Tech Week Life

Hello again my darlings,

Hope you are having a lovely night.  I am backstage at the Jubilee — surprise, surprise — but this time, on OPENING NIGHT! We opened the show to a sold out audience tonight and I’m so thrilled with how everything turned out!

A week ago today we were working on getting the show up and our crew was working hard to get everything in place and in working order.  We had to set up the portals, the forest, the palm trees, the snake drop, the pyro shots, the wall of fire, and make final alterations on the incredible costumes and so much more.  Our team pulled it together and when I saw the show on both Wednesday and Thursday night’s dress rehearsals, I was truly blown away with how beautiful everything looked.  It’s been such a fantastic experience so far, and I’m really looking forward to next year’s production of Carmen, which will be our next build.  But now, onto tech week..

We all met at the Jubilee at 8:30 on Friday and started unloading the trucks and making this dream a reality.  Clayton got right into action, sending pieces here there and everywhere.  Whenever we come to the Jubilee, we don’t only have the show to bring with us, but a whole trailer full of crates for each department to be able to do their jobs.  For example, Clayton and I each have a work crate that sits on the side of the stage so that we can work and still observe what is going on — of course, that’s more him than me; mine is close by so people can find me to go run errands for them. Then of course Wardrobe has their work crates which contain literally everything a person could ever need to build a costume; Lighting has their 4 big ol boxes that we use as both storage and a work station to a certain degree; Carpentry has a couple different crates that include office crates for both Greg and Geoff as well as a couple storage boxes containing what they need to make an final adjustments to the set and repair work; Props has a crate filled with all of their work stuff and they actually get their own little workshop when we’re here; finally there are wigs and make-up who have their own custom made crates that I’ll have to show y’all one day.  There’s lots of little compartments to house all of their stuff, and the make-up one is a sweet leopard print pattern!

A view I don’t get very often, so I took the time to commemorate it! 

While the trucks unload, the ELEX department gets started on putting the lights they need on stage before the carpenters come in and take up all the space setting up.  They fly the pipes in from the fly tower and set up what they need before flying it back out.  Once they cleared the deck, our carp team worked on getting the portals assembled and up into the air.  Each pair of two gets smaller as they go upstage (towards the back of the stage) and they all have their own color code (thank you) that matches the hockey bags containing their fabric.  This makes it easier for us when setting up, but also when we loan it out to other opera companies in the future.  Anyways, here is a photo of them setting that shiz up.

I believe this photo was taken right as everyone left for lunch or dinner break.  As you can see the panel is assembled, covered in fabric and ready to be flown and tracked.  

Once the panels were up in the air, we started to work on the other elements on the show — the sun, forest, rocky stairs and palm trees.  The sun is a gigantic spiky flat that flies in at the end of the show to symbolize the destruction of the Queen of the Night (Sorry Teiya..) and the grandeur of the piece really comes across when it comes down from the grid and into the sea of yellow/ombre robes that the chorus members wear throughout the show.

How gorgeous is that?!  Photo by Nanc Price.

Once the set is up, we move into ELEX Focus and then setting the lighting cues for the show.  Bretta Gerecke who is our set designer is also the lighting designer for the show.  She worked with Alison Hardy (head of Lighting), Bud Race (Asst. Head of Lighting) and Kevin Humphrey (Jube Lighting Tech) to get her show all sorted out.  She wanted to have a water-lighting element in the show and Alison worked tirelessly all week to accomplish this.  She started by lining the inside of the boxes built for us by our Asst. Head Carpenter, Kathy Cooper, with pool lining and a black thick plastic sheet to ensure no water would be leaking out, causing us some serious headaches down the line.  Greg then installed some handles on the boxes and she got to work on her ‘mirror pizzas’ which are essentially a collage made from square bits of mirror.  These sit in the water and when the filters start and the lights shine on the boxes, they create this beautiful reflection that looks like running water.  It’s quite beautiful and looks much more realistic than using a gobo — well at least any gobos I’ve seen.

We bought four kiddie pools for this project.

Here we have Alison and Clayton moving the lamps so that they hit the pools in the right place. 

