I hadn’t a clue that today was the first of April until I was browsing the web and came across an announcement on the news.com site that said CNET was entering the software market and would be releasing a web browser that was so incredible it would instantly crush both Netscape and Microsoft. It was a very genuine sounding article–it really had me going for a while.

That’s about as “fooly” as my day got. When you’re busy you miss out on all the good holiday activities. I didn’t pinch anyone on St. Patrick’s Day, and I didn’t get to play any good tricks on anyone today. Of course, no one played any on me so I guess I shouldn’t complain. Not that I would have a hard time coming up with a good one to play! I could have just skipped today’s rehearsal and told Alan (our director) April Fools! I don’t think that would have gone over too well.

We always played the best April Fool’s jokes when I was in high school. One year we built a brick wall in the hallway of the school late at night, so when people turned a corner the next day, instead of having a long hallway in front of them they ran into a wall. There were other pranks, but most of them are probably still not out from under the statute of limitations…

I love the rain.

A lot of people certainly don’t, with El Nino and all. Just think of those people in Laguna Niguel whose homes slid down the mountain, and the poor condos that got crushed underneath them.

Of course, one could argue that it’s not really Mother Nature’s fault; after all, cracks starting appearing in the foundations of those homes ten years ago, before their construction was even finished. I’m no expert, of course, but one would think that was a warning sign.

Rain is so appealing because it’s like a shower for the earth. After a rain the air is clean and fresh. Sweet, even. The flowers on my balcony bloom. Rain even makes the pavement smell good.

God, I love the smell of wet pavement (okay, so I’m weird; you got a problem with that??). One of my clients is in Pasadena, literally right up against the mountains, and on a typical day one can drive up there without being able to see the high terrain at all due to the haze. After it rains, though? The hills suddenly appear like an iceberg in front of the Titanic, looming large and powerful a thousand feet above you.

Then there are different types of rain (and snow, for that matter–that’s why the skiing is so much better in Colorado and Utah than Southern California). The torrential rain is not good. I prefer the rain they have in Seattle: light but constant.

The rain in Alaska was like that. I remember it well. It wasn’t the kind of precipitation that would keep you from going outside. It was the kind that would make you go outside because it was so pleasant. We’d run around it in or play frisbee, and when you came back inside you would be damp, but never sopping wet.

Rain is good when you’re inside, too. I love the soothing sound of rain falling on the roof at night, or watching it through the window in my office when I’m working. A simple gift, a reset button for an otherwise humdrum day.

I really don’t like change.

That’s weird, because in my industry there’s no job security and folks are always looking for their next gig. The entertainment business involves more change than just about any other line of work I can think of. The only people for whom it never changes are those who never work. And come to think of it, there are a lot of them. Perhaps for them, there’s not enough change.

To me, everything seems to be changing lately. Just today I got a notice from Pac Bell that my area code would be changing next week from 714 to 949. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. They need new area codes because of people like me who suck up five phone numbers all by themselves. I think Dave Barry was right: the phone company won’t consider their job done until no two telephones in America have the same area code, even if they’re in the same house.

I heard back from American Conservatory Theatre today. I was not accepted, but nor was I rejected. They have designated me as an “Alternate”, meaning that if anyone drops out, can’t afford the program, etc. I am next in line. It’s not what I was hoping for, but don’t cry for me Argentina, I’m not exactly sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

We did a full run-through of the show yesterday for our lighting designer. The acoustics in the room were horrid, and I was starting to get sick (which I’m fully in the midst of now), but all in all I think it was pretty good. We’ve still got slightly more than two weeks until we open. A week of that will be tech, but this coming week will be gravy time with the acting. Survey says: gonna be good! Now if I can only stop the panic about the technical side of things that’s creeping up from my gut.

A continuation of what I was talking about yesterday.

