From May 10

We are currently sitting in tech rehearsal for THE TEMPEST at American Rep, a show that we built and sent to Vegas earlier this year. With magic designed by Teller (of Penn & Teller) and music written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, this production promises to be a blast. 

The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare shows. It is widely regarded as Shakespeare's farewell to the playwrighting world, a remarkable example of authorial self-representation in a fantastical work. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was betrayed 12 years ago and stranded on an island with his young daughter Miranda. His love of knowledge and constant study allows Prospero to use magic to employ spirits (the mischievous Ariel) and to manipulate the forces that be to restore his daughter to power and cast down his enemies. Among the many themes in this show, the ones that have always stood out to me are forgiveness and redemption. 

ART's production of The Tempest is already a hit. The music is dark and striking. The magic is eerie and hair-raising. The acting is superb, for an American Shakespeare. And call me biased, but the set and lighting are pretty awesome.

Coming home to Cambridge is very exciting for everyone involved. Moving from the Vegas space to the Loeb center certainly presents some challenges-- a different show deck, some elements of the set used in one space but not the other, changes in lighting angles and sound levels, some blocking changes for the actors, but overall it's fairly nice to mount a show that has already been assembled once. 

This has been a long week! I started Sunday with the electrics crew, unloading trucks from Vegas and rental gear. Luckily, most of the lights were hung in advance for the show since ART's last big show (The Shape She Makes) was in a different space, so all we had to put in the air were some moving lights, color scrollers, and cabling. Sunday was also a lot of organizing what came off of the trucks-- props and scenery, costumes, lighting equipment, sound gear. On Monday and Tuesday I worked for the scene shop loading the set itself in. It was a fair amount of heavy work. The theater is set up as a big proscenium, complete with raised deck (this was a process to create with ART's moving seat wagons and the various elevator portions of what could be stage space). There is a beautiful show deck, second and third levels, spiral stairs and various things for the cast to climb on and play on. Without giving too much away, I will say there are pillars sloping outward giving the set a fantastic, sprawling feel. Add exotic touches like a high crow's nest and clamshells, and we've got a dark, watery scene for the show. 

Since Tuesday I've been working on electrics again. I'm also a spotlight operator on the show, so having myself and the other spot op, Kevin, be familiar with the hang and focus for the show is a good idea so we can fix things and perform maintenance during the run. Electrics has been challenging because there are a lot of pieces that light up in the set and also, the set is extremely tall and therefore the lights are very high in the air and hard to get to! Here on day 3 of technical rehearsals we're in good shape, but everything from complex LED's getting wired to confusing changes from Vegas to our rental spotlights being cruddy, have really made this load in a challenge. Rehearsals are going smoothly however, since we're all working on inserting the show into a new space instead of doing it for the first time.

These busy weeks are the best! The Tempest runs for one month here in Cambridge. Don't miss out! For production photos, videos, and tickets, please visit the A.R.T. website here.

Good News

I'm very excited to be working for A.R.T. again over the summer-- this time for 2 shows, The Tempest and Finding Neverland, which is the first show of their next season. I'll be running the 2nd spotlight on Tempest and on the stage crew for Neverland. Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, so that is exciting to be working on. Finding Neverland promises to be an action-packed show: it is the first show of next season for the company.

For me as a freelancer, having this kind of steady work lined up through the end of September is awesome! Although there are a lot of employment rules that A.R.T. has to follow, through its connection with Harvard, I believe the staff there is realizing that as a growing theater company, they need to expand their staff as well in order to not have to re-train new overhires every few weeks or months. It is great to be working with them steadily for a little while.

Happy Spring!

Spring Stuff

Now that Witness Uganda is over, I have some free time before my next set of shows to work a few freelance gigs, do my taxes, and complete some long-overdue visits!

Two weekends ago, I went home to VT to see Logan, Bram, and the family. I also spent some time with my college roommates in Burlington and visited my Grandma. The amount of snow they still had was insane! It was still falling!

