This was my very first experience with hands-on work during an active show. Nick, the lighting director at Athens Theatre, told me that they needed someone to fill in as a spotlight operator for one of the shows. Thankfully, I was able to do such and incorporate that as part of my internship experience.

Up until that point, I had never done anything with lights before, so this was very new for me. However, I had ample time to test things out and learn how to go about using the spotlights before the house opened up. I pretty much treated it like I was operating a video camera. Moving the light around and following the actors were the easy parts for me. The challenge came with turning the light on and off at the appropriate speed and making sure the light was off before the actors fully went offstage. There is a handle on the side of the spotlight that is used to turn it on and off. The handle turns towards the light to turn on and away to turn off. Turning it off is what was slightly more difficult to do in a timely manner.

There is also a knob that adjusts the size of the spotlight, labeled as full or bust/half. There were a few times I had to change the size during the run. I kept confusing the direction I was supposed to turn to change the size, but I was able to figure it out for the show.

There are also gels/filters that affect the texture of the light. When Frank, the Artistic Director, came out to speak at the start of the show, there was no filter being used. During the show, however, the spots were to have a kind of hazy texture to it, so that you can’t clearly see the outer edge. There were six different gels applied to the spots, but we only used one. Multiple gels can be used at the same time.

Although it wasn’t perfect and pretty last minute, this was probably the most fun I have had so far because I was actively doing something to help run the show. Now I can officially say on my resumes that I have experience with operating spotlights.

I continue my side quests at Athens Theatre in a different area: the box office. This is a very important role because it is where people go to or call into for tickets to the show of the day, future shows, and renewing season passes.

I wasn’t able to be too hands on with this part of things, but one thing I did do was organize the will call box (this finally allowed me to associate a name with the box). Putting tickets on will call means that they are put on reserve to be physically picked up when patrons arrive at the theatre before the show. However, people can also print out their tickets themselves. For those who do not, the theatre is able to print the tickets out for them on the spot so long as their names are in the system.

I was also shown how the system they used works with purchasing tickets. Given that it is April, it is around this time where people begin to call about renewing their season pass for the ’25-’26 season, which allows them a seat for each show in the next season. People can reserve seating for the shows, typically being the same seat for each show.

I feel like this position would be the most difficult for me with how much it involves interacting with other people, but I do enjoy doing things on a computer, and I could easily work my way around a system. It’s another position that would be important to fill and helps keeps things running smoothly.

For that day, I was given the title of “Acting” House Manager during one of the show days. I learned about what is it that the house managers do before, during, and after the show is run for the day.

My job for the day started with helping to set up the box areas. Pat and Toni’s Sweet Things, up the road from the theatre, supplies them with some of their sweets, such as their chocolate covered strawberries. The wine comes from The Elusive Grape, a winery that is also up the road. The box seats are given a plate of chocolate strawberries, a charcuterie plate, record disc-shaped chocolates, and cookies, a bucket of ice, and drinks.

Following this, I was helping out with setting up the bar. There are three in the theatre: one each on house left and house right, and one in the lobby. I was situated on the house right bar. I was tasked with pouring wine, opening beer bottles, and giving the soft beverages, water, and snacks. The person in charge of the bar handed me the beer bottles and served the two special beverages (one of which was their version of a Shirley Temple called the Sandra D.). I also had to dry off the beer bottles before opening them since they were sitting in a cooler full of ice. There was someone else who was handling the money.

Guests were served before the show and during intermission. While pre-show was busy, intermission was when the rush really kicked in. Thankfully, I was able to keep up with it and kept things moving in a timely manner. There wasn’t anything for me to do during the show, so I was sitting by the tech bay to watch the show until I was called down to help during intermission.

Although it strays away from technical theatre, being positioned here helps me become multifaceted, something that I know is important in the theatre world. It serves as good as experience for me, and it allows me to improve more on interacting with others, forcing me to break out of my shell a bit more.

Through the run of The Full Monty, my focus has been mostly on the sound aspect of things. However, there are limitations with how the shows are to be run that have prevented me from being hands on with that part. But, now that Grease is opening, the page is turning and I have the opportunity to diversify my skillset. Someone once told me that theatres like to hire people that are multifaceted and can be assign to different areas.

I did some small things to help with setting up for the shows, the first of which was cleaning. With time constraints on one of the days I was there, I was able to help by tossing pieces of wood that were not going to be used for building, and I was able to help with sweeping sawdust off of the stage. On another day, my time was mostly spent with helping set the band up for the show, as well as making prop sandwiches out of wood blocks and wax paper.