Today I changed internet service providers. I was drawn in by the amazing stats capability that Deltanet has, plus they are so freaking reliable that I bet if The Big One came along (that’s the big-scary-gonna-getcha earthquake, for those of you that don’t live in California), Delta’s servers wouldn’t even hiccup. They’ve got so many redundant lines and systems that they probably couldn’t shut themselves down if they tried.

Okay, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. I don’t know what the deal is, I mean after all this is just a web site. And not all that great of one at that! I’m on this mailing list now of insanely ingenuitive web designers at New Dream Network. I only have to browse around for a minute to see how much I don’t know.

A lot of people seem obsessed with making sure that no one “copies” their designs. Now, I don’t support plagerism or copyright violation in any form, but this is the web. Browsing is how people learn to design, to code. And people are going to be affected, inspired, motivated by what they see. Maybe it’s just because I don’t feel I have a lot to offer, but you wanna borrow something from the House of Rapp? Be my guest.

Just be sure to return it when you’re done.

Okay, it’s 1:17 am on Easter morning, so I suppose I can be the first to officially wish you a Happy Easter. To my body, though, it’s still yesterday. I’m sick right now, so what the heck am I doing up? I guess I’m still a little excited about the flyer for Pick Up Ax that I just finished. I worked on it for a good portion of the day, and I think it turned out well. Have a look:

    

My experience with print is not all that extensive. I’m used to working at 72 dpi, so when the opportunity comes along to do something which will leave my hands and go to A Mysterious Service Bureau, I’m a little trepiditious. Will they laugh at my design? Will I get a call from a haughty printer? “What the hell were you thinking? You didn’t include the fonts/metrics/other stuff we need!” Will they ask for something I don’t even know about?

The first major print job I did was the current season brochure for the Vanguard Theatre Ensemble. That turned out pretty well I think. This is the outside of the brochure:

In its final form it was a tri-fold design, with a smaller 3rd flap which was more or less ornamental. The Roman numeral VII designated this as VTE’s seventh season.

Hmph. I don’t know how this evolved into a portfolio presentation, but it seems to have done just that. I guess it’s just a trip working at 600 dpi. I’m glad I don’t do it every day, though–my computer crawls when working at that resolution.

Whew, I’m beat. A bunch of us working on Pick Up Ax just pulled an all-nighter at the theatre trying to get things ready for our first preview tomorrow.

The lights have been giving us problems–fuses have been blowing. We’ve managed to get some new ones, but what was supposed to be a tech rehearsal yesterday ended up being just another dry run-through of the show because the electrical system isn’t handling the load we’re putting on it. Basically everything is in place except the lighting.

The funny thing is, I know it’s not our fault. Our lighting designer is as good as they come, and he’s worked as an electrician enough to know the equipment, the instruments, and the design. There should be no problem here.

The colors on the set didn’t turn out as we expected. I’m caught in the middle between the director and the scenic designer. As if that wasn’t enough, we have no ticket sales for this coming weekend. None. Can you believe it?

But the show is going to turn out great. Acting-wise we’re in great shape, and the technical elements never seem to iron out until 30 seconds before the first performance anyway, so I guess in a lot of ways this is not unlike every other show I’ve ever done.

Are you getting sick of hearing about Pick Up Ax by now? Probably. But that’s pretty much all that’s going on in my life right now. Heck, it is my life. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’ve already got ideas about the next show, what it could be, where and why. But one thing is for sure. Between now and then I’m going to need a long break, one where my evenings are free from rehearsals.

Damn damn damn damn DAMN!

For the first time ever, I’ve had to halt a show in medias res, shut it down and send an audience home in the middle of a performance.

It’s a hard thing to do.

I know the phrase “the show must go on” is just that–a phrase, but it accurately reflects some inate drive toward not letting go of the momentum or “arc” of a performance once it’s started. Kind of like a baseball in flight. The law of gravity dictates the graceful arc it travels. It’s was the same tonight.

