Public postings of a less-personal nature.
Honestly, I think this second potato grow bin looks better than the first. Also cheaper, and theoretically more weather resistant because we’ve reached the point of the year where I could get rough-cut cedar fence pickets as opposed to finished pine.
I don’t know what’s going on. Tosca last week and La Boheme this week have been so dynamic. I’m getting complaints about it being both too loud and too quiet. Ands of course some people say it’s just right. That’s mostly down to the sound engineer at the Met in New York, but I’m the one getting the complaints. I’m trying to balance out the levels but it’s all over the place.
I wonder if the Behringer can handle it somehow? Can I set it so there’s an upper limit and lower limit? This seems like something the board should be able to handle better and faster than I can.
On the plus side, the scenes from backstage during the intermissions are completely fascinating. It’s competence porn for production people.
Another NTL at the PAC. This is the production from last March with Imelda Staunton as Martha. There were a few video glitches in the first act but I switched to the other recording and everything behaved after that. Other than that it’s fine; great performances, great set, good lighting. The sound is … something.
The vocal performance ranges from quiet introspection to shrieking argument which makes it hard to get a good level for this audience. I did like this thing the production did at the end of the second act – George throws his book and hits the chimes of the doorbell, setting them ringing. When the curtain closed for the short interval, they kept the ringing going, keeping the tension from the end of the act continue through.
We got back from California on Monday. Well, we actually got back on Sunday, but we spent the night at my parent’s house rather than drive back after dark, so we didn’t get home until Monday morning.
I landed at OAK on Monday afternoon, grabbed my luggage, and then spent forty five minutes trying to get my rental car. The first car I picked out had a really low steering wheel – like, brushing the tops of my thighs low, and it didn’t get adjust any higher. The second was fine, but when I ried to leave it turned out that it wasn’t actually available for rent so I had to reverse back into the rental lot, park, and then pick out the third car. I ended up driving a Nissan Versa which was the example model they listed when I chose what class car I wanted to rent. After finally getting to leave the rental lot I drove straight to the school.
What is there to say about the situation at Moreau? Grant, the latest fired designer, was about halfway competent. When I arrived there were a bunch of lights already hung and “focused” in the theatre, and there were some cues already, but it was a terrible job. Most scenes were being lit from the same six lights at the back fo the house, giving every song and scene the same flat, washed-out look. Plus, there was so much spill all around the proscenium I have to assume he either planned to re-focus later or just didn’t care. Probably the latter.
So for the first rehearsal I just watched, took some notes, and tried to make sense of what I had walked into. Tuesday I refocused the lights that were already hanging, ordered a rental package of 18 additional lights, and started re-doing the cues. Wednesday I picked up the rental, hung more lights, and continued refocus. By Thursday I was seriously re-writing the cues and adding more, and by Friday opening I was just down to tweaking the look and timing of some of the cues.
Now, it doesn’t look great. We opened the show on Friday with what I’d usually peg as a Sunday or Monday before opening version, but given the speed with which this all fell together I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.
It was really nice to see everyone again. I spent most of my time in the theater, of course, but I spent the week sleeping in Angela’s spare bedroom. The students