Tech week, or why we love Curtis

UnE went into tech last night. Very exciting, mostly because it went so well and I feel so not-nervous about the whole endeavor.

So, why do we love Curtis, CPT's tech director? Because he's awesome. Not only did he save me from having to eat rotten bananas on stage in a show I did there in 2007, he proved to be so extraordinarily helpful last night. Lisa was down at the theater in the afternoon setting up the set (office furniture was delivered by my dad's guys in the morning) and lights. Lisa had all kinds of lists and drawings and plans of how she wanted the set configured, but once she got there, Curtis's eye and advice proved invaluable. He even built a little piece for us, because he's awesome. And he seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the project. With just some office furniture on wheels we've managed to put together and pretty decent and easily shiftable set.

Curtis and Lisa also managed to set and record all the light cues. Tonight when Dan our stage manager joins us, we'll work on actually running the light and sound cues.

Another cool thing about last night: our new admin assistants Michael and Diana. They will be shifting the set and setting up props in the transitions. All they had to do was be instructed in the shifts once by Lisa, and they took notes, worked it out and ran them solidly when we finally got to the run-through.

While Lisa and Curtis were setting the shifts and lights, the cast was onstage practicing their entrances to scenes. They would run the scenes as far they could get until Lisa was ready to jump to the next cue or shift. The cool thing was, they were sort of half-assing it or joking around and being really big, focusing more on lines and being comfortable in the space than intentions. Yet, they found some things in the exaggerated run that were really kind of cool. Of course, when we did the actual run in real time with real intentions, a lot of that silly energy and those big choices disappeared. But there might be some moments worth revisiting from what they did during the shift rehearsal.

Laurel gets a special mention for doing the best quick changes ever. Seriously. The girl changes her clothes, like, seven times in this show, and never missed a entrance. AND always looked impeccable. How does she do that? We mere mortals may never know.