end of summer

It's strange, the weather's gotten colder, the sunlight's lessening,
it's reflecting the end of the festival. It's only the second day
from the end and we've deconstructed past where we were when I arrived
the first day. I should have a chance to put up pictures within the
next week, so I promise you'll get a look at it all, the theater
spaces anyway. Anyway, it's kind of a comforting feeling, autumn's
coming, already fewer people, everything's much calmer. At the end of
the day it feels like it's time to go home and curl up in blanket with
a book instead of going out and seeing shows and partying. Of course
there will be one last big party on Friday.

Nearly time to get back to work, but I have to let you all know what's
next: Over the month I've become good friends with Cho-in Theater
Company, the Korean group that was in -1. A week or so ago their
director offered me a job with them as a lighting designer and, after
working out what I'd need to do in terms of visas and plane tickets, I
accepted. So on Sept. 8th I leave for Seoul, arriving on the 9th,
flying through Dubai. Cool, I get to see the UAE, briefly, and I'll
cover those last few lines of longitude between Varanasi and Chong
Qing. All right, sounds like they're moving steel deck again.

Tired and Sick

(This was started on August 12)
Yeah, it was bound to happen. 3 weeks of 10-12 hour days with lots of
show watching, little sleep, and not much in the way of healthy food
(more on that later)... Finally caught up with me yesterday, on my
first day off since I started. Still went and saw shows, and went out
drinking with a comedian I've gotten to know and some people he knows
and didn't get enough sleep again... D'oh!

I actually managed to get a fair amount of sleep while I was working
night shift (5pm-3am+), usually crashing from 5 or 6 until 1 or 2ish.
I don't like night shift very much though, even if it does get me more
sleep.

(It is continued on August 21)
I'm better now, although I've got some sniffles again. Should go away
after sleeping.

I go back on night shift tomorrow, and I'm kind of looking forward to
it, if only for having virtually the entire day tomorrow awake and
free to enjoy the sunshine and see plays that are at times when I'm
usually working or asleep. There are a ton of new shows in -1 too,
and I'm looking forward to sitting in on the new ones at night. Even
so though, transitioning from one to the other is like giving yourself
jet lag over a 7-hour time difference every three days while
continuing to work 10+ hour days. It's pretty crazy. Technicaly
Friday is my day off, but in the 25 hours between when I stopped
working (4am Friday) and started again (5am Saturday) I was actually
awake for perhaps 10 or 11 hours, a few of which were Friday morning,
so it was more like 8 hours awake on my actual day off, and I still
felt knackered.

It's all these new shows that have been doing it. Yesterday we had 6
new shows open out of a lineup of 10 daily performances, plus
occasional special house shows at 1:30am. I'm going to start work
tomorrow and not really know any of the shows. But now they'll be at
normal hours. The hardest thing about these has been getting the tech
rehearsals done. Since there are shows going on literally from
10am-1am (or, often enough, 2:30 or 3 in -1), pretty much the only
period in which to do tech rehearsals is in that period from 3:30 to
9:30. And a technician has to be at the techs (although sometimes we
can be covered by deputy technical managers or the technical manager
himself). Week 2 (last week, counting the weekend) was just awful.
In the 10 days from August 11th to the 20th we had 11 scheduled tech
rehearsals, on 7 days. One of those days was Fringe Sunday, when most
shows don't run and instead go to the Meadows to perform for the
masses of people that collect there. I work during the day on
Sundays, so didn't see it. Anyway, a couple of those rehearsals were
cancelled or missed, others had to add or make up time, I'm not sure
what all happened now, but I know I had to be in very early for at
least a couple of techs (although I dreamt through my alarm clock and
was 2 hours late for one), stay quite late for the whole time I was on
night shift because there was always a special show at 1:30, and once
stayed even later for a tech after that.