So I spent a lot of that visit shoveling and snowshoeing. It was the best snowshoeing snow I've seen all winter, and I do like snow, so it was a nice visit despite the fact that at the end of March it should be springtime. I started pruning our apple trees for this season, which was much easier being 3' taller when on top of the snow!

Back in Boston, I've been working some random gigs and also taking the time to do my taxes. I wish I had thought further ahead and gotten someone lined up to prepare them for 2013, since I moved, worked in 4 different states, and had mixed income (both W2s and 1099s). It was really tricky, and H&R Block was fairly helpful but I am learning a lot about saving receipts and counting mileage (in certain situations only). I'll be very happy when tax season is over!

Now I'm in Ithaca, NY, visiting my boyfriend Alex and taking some time off. It's amazing how good time outside of the city feels. I'm also able to relax a little because I have work lined up through September, which is insane for my usual crazy overhire gigs! I will be on the run crew with A.R.T. again, first as a follow spot operator for their last show of the season this year, and then on the deck crew for the first show of the season in the summer/fall. You can read about next season here. Looking forward to working with them again! 

More news to come! Thank you for reading.

Witness Uganda

I had the pleasure of working on the run crew for American Repertory Theater's recent production of Witness Uganda, a new musical relating the story of an aid worker with the Uganda Project.

Working on this show was great. Not only was it a memorable production in terms of music and quality, it promoted a very profound cause. Watching it night after night, I was amazed I didn't get tired of it, as we often do when working for months on the same show. I was very pleased my parents and relatives were able to come see it.

My title during the show was stagehand, but I also ran the follow spotlight for several big moments (to add another spotlight to the dedicated one). This meant a lot of pulling ropes and moving scenery, and then traveling through the building to get to the catwalks above the audience. It was pretty crazy, but we took steps to ensure everyone's safety during the run-- my own included. I certainly am in good shape now!

The set was pretty interesting for this show. We only used the area downstage of the proscenium, effectively making the stage much smaller and more intimate. The band was on platforms stage right. The main scenic element was a simple wood deck that rose and inclined to represent a hill (and various other things, sometimes). The scene shop used the "pit elevators" built into the theater to control this, and built a motor for the tilt part. It required two people to operate, and eyes onstage to make sure nothing and no one was under it. There were also projections on a huge screen/scrim setup, black masking that covered the screen horizontally and vertically, a few wood-and-steel, rustic scenery pieces that tracked on from the sides or were brought on by hand, and some dramatic, gauzy fabrics that moved across the stage as well. There were a lot of props in the show. Spanning between New York and Africa, there were a fair amount of culture shock elements to communicate, and the props and costumes really made that emphasis clear.

I'm hoping to continue working with the run crew at A.R.T. on their upcoming shows, Tempest and Finding Neverland. I made a lot of great friends between the crew, cast, and the Harvard Institute students involved. It certainly doesn't hurt to have a steady job for a few months during a show run-- right now I'm back to freelancing between Emerson and a few other places. Fingers crossed for the future!

2014!

Wow, it has been a while since I've written! After finishing The Importance of Being Earnest, we jumped right into rehearsals for the next Moonbox show, which was Company. I had a few more responsibilities on this show including booking rehearsal spaces, which is mainly what I spent December and January doing. I did have some time off to go to VT for the holidays, though :)

I worked freelance during that time as well, mainly with BeNt Productions and Emerson College. I taught a workshop on freelancing in technical theater at KCACTF Region 1 this year, which was a blast. Over 25 people showed up to hear me talk about my experience in the past few years, both while in school and after graduation, freelancing in this field-- I tried to cover everything from how to start networking and getting on the radar and choosing where to go, to tax forms and tool kits and advice on resumes and lifestyle. It was a lot, but I planned for a long time beforehand and it turned out to be quite enjoyable! Please feel free to comment/contact me for the information I presented.