Alison also worked alongside Chantel Fortin, our head properties gal to put together the magic bells for Papageno.  Unfortunately I do not have any photos of that on my camera, so stay tuned for an upcoming post that explores the world of props in more detail.

Up next, we have the FIYYYA.  I think this is probably the element that had everyone the most excited for.  It is no small feat to bring in a pyrotechnician and lucky for us at Edmonton Opera, our Head Stage Carpenter (and my former instructor), Geoff Bacchus, is a certified pyro expert (pretty sure he has a fancier title but i’m sticking with that).  He has all of his own equipment and a lot of experience in dealing with both pyro and fire (and fireworks too!), so he worked within the budget and design to create something wonderful for us, and that my friends is a wall of fire.

Now of course we don’t have a Vegas show budget, but we still wanted it to have a lot of impact, so the wall seemed like the best option. We had to go through a lengthy process of applying for insurance, fire permits, having (and passing) an inspection and thankfully all of that was taken care of and we got to experience the first wall of fire this past Tuesday.  It looked really incredible and everyone who saw it that night cheered.  It was one of those ‘i really love my job’ moments.

This is backstage as Geoff burns the excess propane off at the end of the night. 

And what did I do all week you ask? Well as usual I provided the crew with a snack to go alongside their morning coffee, ran a lot of errands and bought a lot of weird things.  In fact, I bought so many weird things over the last few months, that my goal for next year’s build is to write down all of the things I purchase and make some sort of an infographic.

This was my final breakfast.  After a week of unhealthy stuff I thought it was time to treat the crew (and their tummies) to something nutritious and delicious! And this is bagel day.  Everyone loves bagel day. 

Now don’t think for a minute that I would forget about Wardrobe, but my friends, I have so much to say about Wardrobe that it will have to wait for another post! For now though, I hope you enjoy this incredible photo of the Queen of the Night and Pamina, taken by Nanc Price.

It’s magical! 

Well that is it for me tonight.  I’m off to go have some snacks — again! Hope you enjoyed this inside look at the show, and I hope you’ll stay tuned for more about the Magic Flute in the coming days!

xoxo

P

Set Build Life

Hello again friends!

How have you been? My super-busy-life is about to become my moderately-busy-life again, and I’m very much looking forward to this Saturday’s sleep in.  Tonight is our closing night for Barber of Seville and tomorrow is strike.  Our set is then off to its next destination to be used in another production of Barber next year and again the year after.   The next show we have coming up is Mozart’s the Magic Flute and we have the pleasure of building it in our scenic shop!

Generally speaking, we build one of our three shows every year, and we try to rent (or buy, if we get a great deal) the other sets from the various Opera companies across North America.  This gives us the opportunity to bring in beautiful sets from all over the place, as well as build our inventory and then send our shows out on the road as well.

This set is designed by Bretta Garecke, who designed the Lighting for last season’s Salome, as well as many other sets, props and lighting concepts for Edmonton Opera over the last 10 years.  She’s a very talented but incredibly busy lady.  She lives in London (jealous!) and travels all over the place designing sets, props, lights and more.

I’ve had the opportunity to sit in a few of the design meetings for Flute where they’ve discussed how to build it, the paint choices, the fabrics and how this will all tie together with Deanna Finmann(resident Wardrobe Designer and head of Wardrobe)’s costumes and Rob Herriot’s stage Direction.  I must admit, most times in those meetings I just sit there in trying to soak up everything going on around me.  They discuss linesets (where the scenery will fly in from), sightlines (what the audience sees) and how everything will track on, off, disappear, reappear and so on.  Ever since I got my second start in theatre*, I spend a lot of time looking up into the grid whenever I see a show.  I want to see how it works and maybe one day I’ll be able to do the same thing.

So how does it all happen? For starters, Bretta gives us sketches of her proposed design.  Then she (and an assistant I believe) build a to scale model of the Jubilee stage and put the set into it.   We use the model to help us figure out how everything is going to work, and to give the various departments reference of what it will look like on stage.  From there my boss, Clayton, will draft the various set pieces into the stage and then he figures out how to build things so that they’re a) going to look the way they’re supposed to look b) fit onto the truck and if possible c) be light weight.  He breaks them up into construction drawings for the carpenters and welders and then they get to work.

