Thoughts on New Orleans

The country is too busy watching Paris and Brittany to care about the real domestic issues of this country. I'm a New Yorker, I've been to New Orleans twice to document the ongoing tragedy of Katrina and it's aftermath.

For all those who say "why build there in the first place?" No one says that of California on a fault line, or up cyclone ally, or the Florida Coast, or Nevada which just a huge desert. New Orleans is a port city that grew into a southern metropolis and a center for culture in America. If Katrina had swung north and hit NYC, no one would have said "why built a city on an island." Enough blaming the victim. Let's come together as a nation and examine what went wrong, and why the dutch can pool resources to protect their nation, but we the richest nation in the world, can't take care of our own.

Crown Point Planning

Festival Lighting Design

When one thinks about designing lighting for a festival, for multiple plays, it becomes easy to move toward a rep plot. In New York City, every festival situation I’ve ever encountered works that way. The house or a festival designer devises a repertory light plot based on areas. Those are lit with as many of the fundamental lighting angles as can be arranged and everyone works from those confines.

I wouldn’t be working on the Crown Point Festival if that alone were to be the arrangement. As designers I think it is incumbent on us to do as much as we possibly can and collaborate as much as possible as artists. I wouldn’t work on a festival that only allowed me the resources to accomplish a simple rep, cue it and move on. Rather, I am designing each play as though it were standing alone. The only common thread among them being the cyc and scrim upstage which all but one play will be using.

Still though, common threads among these shows will inevitably creep in. Some might even be of my own creation. One of the design devices I am looking to employ as often as the festival directors are interested in, is the idea of actors physically changing their own lighting. This can meet anything from booms on dollys to practicals to calling for lighting changes. It is a way to give the audience that much more to believe in. It is , I think, a way to lay bear all of the tricks and give the audience no reason not to believe in what you have presented. I hope to make it a common thread as often as possible.

More later, had some great design meetings this week with Tom Ridgely of Persians and Stephen Brackett of Ixomia. I’ll be sharing some images and design ideas on those shows over the weekend.

30-3

I know this has very little to do with lighting...but I can't help but comment on the 30-3 game last night between the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles. If there was any doubt this is the era of power hitting in the major leagues, its put to rest now. Its all about the deep ball.

Tough to be a pitcher these days.

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home

Playing right now at NYU's skirball center. I finished the slap-dash, run for your life tech of this funny, outrageous show on Sunday.

Perhaps as a theatrical designer you have never be through a Fringe Festival technical rehearsal. If not allow me to give you a sense for what one is like.

First some background....Goldfarb is a full-length musical. That is to say it's supposed to run a little over 95 minutes. The Fringe Festival allows 2x your run time for technical rehearsal. In that time you must run the show once. So in truth you have exactly the amount of your run to tech the show.

at the time of application, Goldfarb was running a 2 hours this gave us a 4 hour slot between 12:30 and 4:30 to tech. This is not my first Fringe rodeo so I came in prepped and ready for thunderdome. The skirball center is a brand new venue for NYU, only about 3 or 4 years old, 500 and some-odd seats and a proscenium house. It's very nicely equipped with a nicely maintained rep plot. With magic sheet in hand I sat at the tech table, the staff informed me that I wasn't getting a console or monitor, those were upstairs. So I began to program watching the stage and little else. Our sound team rapidly and hurriedly arranging the audio gear for a 5 piece band and 12 mic'd up actors. 90 minutes of blind writing cues as the cast runs back and forth checking props and costumes. We finally hit the top of the run.

The tension is high as I know there have been script changes since the last time I saw the show (48 hours prior). Things look pretty good, I find out a number is cut entirely, and another scene is paired down. By and large the cue sheet matched up.

There is no time for fine tuning. On the same clear-com channel as Stage Management and the backstage crew, I am trying to give my board op notes upstairs and give the SM notes on cue placement. It is a harried scene. As the show progresses the notes begin to fly as I am frantically speaking notes to the programmer, who does a nimble job keeping up with my motor mouth. The director, a friend and long time cohort knows I am doing the best I can. He is more worried about how the transitions aren't working, and the actor's are hitting his marks. The band sounds great but they are too far onto the stage and people are missing their entrances because of confusion backstage.

That was my tech for John Goldfarb.

Notes I received after opening:

1. I have a cue 80 but there was none programmed, should I disregard.
2. The belly dance number was a little dark.

Not bad.

The current plate

One might say my dance card is rather full. This fall, I will do the following....

Maintain Fulltime employment with Tirschwell and Co. (Hopefully)
Design Macbeth for ShakespeareNYC
Design 8 Plays and a rock showcase for the Crown Point Festival
Produce a fundraiser for Lively Arts Productions' Ethan Frome
Stay Sane (Hopefuly)

I will be journaling all of these things and more on this blog, but look to the Live Design blog for Crown Point Updates and for Frome, always at Ethan Frome Sings.

Yet another blog

While I think it is rather insane for me to attempt to maintain a third running blog of commentary on my career and general going's on, I also recognized that the Crown Point Festival Blog I maintain on Live Design, and the Ethan Frome Sings blog I maintain here, were not quite sufficient to cover all of what I do and what I can expect to keep doing. Right now I don't know I will be doing much by way of promotion of this blog. I think if people google me they should be able to find it, and if I get the kind of content together that is worth promoting, then perhaps I shall. Till then its me and the blogosphere.