Above all of this though, the highlight of this week was on Monday, when I was asked to help out backstage as part of the run crew. This was the most hands on with a run that I have been up to this point, and it felt good to switch things up. I was tasked with doing specific things that wouldn’t interrupt the flow of things, since run crew is a dicey thing to get suddenly dropped into. It’s something that could cause me to very easily get in the way, so I needed to be intentional and quick about what I was doing. It is a systematic role and such an important one to the show. The stage manager, Avery, gave me a copy of the sheet that lists what has to be moved when and where. Although I do not know if I will be placed in that position again since Grease has now opened, it is a good token to have for documentation purposes, and a good outline to look at for if I ever be a part of a run crew in the future.

This is only the start to what is a new avenue in my technical theatre experience. It is very beneficial for me to be spreading my wings and learning about different aspects of how the shows are put together. I was unable to attend opening night of Grease due to a choir performance I was a part of, but I am returning to Athens Theatre this evening, and I was told that I was to be working with one of the house managers, so I am adding another wrinkle to my arsenal in working in a theatre.

On the days where Athens Theatre is not running a show during their production season, you will oftentimes find them hosting bands that rent the space out for a show or two. The bands I have seen perform in the space are tribute bands, but I am uncertain if that is always the case. While shows are running Thursdays through Sundays, the rental bands typically play on Wednesdays.

As of writing, I have sat in on a few rental performances, including tribute bands for the likes of ABBA, Electric Light Orchestra, and Elvis Presley. My duties for these days are normally pretty light, but there is still plenty to learn from them. The bulk of my work comes before and after the performances. In the beginning, I am tasked with helping set up the stage with microphones and hooking up XLR cables from the microphones to the snakes. I also have to help set up DI’s. After the performances, I help the crew with tearing down and loading out. We’re asked to only strike the theatre’s equipment and not to touch what the bands bring in.

My down time is during the performances themselves. Because the mixing is supposed to be done a certain way, I have to remain hands off with this process, but I am always asking questions about the process itself and what Lamar is doing in his mixing to try and understand how he goes about it. I am still quite inexperienced with live mixing and engineering, but it is something I still wish to learn down the line, and watching how the mixing is done helps with figuring it out.

This was not exactly the most fun project to tackle, but it is something important. Anything involving organization of equipment is a necessity in theatre.

At Athens Theatre, the equipment for productions is stored in a closet on the house right side. Additionally, there are walls designated for hanging cables and cords. There is a wall that has XLR cables of different lengths and mic stands, and another that has different cords, extension cords, and quad boxes (an electrical box with pairs of outlets, effectively serving as a large extension cord). There is also a closet built into a wall with shelves and felt boxes that hold different pieces of equipment, such as microphones, mic clips, DI units, and digital snakes.

The task I was assigned with went as such:

• Test the XLR cables to ensure that they work (there is a cable testing box I was given to make sure that they worked, and I had to make sure that the lights on the cable tester were turned on 1-to-1).
• Measure the length of the operative XLR cables.
• Mark the XLR cables by length using electrical tape (5-ft to 15-ft cables were marked with orange tape, 20-ft cables with no tape, 25-ft cables with yellow, and 50-ft cables with red).
• Attach new velcro straps to the XLR cables by color (same as above, except black velcro straps were used for the 5-ft to 15-ft cables).
• Sort XLR cables and arrange them on the wall by length.
• Attach new velcro straps to extension cords and quad boxes (blue straps).
• Label microphones pouches and place microphones in the corresponding pouches.

This was a project that took a few days to get through with so many steps to take, but keeping the space organized helps things move efficiently. Even though things will need to be reorganized over time, it sets a good precedent to tidy up the space.

February 24 + 26

This week was the final week before opening night on the 28th, which I was unable to attend because of my senior recital hearing that evening. The bulk of my work came on Monday when we were finalizing the band set up. With the instrumentalists now arriving, we had to get all of the microphones set up. Having taken DIGA 361, microphone setup is easy for me to do now, This involved hooking up many XLR cables to a snake, positioning the microphones properly, and making sure that the XLR cables are not in the way so that they don’t become a tripping hazard. Additionally, we had to make sure that the cables were not hanging off of the platform to minimize the risk of them being a hazard. We kept them positioned on the ground using gaff table and used the sound shields to our advantage – the drum shields specifically, because they are large plexiglass screens that have a small opening towards the bottom that allows for cables to be passed through. The drum mics took the longest time to set up since there are multiple of them. There were two overhead mics, one for the left and right side, a low microphone for the kick drum, a snare mic, a hi-hat mic, and two clipped microphones, one for each tom drum. The microphones for each instrument would be connected to a power box that powers them. Ultimately, there were a lot of cables involved, but this helped me understand the importance of cable management and how to work in a tight space.