In January, I worked on the strike for Robin Hood at the American Repertory Theater and wound up with a run crew gig for the next 2 months on their next show, Witness Uganda. So I'm working backstage at the shows instead of building the sets or focusing the lights, which is something I haven't done in a long time! That show, which promotes and benefits the Uganda Project, closes this weekend. I'll probably write a separate post about my experiences on that show, which have been great.

In February, Moonbox opened Company, which was a huge challenge for us. We all learned a lot, I hope-- I know I did! Company ran for month at the Roberts Theater down at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Lastly, my most recent news is personal: I am, as of this past Monday, the proud Auntie to a second nephew! Logan Christopher Liptak was born in the early morning to my sister-in-law Kate and my brother Dan; their first kid. I'll be heading home next weekend after Witness Uganda is closed and struck, and I can't wait to meet Logan.

Thanks for reading! More updates soon on my recent shows!

The Importance of Being Earnest

Moonbox Productions' fall show The Importance of Being Earnest closes this weekend after a very successful run! We opened on November 22nd at the BCA's Plaza Theater in partnership with High Spirit Community Farm, providing community life and meaningful work for people with disabilities. Every ticket sale and donation for Earnest includes a portion that goes to this organization.

Lady Bracknell-- in the purple-- is actually played by a man!

ALL of the muffins.

In the past, I've worked with lighting on Moonbox's shows: first as an electrician, then as the Master Electrician and Assistant Lighting Designer to Jeff Salzberg on A New Brain. This fall, I was the Production Manager for Moonbox, which is a challenging but rewarding position-- especially since the company has ever had a PM before-- that involves a lot of scheduling, emailing, communication, and hiring people, and being in touch with the shop we contracted to build the set, coordinating between them and the designer, and picking up rental orders.

Scenic design by John Devlin

I enjoy working with Moonbox because of the incredibly talented and decent people we work with; and because I support the overall mission of the company: supporting local arts and artists as well as connecting communities to local non-profit organizations that serve them. There are a surprising amount of connections within the company to my home state of Vermont as well: Sharman, our producer; Jeff, my lighting designer; myself; and for Earnest, our scenic designer was John Devlin, my adviser from college; our stage manager was Heather Lessard, one of my classmates from St. Mike's; and I was able to hire one of the students I mentored for while at St. Mike's to come work with us on our load in. For us, "local artists" includes these people, and it was a pleasure to work with them and introduce many of them to Boston artists and venues.

To read the astonishing amount of reviews on this production, and also to "like" us on Facebook, please visit the Moonbox Productions Facebook page here.  To order tickets for closing weekend, check out Moonbox's website!

Cabaret with Brandeis University

This fall, I worked on Brandeis University's show Cabaret extensively for 8 weeks in the scene shop. With only 2 overhire carpenters and a few student workers, it took a while to build this complex set. It included a broken arch wall intersected with spiral stairs (some walkable); a Murphy bed; a hanging piano; a raised deck; and a LOT of molding and paint treatment.

Scenic design by Cameron Anderson

Scenic design by Cameron Anderson

I got a lot of welding practice on the arch pieces

And foam work...and molding

One project I worked on for a long time were these meat hooks

...for which I worked with oxy-acetylene and various other metal working devices

I also built this Murphy bed into one of the arch walls, very interesting project!

 Working at Brandeis was a steady way to settle back in after my summer away. I got a lot of practice with building techniques I already know and learned plenty of new things as well. There were definitely some challenges-- making all of the flying pieces fit between lights and architectural elements of the theater (the meat hooks were used to fly chairs, a sofa, and more; and the piano raised and lowered as well)-- as well as working for such a long stretch on the same show with many of the same people-- but it was a great experience overall and I hope to rejoin the Brandeis Theater department in the future for other shows.

Check out this teaser video a student made for the show!

Update: 12/10 Brandeis posted a Behind the Scenes video here. 

Thanks for reading!