The theatrical company I volunteer for is doing a touring show of Seussical: The Musical to the local elementary schools. We have just did our fourth production with thus far being one show a week. We are shortly heading into a week off due to the local TCAP test, but after that we are also going to be doing two shows a week soon.

I am going to pick my “MVA” Most Valuable actor of each performance.  Just a note, after one wins, they are inelegable to win again till everyone has the MVA Award.

First show: The MVA was Jonathan Stephens as Cat in the Hat. Jonathan has a very useful skill. He is able to kick it into overdrive when he is on stage. No matter how he feels, he can give 110%. However, being a prefectionist, he never feels that he gives enough, no matter how good he is. Jonathan is a ball of energy when performing, and is a very talented actor and singer. Congrats Jonathan.

Seconds show: Parker Bunch is the child that plays Jojo, the mayor of Whoville’s son. Parker starts the show, and for the kids that watch, they see a child not too much older than they are doing this role, and it gives them the idea, “Hey maybe I can do this too!” Parker also brings a nice childlick fun to us as well. When he is around, yes we try to be on our best behaviour. However, he can make any of us laugh at just about anything. So far, this is his seconds show with Encore Theatrical company, as his first was as Ralphie Parker in “A Christmas Story”. Parker is also home schooled, so don’t worry, he isn’t cutting classes.

Third Show: Adam Malone. Adam plays Horton the Elephant. For this show, I rally dont know how Adam could do it. He was EXTREMLY sick. So sick infact that as the assistant director of our main stage show “Annie” he missed the day before’s tech rehersal and the rehersal later that day as well. Adam is the perfect choice for Horton. Like Horton, Adam is dependable, loyal, and extremly ploiete.. to anyone but his friends.. LOL. Honestly, Adam is known as one of the real nice guys in the theatre. When something goes wrong, he is the first to attempt to fix it without making it obvious.

Fourth show: Laureeane Porter who protray’s “Mayzie La Bird” gets the nod this week. She was the most imporved this week. Either from being nervous or something for the past few performances, she was never able to get her songs out right. There were some dead spots while the music was going, but those who didn’t know the script or have it in front of them would have never known. Even in the song “Biggest Blame Fool”, she was not even saying her name right. She was calling herself, Gertrude McFuzz, which was the name of another character in the play. However, it came across as Mayzie was making frun of Gertrude in the song, as her solo was right after Susan’s who plays Gertrude. Lauranne nailed all her songs this week, and got her name right on the song as well. I just wished it was a better week for me, as the soundtech the gymnasium was so small, that if I used our wireless microphones, I would have caused nothing but a constant  feedback loop.

actors still to win

Susan, Ashley, Traci, Daniel, James, Dave, Brenda, and Amy

Yes, the title of this blog is a spoof of the classic play, “Death of a Salesman”.

So, why call it this? well I have been almost killing myself this week. I get tot he local stage on Saturday and help a little with set construction, as we are entering tech week. Tech week is the last week before a show opens where you start adding the technical stuff like lights and sound to the play so the cast can get used to it. Then Sunday, since we are using the local college’s stage because the new company, Encore Theatrical Company, is  still trying to earn capitol to either buy a building or build a new one.

Ok,  Sunday at three pm the local college’s “community band” decided to have their concert. That’s all fine and dandy, but Encore decided to move up the production of Annie so that we would not be interfering with the original scheduled band performance.  Well, apparantly he college moved up the band’s performance too.. Darn college.. Ok, so after the band was done, did they stay and help clear their crap from the stage? Ha! No.. So the sound director, , and the director of the show moved all the chairs, stands, and percussion equipment back tot he band room, and then we started setting the stage for the first real tech rehearsal. Ok, near the end of the rehersal our lighting designer, Travis got there. So at the end of the rehersal Travis and I starting cutting gels for the lights. Side note.. Gels are teh colored pieces of plastic like paper that change the color of the lights on the stage.

Monday, we have tech rehersal. That night Travis, director Micah-Shane, and I stay and start to set the light cues for the show. We stayed till about 3:30 am setting all the levels and recording them into the computer controlled light board. Now here comes the rub. I need to be up at 6 am to start getting ready for Tuesday’s performance of Suessical: The Musical that we are touring some of the Elementary schools with. Besides, I need to take the sound equipment that we borrowed from the college to the school and set the sound system up that morning, which takes about an hour to do. After we end the show, tear down the sound system and the backdrop for th set, and load it into my van, we get a pizza lunch fromt eh school we just performed at. It helps when one of th teachers is the mother of one of the actresses, and who is also in our “mainstage show” of Annie. So at around noon, we head back to the college, unload, and I start the rest of my Tuesday with about 1.5 hours of sleep. So I leave the college and go work and collect the money from the vending machines I work. After i’m done with that, I got home with an hour before I needed to be back at the college for rehersal that night.

Now comesto yesterday, Wednesday. I go to  Knoxville TN that day, which is about an hour from Morristown. I get back around 1 pm, and go tot he college. In there, I have to adjust some of the lighting equipment to take care of “dark spots” and to make sure we can get the baton of one of our flies down for a drop. side note, the fly system is the way of lowering a drop, set pieces, or curtain into place and then raising them back up. Jonathan, one of the actors who I have the upmiost respect  for and I start working on various things to get them done, and some we are goign to work on and end up not because it would be too much money cost for the theatre to get them done. After the rehersal, I end up getting home at around midnight.