Here is Mr. Parker ensuring everything is printing correctly and on time.

Here is the start of our forest flats.  Our Head Properties gal, Chantel Fortin, helped with this project by taking Bretta’s sketches, transposing them into a grid and then drawing her grid out across something like 36 sheets of plywood? It was a crazy process but it turned out great in the end.

Then those drawings come to life in our carpentry and welding shops. Our year-round carp crew members, Greg Brown (Head Scenic Carpenter) and Kathy Cooper (Asst. Head Scenic Carpenter) have been joined by Vincent Mesick and Kris Aasen (Both mine and Clayton’s former classmate!) to make this set a reality.  I don’t even want to tell you how many pieces of plywood these guys have cut in the last two weeks, nor how much routering they’ve had to do, but to give you an idea, we have to clean out our dust collector every day. EVERY DAY! That’s a lotta dust!

Here we have Kris working on the sun with Kathy (not pictured).

In our welding shop we have Ivan Siemens (Head Welder) and Andre-Michel Lavoie (Asst. Head Welder){Also one of my former school chums, but this time back in high school.} building the various aluminum elements in this show.  Since this is our first show doing so much metal work, we really only started outfitting ourselves to do this type of work this year and it has been a bit of a learning process for us.  Ivan has been a great resource throughout everything, and I look forward to many more welding projects in the EO’s future.

Good thing we have 5000 sq feet of floor space! Too bad it still isn’t quite enough…

Those big metal pieces at the top are the portals and below is the metal frame being put onto the forest flats. 

In this show, we have a forest, various portals, palm trees, flowers and more! It’s going to be one magical place to visit and I’ll be posting more photos as we go through the process.  We have our Head Scenic Artist, Shanna Orgovan starting on Monday, along with her helpers, Megan Kumpula and Katie Hartfeil (Who is also our Asst. Head of Properties).  They’re tasked with taking the wood and making it look like wood — classic theatre stuff, you know how it is — among many other things.  I’ll see what I have permission to share and then show y’all soon :).

Well that is it for tonight! I’m off to give my mama a backstage tour of the Jube shortly, followed by a much needed night of rest before tomorrow’s strike.

Hope you enjoyed this post! 🙂

P.

Annotations

*I say second start in theatre because my first experience was as an actor throughout junior high and high school.  I got into film once I started post secondary but found my way back to theatre three years ago and have loved every minute of it.

Barber Life

Hello all!

My my what a busy couple weeks of 8-15 hour days it has been!   Over at the Opera, we did our load-in, install, piano techs, dress rehearsals and have even had opening night! I’m currently sitting backstage during show #2, writing to y’all.   I have so many good things I don’t even know where to start, so here I go! (Warning : You’ll have to forgive me for gushing a bit.  It’s my very first opera and I have nothing but love and respect for the people who have made it possible for me to be a part of this wonderful team and I gotta brag about em a bit!)

We loaded our trucks up at our warehouse on October 16th and if you’ve ever dreamed of playing life size tetris, come work at the Opera during a load-out.  It’s one long game of ‘how can we make this fit?’ and I hear Clayton always wins.

 

Time to strap down our fancy new make-up chairs before their inaugural show! 

We started our install the next morning, bright and early.  Seeing as it was a rental, we brought in a set supervisor who had installed the show in Vancouver years before to help us set it up.  As the various rectangular pieces came off the truck and I looked at the set photos, I really had no idea how it would come together… But! As always, everything has a place and it came together mighty quickly thanks to our hardworking IATSE Local 210 crew!

