Random Bits

Ballet and sense or even plot do not go together.

I run the light board for a performing arts studio's shows three times a year.  Their Nutcracker, the Spring recital, and their Spring Ballet.

This year the ballet was "Don Quixote" which bears very little relation to the story of Don Quixote.  No.  I challenge you to find the plot.

All I got was there is this guy who occasionally has fits and visions and the young lovers (who have no much to do with out title character) are continually running away from her father who sold the girl off to a rich man.

I don't know where the gypsies come into it, or why Don Quixote and his sidekick are running around threatening things and people with a sword and a spoon.

Our sound guy and I kept looking at each other and asking "huh?" and our answer was inevitable "Because Ballet!"

Anyway.  It did mean I got home late enough to have missed the Tony awards, but I did catch the opening number online today.  Gotta say this is EXACTLY why I love the Tonys and am all "meh" about the Oscars.  And since NPR's Linda Holmes put it SO MUCH BETTER than I ever could, I urge you to read the whole thing:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/10/190308942/the-tony-awards-is-this-the-greatest-awards-show-opening-ever

but I quote part of it here because I want to say, yes, THIS! RIGHT HERE:
"The next time you're tempted to give an Oscar host a pass on the basis that it's an impossible, can't-win job, and that the lazy, easy, corny, toothless humor that passes for patter is a fundamental of the awards format, and that the jokes can't be better and the numbers can't be better and the hosting can't be better and the crowd can't get excited, keep in mind that that's exactly what people who want to keep making lazy awards shows want you to think.

Sure, theater people have an advantage with musical numbers, but if you run the Oscars and can't figure out how to do for and with love of film what the Tonys are doing for and with love of theater, you are terrible at your job and should hand it off to someone else."

So yesterday I spent the whole day doing Nutcracker things for Miss Michelle. She had thirty kids in the show this year, and I like the changes she'd made (and the new sleigh is awesome). The two top dancers, one a freshman at BC and one a senior in HS are still beautiful dancers - I've seen these two girls dance for *years,* Since they were pretty wee.

We all went for dinner after an extremely quick strike (I got to be the "drop folding maven" again, and lots of the teens have been part of my drop folding 101 speeches, so this drop got folded so damn well, and really damn quickly). Dinner was a lovely capper to the day, and the snow had not yet started to fall by the time I got home.

I was exhausted when I got home so I went to bed fairly early. No snow. Got up this morning and OMG SNOW. Between twelve and fourteen inches fell overnight into the morning. I went out midafternoon to shovel and it took me about two hours. It was lighter than the first snow of the season (which was rain, snow, rain, so half what I shoveled was wet slush/ice), but there was about three times as much of it. This snow was cold,snow,stilldamncold - so there has been no melt at all.

So unless there is an unseasonable warm up, we are white for Christmas. And New Years. And likely through January and February and into March (although, who knows, they are predicting highs in the fifties on Saturday, and possibly rain).

I was *going* to have lunch with my parents today. I was also going to continue my holiday shopping. Neither happened. Instead I shoveled out my driveway, cleaned off my car, and not much else.

But I have food, water, power and the internet, so I am better off than many up and down the east coast (especially in those states that don't know what to do with (or just don't have the machines available to take care of) snow/snow removal... like the DC area).

Hope everyone is okay! How was *your* blizzard?

Blogging from the high school... which has open wifi - who knew? So the dance studio show of the Little Mermaid is kind of a mess - we are not surprised. Hopefully this wll be the last damn time I do this.

So two shows down and three left to go. This weekend is LOOOONNNNGGGG... (and audiences as a whole are fairly stupid...)

Anyway - off to set up for show three.

I hope y'all are having a way more fun than I am this weekend!

ETA: Third show over! Two more to do. I gotta say third show Sebastian rocked! An the Ariel was the best yet. The rest of the show was so-so. Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

It means that, once again, I am designing lights for the Dance Studio spring recital. Those who have paid attention in the last few years of me doing this (or if you're, y'know, GWEN to whom I bitch on a regular basis), know that the dance studio picks some movie and uses the DVD soundtrack (with dialogue and everything) as the FRAME upon which the dance show is designed around. The teachers at the studio are given a packet of material that includes the music they are choreographing to, and whether their class will be "walking on" or "set in place."

Years past have been "Lilo and Stitch," "Emperor's New Groove," and "Robots." This year? Wizard of Oz. Good gods! I can't get AWAY from the freaking thing! It proves to me once more that the Wizard of Oz is the backbone of American culture. And they have not just *one* "Over the Rainbow" but TWO (one the Judy Garland version with the babies dancing (2.5 to 4 year olds), and one a more jazzy version with a bunch of young women in pink labelled the "Dreamers" - after the cyclone, before munchkinland)!!! And they've added in the music from The Wiz just to make it all that much more surreal.

Yesterday was our one real "tech" rehearsal - I spent all day struggling with lights. And then I'll go and do the five shows this weekend. Yup. Five shows, five *different* casts of leads. So far, only the "oil cans" dance and the senior's dance have the same people in them. And I've only seen three of the shows. The others will "tech" this week while I am at work (although show five techs an Thursday night at 6pm - I may go and play with the lights some more).

And this year we are in the High School again. Which has sucky equipment. The board is tecnically programmable, but it is still a piece of crap. In two scene mode it has 24 channels, in multi scene mode it has 48. I use the multi-scene capability, and will reprogram the 24 Sub-masters - really only 23, because the last one is reserved for the House Lights - to get the few different "looks" I want. The strip lights are in red, blue and a particularly noxious orange the theatre manager had the temerity to call "amber." And then he winced, and said, yeah, it is more like orange, but since these were glass light covers and not gels he couldn't change it.

The system is about 20 YEARS out of date - but then I am spoiled with the state of the art in my home theatre - and even in the other theatre I've lit which has the same state of the art system as my home theatre, just a bit smaller (48 channel vs. 144 channel). But I am used to being able to record cues, and do follow-alongs, and set times for ups and downs and crossfades, and just a whole lot I can actually PROGRAM so all I have to do during the show is push the "go" button when cued to do so.

This show I am not even on a headset. I'm just kind of going along with the music. I suppose as long as the parents can see their little darling's faces while they dance it will be considered a rousing success. And as long as the videographer can record we're good. But it is damn galling to know that this *could* be better, more subtle, more colors, more fun...

Ah, well. They do pay me for it, even though it is relatively little. A couple hundred dollars twice a year, that's all. Once for the spring show, and once for the December Nutcracker.

Ahh, must be Monday. That was a lovely frustrated rant. I hope you day is going better than mine!