Part of the reason for all those rehearsals was that those 6 new shows
we just added replaced 5 shows, all of which were in only for the 2nd
week, which meant we'd had to tech them the week before, which
explains the 10 days of near-continuous tech rehearsals. Another show
started it's run halfway through last week, replacing a show that had
been there since the beginning, and which hasn't helped matters any.
Add onto that the fact that every single one of those new shows last
week had a relatively massive set or other equipment, and we had some
serious issues. The back corridor was full of instruments, spilling
into a little closet with a sink and a defunct service elevator. We
had to fill up the stage left stairway, draped off already, but then
with drum kit stands, a garbage can, props box, etc., etc., all
blocked in with a big, upturned sofa. The galleries above the stage
left and right sides were as full as they could be, with one company's
stuff getting boxed into a corner, until we sorted it out. The
downstage right wing has always had stuff in it, for the Train, the
Korean company (who, incidentally, have become much easier to work
with, mostly just communication issues at the beginning; they've
invited me over for dinner a couple times now, and they're a lot of
fun to hang out with), but last week the DSL wing, where we keep the
amps and other sound equipment, got filled with the welded steel set
of Tommy. They were also a bit difficult; their tech guy was quite
nice, but his wife, the director, was something of a screaming
banshee. She spent virtually the entire tech rehearsal (a cue to cue,
mostly) yelling at the actors about their posture, their projection,
anything. Of course it didn't really help that her cast, though
fairly energetic and rather earnest, was just not quite up to the task
of singing in a musical. She once ran upstairs shouting that the
power had gone out when all that had happened was that the switch for
one plug that she'd been using had accidentally been turned off.
Rumor has it that she was blacklisted from C venues two years ago and
came back this year under a different name. Anyway... another
company, a play (not musical this time) adaptation of Frankenstein
showed up with another ginormous set, leaving a big rolling table with
stuff piled on top of it in the stage right wing for the week. For
the Train we had to move it across stage every day so they could get
their set out and have someplace to be when they weren't onstage. I
am so glad we are past last week, hope this hasn't been too much of a
rant. Mostly I just want to try to express how crazy things were.
Much nicer now, the new sets aren't half as voluminous, once the new
shows are settled it should be smooth sailing to the end of the run.

I said I'd talk about food, so I will: way too much mayonnaise.
Sandwiches, salads, just about everything comes with mayonnaise unless
you look or ask carefully. The obvious exception would be fish and
chips, which they serve with salt and sauce (vinegary brown sauce,
delicious). However it's surprisingly expensive. The other night,
actually on the 11th, just before I started writing this, I found
myself out late and in a fish and chips shop. A look at the menu
revealed that haggis (turned out to be deep fried) was more than a
dollar cheaper, and, not having yet tried that traditional dish, I
did. Quite good actually, albeit with a slight, indescribably strange
flavor. Thinking back to China, it may be the flavor of intestines.
Mmm.... It was good enough that I got the same again the other night,
although both times I woke up the next morning not at all hungry and
feeling rather as though I'd swallowed a bowling ball. Have gotten to
do some cooking for myself though, which is fun, although creates more
dishes than anyone wants to do. Had a nice productive vacuuming and
mopping session with Adriana last night though, which was nice. The
floors are clean! I'm going to be so upset if there are many dishes
sitting in the sink when I get home... Speaking of which, it's late
and I want to get up early tomorrow and watch a lot of daytime shows
before I revert to nocturnalism. Good night.

Press launch!

Today has been crazy! Okay, not really that much more crazy than
normal, and the people in our shows are starting to settle in, settle
down a little bit, so that's good, I don't think there will be many
more tech changes that the shows we have will want to do, although we
are adding and subtracting shows throughout the festival, which should
be interesting. First addition is teching tonight at 5:30-9:30am.
Now that we're all on shift though, our tech manager will do that one,
his hours are more flexible (and much worse). I'm now on day shift,
9am-7pm, will be for another four or five days, then three days on
night shift, 5pm-3am, then my first day off, after which it's 3 day, 3
night, day off for the rest of the festival to get-out.

But today was crazy because minus one had two big press launches with
shows from all over C venues, one at 11am, one at 8pm. We only found
out about this yesterday morning 10 minutes before our 11am "tech
rehearsal" for the first, an hour of shows jockeying for position with
the coordinators or testing out the stage space. A few also came up
and worked on tech which was helpful, but there were a bunch who
didn't really say anything to us or weren't even there, and we didn't
come close to doing a run-through with hosts until the actual thing
this morning. Fortunately, I did okay, managed to improvise the
lights with the submasters I'd set up. First time I've done live
improvised lighting in a few years, a little stressful, and it kind of
sucks all your attention, I'd be sitting rigid watching for my cue to
change the lights. Went well then. I ended up running lights for the
8pm launch as well, which was even harder because I wasn't around for
their tech last night, then one of the effects we'd programmed didn't
work and I had to jump to do it manually, and the Korean company,
which got shoved in at the last minute, it turned out when their turn
came that the cue we had prepared was totally the wrong one, but I'd
seen it and was able to make it look more or less like it should.
They got some huge applause at the end despite that initial mistake,
so that was gratifying. And besides all that the evening had 11 shows
as opposed to 7 in the morning. This is awesome! I should get more
sleep though, I'm feeling kind of manic.

This will only have meaning for a few people, but one of the weird
things about doing tech here, besides all the different jargon, is
that for everything where we'd use tie-line in the US, they use
electrical tape.

