been silent on the blog for a few days!

It is the meaning of life things that are really interesting.  It actually really reminds me of another post that I wrote about  living life.  The third act of the play is one that can really come from left field if you don’t know the show at all.  Dealing with life and death and how we handle those transitions can be really hard.  One of the lines in the play is: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every minute?”   The answer given is that only a few poets and saints do.  This makes sense to me, I don’t think we really understand what we have, where we are or where we are going while we are living.  Sometimes I am sure that we take life for granted.

The moments that we have on this earth, in this life, with the people we care about are short when you are faced with eternity.  The perspective is very interesting, though provoking, and belittling.  Our Town tells a beautiful story and I am glad that I finally have the opportunity to work on a real production of it.  I am also glad that I get to just watch it, and not have to work it.  If you are in the SLC area I would suggest coming to see it as well.