It doesn’t matter a whit that it was a preview. What matters is that it’s MY company, MY show, and MY audience and these things just don’t happen. After all the times I’ve told the team, “All we have to do is get through till April 25th. Just April 25th. That’s all. Just hang on until then” it was unnatural to just end at the halfway point.

We were going along just fine. Better than fine, the show was really cooking. Then in the last scene of Act I, the lights suddenly blinked from the daytime office look to a deep blue. I knew what it meant the instant it happened. I’ve been seeing in over and over for the past two days. Half the circuits were dead. We kept going. Of course we did. We finished the act, and despite the fact that all three of us were thinking “What happened?” over and over, the acting didn’t really suffer. There was no music either. I figured Bryan was too busy trying to salvage the lights. I could hear Lonnie tinkering away in the electrical room, trying to do what he could.

During the intermission Bryan came backstage and said that the whole complex had lost power, not just the dimmers in the theatre. Since the place had no power except what was left of the lighting system, the Powers That Be wanted us to clear the theatre. If the rest of the lights were to go, we’d be left in pitch blackness.

He said, “It’s up to you, Mr. Producer.” Well, what can you do in that situation? So I went out on stage and told the audience ‘thank you for coming’ but that we would have to shut down. I was so frustrated, angry, sad, hurt, shocked, and disappointed (not just for me, but for an audience that never got to see the best part of a brilliant script) that I was in tears for a while.

I’m so goddamn mad at the Mickey Mouse way this theatre is operated. I pay good money to rent a quality theatre in the heart of Hollywood and the equipment that comes with it. All I want is for that equipment to work. It doesn’t matter that we push it to its limits. That’s what theatre is all about. Who the hell wants to stay within the lines? We are not in third grade anymore.

I’ll tell you why this is so maddening: Steve and I started planning this show years ago. We left plenty of time, planned each step meticulously. It’s been a better organized show that anything I’ve produced in the past, except maybe Into the Woods. We’ve got better quality designers, actors, and staff than before. And for all that work, forethought, and preparation, our first public performance turns out like this?

It was made worse by the fact that we had some people like Tom Hatten from KNX 1070 on hand to preview the show.

Despite tonight’s disaster, there is a silver lining. My friends were all very supportive and understanding. My instinct was to stay at the theatre and work the problem, but Mark and Wendy insisted on taking me to Jerry’s Deli for a late night meal while the crew and designers attacked the electrical gremlins that have been the bane of our existance the past ten days or so.

Well, we did it. We finally got through the whole show without blowing any dimmers, circuit breakers, or other electrical elements.

You wouldn’t believe the sigh of relief I let go after the curtain call. This has been the longest week I can remember, and most of it shouldn’t have been necessary. But I learned some valuable lessons about doing in-depth research before leasing a theatre.

I forget the exact amperages, but we found out that although the dimmers can handle about 57,600 watts, the two legs of power coming into the theatre only total 24,000 watts, meaning that you couldn’t use the full capacity of the lighting system even if you wanted to (and boy, did we want to). It’s very deceptive. When you see 24 standard 2.4k circuits, you just assume you can use them.

Without Lonnie to recompute and redistribute the load evenly across the the two wires (which, of course, required repatching and reprogramming the lighting board) we would be so dead in the water I cringe just to think about it. Even now we’re on the bleeding edge, but I guess if nothing else it’s exciting there. If there is a lot of stuff going on around the theatre during a performance, we’ll have to run the system at 80%.

It’s been so amazing to see how much and how hard everyone pitched in to make this thing come together. Bryan and Lonnie really helped me keep my sanity. Jeez, the hours they put in! And eveyone else too. But we shouldn’t have had to work that hard.

I was re-reading what I wrote yesterday, and remembering something my friend Jon Lagerquist said: “It’s only a show”. He’s right of course. I love Jon. He is the epitomy of cool. In his job, every week is tech week. Of course, he has better resources. But he has more demands placed on him as well.