Okay, one last very exciting bit of news, although it's not really
anything yet... So there's this Yokohama-based Japanese dance company
in -1 doing an excellent dance piece with people in womb-like cocoon
and other stuff. Anyway, their press coordinator (she's Japanese, but
lives in Edinburgh with her English husband) and I have developed a
decent relationship over the past few days. Yesterday, after the show
had been loaded in and started, we talked for a while, and she
mentioned that, for whatever reason, they had been impressed by what
I'd been doing to help with their show (no more than the other techs
really), but it might be good for me to make friends with them. In
fact, there might be some possibility of working as a tech for them in
return for teaching them English for theater. Which would be
incredible. A job I'm actually semi-qualified for! I'm still not
quite clear whether I'd be working with the dance company or the
lighting technician that's working with them, but either would be
fantastic. If it works out, it's just about the most I could have
hoped for from the festival.

Of course I'm half waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this IS
the other shoe! Not that the fit-up was totally miserable, but it was
nothing like this. Anyway, fish&chis&bed.

Where did I leave off?

Oh right, flatmates and stuff. First though, I just want to mention
how exciting it is to finally be having shows on. After work last
night (I finished at 7! so early) I went with friends to see a couple
shows here at Main. One, called the Black Jew Dialogues, a comedy
thing about a black man and a Jewish man talking about race, starred
two performers from Boston, which is pretty cool. They open with
interviews with people around Boston about perceptions of Jewish and
black people. Quite entertaining. Then we went upstairs to +3 for
NewsRevue 2006, a musical parody revue about news. Also very funny,
although a good percentage was about British political figures, which
went a little over my head.

Anyway, at the beginning I was all by myself in the flat. It was like
that for two nights. Got kind of used to that. When I got back the
next evening two cots had mysteriously appeared in the single
bedrooms, including mine. That felt like a bit of an invasion, so I
promptly moved the one in my room out to the common room. Though I
was expecting arrivals the next day, no one showed up. By the time
my roommate arrived on Saturday I was thoroughly settled. Saturday
was actually the day the Fobos arrived, so 3 flatmates came in
altogether, a guy, Anthony, from outside London, and two girls,
Adriana and Ewa (pronounced Eva), who were Polish/French and Polish
respectively. Both had decent English though, and Adriana had
actually spent some time in Arlington, outside of Boston. We adjusted
to each other well. Anthony moved into my room, having been given the
impression that our remaining roommates would be women. They aren't,
they're guys, Nick and Joe. I know Joe's from Ireland, and I think
Nick is, or somewhere in England. Nick arrived a few days later, Joe
arrived after that. Ewa had to leave because her aunt died, but she
may come back to see some of the festival, she's been studying
medicine in Ireland. People with work to do are starting to need this
computer, so I'll finish up. The past several days have been so busy
that this morning was the first time I saw Anthony in 3 days. Things
are going great, I now get to see may wages in shows, and free soft
drinks at the bars. A few difficult shows, but now the work is much
easier and less hectic, but precise scheduling is the only thing since
shows are going one right after the other. I'll try to get on more
soon, but that's kind of it for now, need to go.

Opening Day

Whew! Finally. It's been a busy (really, really, really busy) couple
weeks. When I showed up on the 19th, well, my connection in Ireland
was very delayed and with having to go in and out of customs I just
missed an earlier connection from Shannon to Dublin. So eventually I
got rerouted through Heathrow (as if I haven't been there enough times
already) and ended up in Edinburgh about three hours late. After
getting the bus in I still had a fifteen minute walk uphill with all
my stuff (lots and heavy, at one point had to trudge up 5 flights of
stairs to get to the top of north bridge (Edinburgh is full of
bridges, it exists on several different vertical levels). Anyway,
after getting there got sent to my flat, another fifteen minute walk,
and I got mildly lost. The place is nice enough, has three bedrooms,
four beds, common room, little kitchen, bathroom, no one else there,
good. Dropped off my stuff, meeting that night, went to pub with
everyone, got groceries, home.

