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!