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!

I suppose it has only been a couple days since my last post, but I finally feel like I have time again in my life to sit down and write a new post.  We opened the show on Friday night and so far it sounds like all is well with that.  At the same time though, my brother came in for a few days to do some skiing, so as soon as I was free from the theatre I was off to spend time with Dan.  It was a lot of fun, we got in a lot of skiing, and I am still pretty wiped out from that.  It is a lot of fun to ski hard, but you feel it later!

I of course still had a full schedule over the weekend.  On Saturday I did photos for Youth Theatre at the U’s production of James and the Giant Peach.  It was a cute and fun little show and I am sure that I will do some business with the photos.  If you are interested in taking a look at the images you can find them at this site.

YTU was not the only photo engagement that I had on Saturday.  I also went to a performance of Ruth’s which was to raise money to fund her class’ trip to France over their spring break.  The “French Connection,” as they are called, is a group of students who are going to spend a week in France studying, performing, and working with similarly inclined theatre students at a school in France.  It sounds like it should be a fun trip.  Through various fund-raising efforts including two such performances as this one, they have raised all the money that they need to go on the trip.  So, since I would have been at the performance anyway, I took some photos from them, it was a lot of fun.

I did have one other photo adventure this weekend, though this one was not very significant (at least in my mind).  I was walking up Main Street in Park City with my brother and we stopped, as usual, in the Thomas Mengelsen galley.  I love looking at hi work, and he is going to be in town later this month!  As we left the gallery, we ran into a family on the street trying to figure out how to get a good photo of themselves.  They asked if I would shoot the picture for them and of course, I was happy to.  Had to take a couple to get the tiny little flash on the P&S camera to actually light them up.  They were very grateful, at which point my brother decided to point out that they had happened to ask a professional photographer to take their picture.  At which point they wanted to know more about me and my work and I unfortunately didn’t have a card on me (which reminds me I should have more printed).  So, kind of fun experience.

So, I do have to make a couple appearances at the theatre this week, even though I don’t have to run the show.  We have lots of prep work to do for our final production of the season, 42nd Street.  We have a lot of things that need to light up, and if all goes well, I will get someone else to spend their money on it so that I can save my budget for other things!  I am usually pretty good at that.  So, all things considered, I should probably get off my couch, eat something and go to work.  I like relaxing and writing, but I can get paid to relax and write if I sit in my office, it is just not as comfortable as being at home!

I have also heard that the shop is having a party today and the team drawing for March Madness will happen this afternoon.  We do two different pools, one is a standard fill in your own bracket and the other is a random drawing.  I don’t follow college basketball at all really so doing a bracket is kinda moot for me.  The random lottery is fine, cheap to buy in to, but can make you a few bucks.  Plus the party at the beginning and at the end is fun.

So, that is about where things are.  I have lots of blogs to catch up on reading and maybe I can get ahead on a post or two with some of the ideas that I have thought of (and probably forgotten) over the past week.

It is barely into Tuesday morning (for me anyway) and yet I already know that this could possibly be the longest week of the season (at the theatre) for me.  Why?  Well, in an effort to save money this season, the theatre has decided to go back to our old schedule and take a week out of the season.  The week is just a work-week, but it means that ultimately they cut everyone’s pay by a week.  Quite exciting, I know.  However, what that means is that instead of having two weeks between shows, we have one.

What does that mean for me?  Well, it means that we have to strike the last show, hang and focus the next show and start tech all in one week!  It also means that this week will be overtime-city for me and a number of people on my crew.  When you work a seven hour call in the evening after working at least a half day during the day, the hours stack up pretty fast.  I think we left the theatre a little after midnight last night and I didn’t get home till around 1AM because I gave a couple rides home.

So, this will be the name of the game this week, and that is what the job is all about.  While it is long hours, this is what we do this for.  This is the fun part!  Figuring out how to make everything fit and work and realizing the designer’s vision is pretty darn cool.  The crew is doing very well and we were very efficient last night.  We just have to get back to the mentality of working larger shows as the last couple have been on the small side.

Sure, you have to ask: How big can Our Town possibly be?  Well, when you have a show that has virtually no set, you need to create the scene with lighting.  So we have a lot of lights, a lot of color, and real lot of templates.  My little show template box was almost busting at the seams after I pulled all the ones we needed for the show.  If I hadn’t had them in stock you can bet that it would be over a thousand dollars in templates!  It will be a really pretty show, for sure.