Work started the next day, with a meeting at 9am. We worked through
until about 6:30, with an hour for lunch. That was the shortest day
we've had since I've been here. The next day went til 7, and since
then I stopped paying attention. In terms of work, it's been all
sorts of stuff. C venues, the company I'm working for, has venues in
four different areas, but, since I got assigned to C main, I've only
been in the one building, so I'll describe what's gone on here. It's
a large building that's used for exam halls by the Universtiy of
Edinburgh the rest of the year. The main floor and the three floors
above it have a large foyer on the street side of the building, and a
single larger room on the back side. There are other little rooms and
closets here and there, but those two rooms are the basics. The main
floor big room has been transformed into a bar, and the three floors
above are theaters (+1, +2, and +3). +1 and +2 are smaller, have
relatively low ceilings, maybe 15 feet (?), and accordingly are used
for smaller shows, children's theater, comedy routines, stuff like
that. After its last show of the evening, the +2 foyer transforms
into a jazz bar. +3 has a much higher ceiling (when the scaffolding
was bare it was great for climbing on), therefore more space for
lights and stuff, and it's used for bigger shows and musicals, as is
-1, a pre-existing, actual theater one floor below the main level.
That's my venue for the festival. Down the back stairway, usually
just a fire exit, you get to Stores and some dressing rooms we built
in - 2, basically just a storage space way down at the bottom of
stuff.

Anyway... Most of the work for the first week or so was loading in
lots of stuff, moving out unnecessary desks and chairs, keeping people
from walking into the path of the scaffers while they moved
scaffolding in, etc. Once the scaf was up in a space (0/bar, +1, +2,
and +3), we moved in with platforms, facing, kickrails, drapes,
turning it all from bare, white-walled rooms into black box theaters.
Huh, I don't think I've been up to +3 for four or five days. In
principal it sounds fairly simple, but it's a lot of work, and takes
even longer since a lot of people, esp. the hordes of
front-of-house/box office people (aka FOBOs, who mostly arrived on the
22nd, more about that later) don't have lots of experience with
hanging drapes and stuff like that. I ended up spending on whole day
just working on draping in +1, not passing it off because I didn't
want to risk having to re-tie it later. Usually that wasn't the case,
and up until recently there's always been plenty of carrying stuff
around to be done. Another day I worked on fixing/making kickrails.
Was that also in +1? I think so. Then the next day +3. Basic
carpentry skills come in handy. In the days just before we started
tech rehearsals I got relocated to the bar. There we put up a false
wall around the entire room, and I helped make a doorframe, and
worked on facing around a couple doorways, as my own project made a
cover, with holes for downlights, for the space above the main
entrance doorway, and drilled holes for and installed downlights above
the bar. Even thought we opened the bar, what four days ago?, work
has been continuing in little bits. I'll take photos so you have a
better sense of how much has been constructed. It's kind of hard to
believe the change, and that there are now performances happening in
all those spaces.

About our schedule: Shows start at 10am, and the latest end around
2am the next morning. The main bar is open from 10am until 5am, which
has meant that since it opened it is the only bar in Edinburgh open
past 3am. Apparently other bars then direct their patrons here and
it's been quite interesting for those two hours from 3-5. Fortunately
I got on the morning shift for tech rehearsals, so I wasn't awake or
even in the building then.

Let's see, so for the fit-up, it got to where we were usually working
from 9 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night, although not
infrequently later. As tech rehearsals approached we gradually moved
onto a shift system, ending up with half the techs/house
managers/other managers being on from 8am-9pm and the other half from
8pm-9am. FOBOs lucked out with a 9-9 or 12-12 shift, no overnights
for them. The first tech rehearsal came on the 29th, and they really
got underway on the 30th. In -1 we had an 8-hour tech with a Japanese
dance company. For that we got one of our other techs, who is
Japanese, down, she ended up doing most of the work of explaining the
theater space and training the light board operator. The last couple
hours Andrew (the senior tech in -1, who's also on day shift with me)
Fortunately our next group cancelled gave us time for lunch, then 9-11
was left for Kevin, the other tech for -1. The next day we had a
bunch of 4-hour techs, with which we were much more engaged. One was
with a Korean company. Their director has decent English, but limited
comprehension, so my teacher training came in handy as I was able to
speak slowly using comprehensible language. That was also important
because I had to train their light board op, whose spoken English is
just about nil. They didn't really schedule enough time for their
tech, many light cues to write, so they (and I) returned that night
from 12:15-1:30, they used their dress rehearsal time yesterday for
tech, and then came back in from 3-5 this morning (I didn't) to
finish. I hope they're ready to open today. They seem very nice, I
like them, but they really didn't plan well for that aspect of it.
Anyway, yesterday we did dress rehearsals, basically running all the
shows non-stop as if we were open. It went fairly well, but there was
one show that set us 15 minutes behind. I hope we'll be able to speed
them up. That show actually also requires sound and light operators,
so I actually designed lights for their show, which was a lot of fun
to do again. It's not great, but better than functional, I hope.

Need to go get ready for load-out of the morning musical ("Honk", the
musical of the ugly duckling). Will try to write more about flatmates
and stuff soon.