Today, I am going back at some point and trying to help get some more stuff done. We still got to work on the catwalk lights, which are the lights that are hanging from a catwalk over the audience. We need to “open” some of them up so that they hit more upstage (toward the back of the stage) to eliminate some more dark spots. We also need to get done with hanging one of our final drops and we also need to paint some onthe stage. Not to mention replace the bulb on one of the “follow spots” that is weak. I say “Follow spot” wiotht he quyotation marks because all these spots are are standard Ellipsodial Reflector Spotlights (Leeko) that are modified with a big handle that allows them to be moved as a spotlight. Who know what else needs to be done before we open n Friday.

The light and sound systems at the local college are pretty state of the art. I mean it they should be with a one hundred thousand dollar grant. So if something goes wrong, technology fails us.

Tonight was one of those nights. James Templin was operating the light board in the second act of Glass Menagarie, in the scene between Amanda and Laura just before Amanda goes to get changed before teh Gentleman Caller and Tom arrive. I look over from my seat at the sound board to see the display monitor for the light board show the load screen. I knew in a flash what it meant.. The light board was rebooting. James had never had that happen, but I had. I quickly asked him what cue (lighting scene number) we were in, he told me (matter of fact, he told me a few cues later, but it still worked). As soon as the board finished the boot it went back to the default of no lights on at all. I quickly hit the correct buttons to load the right cue. Luckily, I had had something similar happen to me just over a hear and a half before.

Back in the summer of 06, one of the local theatre guild’s was presenting a show called “UnrineTown” (say it as ‘You’re In Town’) , and one Sunday afternoon we had bad storms where the power was reset. So here comes the board up, but unluckily for me the lights went out on the boot (for james, since power didn’t go out, the board kept all light up till last moments). I mean good thing is in the scene where it went out for me it was in a dialogue scene where everyone stood pretty still for the scene. Also my baclout (the term used for all lights being out) lasted about 60-70 seconds, whereas James’s only lasted like 10 seconds top.

As far as I know, the computer on the lightboard wither crashed for a moment and rebooted, a power surge, or just got some sort of whacky signal that made it reboot. I saw the sound board do something similar back this past November for Shenandoah. Bill Strader was operating the sound board when i looked over and the entire thing shut off and then came back. While it would have been more timely to have done that rebooting like 45 seconds later, it happened during the reprise of “Papa’s gonna make it all right”, where Jenny is singing to the baby. The actress playing Jenny has a right pretty voice, just not really loud without amplification. However, Lindsey being a trooper went on, and then the sound came back..

So yeah, no matter how advanced your stage tech systems are, they can fail you. Luckily for us, it was just a minor hiccup and no hardware was damaged.

Tomorrow the local college, Walter’s State Community College, will be opening the Tennessee Williams classic, The Glass Menagerie. This production stars Kathy Garver, who is best known as “Cissy” from the TV classic “Family Affair.”

The director of the show has done something that I really don’t like with plays. He has two separate casts. In both cast Amanda (Mrs. Garver) and the Gentleman Caller a.k.a. Jim D. O’Conner are the same. Tom and Laura change out each show. I know why he did it, as he really respects both people cast as Tom. I am really glad that I am working sound for this show as I don’t have to choose between which cast I want to see do the show.

In the first cast we have actor Jonathan Stephens as Tom and Rebecca Perinaz as Laura. The second cast has Adam Malonem as Tom with Kendra Haynes as Laura.

Both cast are amazing. However, there are some differences between the way the actors portray the character they are playing. For instance Jonathan Stephens as Tom is loud and at times a bit sarcastic, which work with perfectly well with the feel of the show and character. On the other hand, Adam Malone plays the part very reserved, without giving the feeling that his character might leave until he does. Along with Malone’s more reserved character also comes a more reserved projection of his voice. I heard it harder to hear Adam more than it has been to hear Jonathan. That is not a bad thing, as Adam has good projection on that stage.

On the flip side we have the two Lauras. Kendra’s Laura is still meek, but not as painfully as Rebecca’s. Rebecca is normally a very timid and shy person, and it has been hard for her to project on that stage until last night. I heard her say most of her lines without straining to hear. Rebecca also doesn’t play up the “physical defect” that Laura has as much as Kendra. Kendra’s Laura has a small limp when she walks around the stage, whereas Rebecca doesn’t carry it on with the limp. Also in the dance with Jim in the final scenes of the play, Rebecca seems to be more “rigid” than Kendra. However, it’s not a bad thing. Rebecca’s version of the character has all the shy qualities that Laura is supposed to have. Kendra does a good job, but it seems she has to work harder to get the shyness of the character as well as Rebecca does.

All in all, both casts are amazing. I am glad I don’t have to pick which actors I will see, as being the sound tech for the show, I am there for all performances. So, if you are in the Lakeway area of Tennessee, please call the humanities division of Walter’s State and make reservations. Performances are Febuary 21-March 2, with Thursday Friday and Saturday nights starting at 8 pm, and Sunday matinees at 2 pm.