February 22

This has been the longest day of the internship thus far, as cue-to-cue begins today and we’re scheduled to be at the theatre from 8 AM to 10 PM (with a two-hour dinner break from 3-5). This is when the show is stumbled through in order to gauge the placement of cues and see what needs to be fixed in terms of lighting and sound. Before then, we continued with getting things set up for the band, who would be coming in the next week. We decided to change around some of the positioning at the request of the keyboardist.

Two hours later, cue-to-cue officially began. There was a lot of stopping and starting in order for the lights to be adjusted in the scenes. For this run, we were positioned in the audience on the first floor and we used the table I helped build to station the console, with the setup as pictured (I did get Lamar’s permission to include him in the picture, so long as I captured his good side). At the beginning, I was told to run the mic packs from the tech bay to the actors, and at the end of the day I’d run the mics back up after removing the sweat protectors.

As long as the day was, at least we were fed during the day (donuts in the morning and Olive Garden catering for dinner) and I was able to get other things done while taking in what was going on.

Since I’m a little behind on blogging, I’m bulking in a series of blog posts to keep up with what I have been doing, and thankfully I have plenty of pictures to keep a reminder of what I’ve done so far. This pertains to my first week with Athens, following my post from the first day.

February 19 – Designer Run

This is better known to me as “Crew Watch” but this is where the cast runs through the full show for the designers, allowing for notes to be made in regards to design choices. This was my first time seeing what The Full Monty is about – a man who was recently laid off from his old job looks to make quick money in order to maintain custody of his son. His method: becoming a male stripper for one night, roping in other people whom he worked with to put on a show. To say the least, it is quite interesting.

February 21 – Set-Up

That Friday was spent beginning to set up the band on a platform on the stage. A wooden platform that would be designed to look like metal beams would house the band that would be performing during the show, consisting of a keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, saxophonist, and a drummer. We were figuring out how to space the band, as well as figuring out how to set up the cables for the microphones. We also put together sound screens in order to limit how much sound would bleed out. Pictured is how we finished the process for that day.

Yesterday, February 17th, marked my first day on-site for the internship at Athens! My time was spent with Lamar, the Director of Sound, at the theatre to get things prepped for this week’s designer runs and next week’s tech rehearsals.

Upon arrival, Lamar showed me around the theatre. Even though I’ve been there before, I had only been there previously in one area of the tech bay, and even I didn’t get a good look-around at things back then. This time, I was able to learn about it to a more in depth degree, as well as looking at the backstage area, tech closets, the catwalk, and the rehearsal hall two buildings over, which I didn’t know existed until then. I also met Nick, Athens’s Lighting Designer.

My first task as a part of this internship was to help plug things in to record a band later in the evening. Simple enough. I met the Assistant Stage Manager, as well as some of the band members–one of which was Craig Uppercue, who is a professor in the School of Music.

My next task once we’re back at the theatre? Building a desk…with only two legs? This desk was to be positioned over one row of chairs, and would house the SQ 6 console, as well as a monitor that would have the script on it for us to reference during rehearsals.

My next set of assignments were in the tech bay. After getting that together and bringing the console, monitor, and hard drive downstairs, we had to feed wires from upstairs to our station. I learned how to set up a Cat6 cable properly, clipping it together with an RJ-45 plug. We ran two cables from the tech bay to the catwalk, down to the second floor, and then to the first floor.

After that, I would then be tasked with labeling microphone packs for the actors. The labeling system is to put spike tape on the packs, and write the character names of the principal roles or the actor’s name for anyone playing two roles/ensemble. The fun part came when I repeated the labeling process, but this time I was doing it in the SQ 6 and SQ 7 consoles. The labeling process was the same for the names, but this time there was color coding: yellow for male principals, pink for female principals, and cyan for ensemble roles.

The next thing I did was go with Lamar to the rehearsal hall to record the band. Not much was done here except stopping and starting the recording, but it was cool seeing them play. I learned that Logic and Pro Tools are the main DAWs that Lamar uses. I haven’t used the latter before but I’m familiar enough with basic uses of Logic.

The last thing I did was set up microphones on stands. DIGA 361 taught me plenty about microphone set up and shootouts, so there’s familiarity there.

It was mainly familiarizing myself with the workings of what goes on for the first day, but I had a good time! Scheduling is complicated because of so many moving parts (the schedule of my class load and other School of Music activities, Lamar’s schedule with his company, and the theatre schedule), but we’re taking it by day. I enjoyed learning what I could and just taking everything in. I’m returning tomorrow, 2/19, for the first designer run (which I’ve heard also referred to as crew watch), meaning I’ll be able to see the cast run through the full show, and we’ll learn how everything is to be put together. I’m very much looking forward to what’s to come through this internship. There’s a lot of moving parts and so much to learn, but I’m looking to take in as much as I can!