So, if it seems like I drop off the face of the earth this week (or at least the blogsphere) it is because I have not had a minute to think about anything else.  I probably should be getting ready to go to work right now, but i have to go to the supermarket to get something for breakfast as we have nothing in the apartment.  I am kinda procrastinating on that which is why I am writing now.  There are a host of other reasons that I have not gone to the market yet, but I am sure that anyone reading this doesn’t want to know about them.

I suppose I should also close with a shameless plug.  For any readers in the SLC area, you should come and see our next show, Our Town.  It should be good.  If you do come, give a holler, and certainly let me know what you think!

I find the concept of “Do what you like, like what you do” to be very important for life.  In the entertainment industry in particular I think that it is very important to find a job that you enjoy doing since the odds are that you will never make the money that you want to be making!  I personally think that this holds true for anyone in any industry.  Sure, it would be great to make lots of money, but I wouldn’t want to be in a job that made me not want to go to work every day.

I love doing what I do, working at the theatre.  I enjoy going to work.  Even though sometimes I complain, it is usually about being tired and having to get up in the morning.  I work with great people, I make enough to live happily, and I have great benefits.  Work is interesting and fun.  I do my best to make the atmosphere for the the people who work for me interesting, educational, and fun.  I even go so far as to tell people to let me know if they are not having fun because I want to know what I can do to make sure that people want to come back.

What made me think about this today is that one of my co-workers at the theatre is entertaining the idea of moving on to a different job.  What he wants to be doing and what he really enjoys doing is teaching and the fact that he has a lead on a teaching position is great.  It seems like he has had the itch to be doing something different for a while now so I hope that this pans out for him.

Yesterday I posted about living life and doing the things that you want to do.  This is no different.  For most of us, having a job is a must.  There are not too many people who can really just coast through life and not do anything.  So, if we have to work, if we have to do something to make a living in this world then I would rather be doing something that I like to do.  It doesn’t make sense to me to spend any time working at a job that you don’t like.  Do something that makes you happy and brings you some kind of fulfillment.

No, I don’t mean the electricity that you get from putting solar panels on your roof.  I am thinking more along the lines of solar power driving us, people.  I suppose it may not just be solar power, possibly just being outside, I am not sure.  What I do know is that when I spend a lot of time outside I feel better.  How so?  Well, I feel like I have more energy, it isn’t hard to get out of bed in the morning, and I think that I generally have a better outlook on life.

I, Like so many people have a job that keeps me inside much of the time.  Not only inside, but often literally in the dark.  My job can be a little odd in the land of hours because sometimes it is just a regular nine-to-five job, sometimes it is a nine-to-whenever-we-get-done job (often late nights), and sometimes it is an evening job.  Keeping up with the ever changing dynamics of the schedule can be hard, but I enjoy what I am doing.  I also tend to have the time to get out and do things like ski for a good amount of time.

However, during the spans of time that I work a lot, especially during the daytime I find that I have significantly less energy and motivation.  It is harder to get up in the morning and there are many days that I just feel like I drag through the day.  Then there are weeks like this past week where I got out and did a bunch of skiing and spent a lot of time outside enjoying the fresh mountain air and the sun.  I suppose that I should mention that the air quality here in the Salt Lake Valley is pretty bad which may be another contributing factor.   This past week I have been feeling pretty darn good, though it is always a bummer to drive down the canyons into the SLC smog.  On weeks like this, I can get up when the alarm goes off, get ready and get out the door.  Even coming in to work in the afternoon isn’t so bad!

I have found that I feel the same way when I spend the summers working at summer camp.  Camp is a very demanding job but it is very rewarding too.  Somehow I find that I can spend most of the summer getting up between 7-7:30AM, running around with the kids all day, hanging out with the staff until 1AM and do that pretty much every day.  I don’t know how it works because during the rest of the year I go to bed earlier and wake up later and just don’t usually  have the same energy.  Thus, I attribute it to solar power and being outside.

I know that there is all kinds of science that probably backs up what I am feeling, something about the sun and getting different vitamins because of it.  That is all well and good, but it is still very interesting that it seems to make such a huge impact.  I guess sometimes we just need to get out more.