Install : Day 1

Since I’m still kinda new around here (6 months today!) and sort of finding my place during show times, I got to hang out backstage and watch it come to life.  I really enjoyed seeing each of the departments bring their very best to the table and seeing how everything tied together.  The exquisite costumes — particularly Rosina’s ‘Carmen’ dress, the elaborate props (who knew one could fashion a tornado out of silk?), the enormous set being complemented by the mood setting lights (Put together by our terrific Lighting Designer, and my former instructor and program chair in Theatre Production, Geoff George), just everything.  Even when I fall into my job a bit more, I’ll never be the one crafting any of these spectacular items, but I have to say watching each piece come to life one by one is good enough for me.  (And if I can help them stay on budget, that’s great too.)

Look at the incredible sky that GG has designed using some gobos and the CYC lights at the back of the theatre.  One of my favorite things about the way Geoff lights things is the sheer amount of colours he uses. It always pops on stage! 

A small chunk of my week was also spent ensuring the crew had a quick breakfast to go along with their coffees in the mornings.  Each morning I had planned to offer them something different, but I learned pretty quickly that most of the IA crew wants donuts over anything else.  I adjusted my plan a bit during the week and ended up doing two donut days back to back, but everyone was happy and that’s what matters.  I’m thinking that for the next show I may have one day where I bring a bit of everything and see what fares well, who eats what, and go from there.  I remember the good old days of craft services in Vancouver and the crazy lengths I went through to get that perfect, so for now I want to get comfortable and then blow them all away! One step at a time.

Bagel Day : The day that I discovered after years of foolishly thinking all bagels were dense and gross, that I do in fact love toasted bagels with herb & garlic cream cheese.  So much so that I’ve eaten 4 more since then…

As we rolled into the final rehearsal period of our show, I had the opportunity to work alongside our director, Allison Grant, as her note taker.  I have to say, I have not written that feverishly in a long time, and through some miracle she was able to read my writing, so we made a great team.  Having the chance to work with someone from the artistic side rather than the production team gave me a different perspective on what I saw on stage and I rather enjoyed it.   It’s something I’ll get to repeat on our next two shows, Magic Flute and Lucia di Lammemoor, and I’m very much looking forward to it.  Each director I’ve worked with, even in a small capacity, has taught me a lot and gives me even more of an appreciation for the work they do.  Each one has a different style and different goal for each show and being fly on the wall when they make their magic happen is something I wouldn’t trade for all the donuts at VooDoo Donuts.

Best seat in the house? Any seat when the house is empty!

Opening night approached ever so quickly, and it was time for me to run out to Leduc once again to rent a backdrop from Look Events for our Edmonton Opera photobooth! Our senior marketing manager, Cameron MacRae, came up with the concept and edited a gorgeous photo of Rosina (Sylvia Szadovszki) into a movie poster that’s used in the show and also for our lovely patrons to pose with.  Big thanks to Nanc Price for helping us out by taking photos of everyone 🙂 and to Kristy Benckhuysen (Also one of my other awesome bosses) at Look Events for the back drop.  The design concept for our next show, The Magic Flute, explores an indian motif, and I’m hoping we can design a photo booth to match that.  If you’re at the show tonight or seeing it Thursday, don’t forget to have your photo taken!

Sorry for the low quality pic, my iPhone isn’t great…

Those are some of my more memorable show moments, but I also got to run errands, pick up some old props, new props, pit extenders, bolts, adjust sponsor slides, and cook for 40 people (spoiler alert : I failed. Ran out of food, but I rectified that of course.) among many other things.  It was such a fantastic learning experience for me and even though I felt like I always needed a bit more sleep, overall it was lovely and got me excited for the next show. I feel a bit more prepared with what is expected of me, and in true Patsy fashion, I made myself a list of all the things I did this show so I can prepare ahead of time for next show.  Things will still go wrong, but that’s just something I need to learn to deal with.  I can’t control everything and those moments of panic are often the ones where I learn the most — or at least the ones I remember not to repeat next time around ;).

Well that’s it for me for tonight! Hope you enjoyed this backstage look into Barber of Seville, and I will be back soon to post about my adventures in stage management over at St Albert Children’s Theatre.  For now, enjoy this photo of the final scene of the show.

Oh wait! I’m not finished!

One of the other amazing things that has happened on this show is the opportunity to work (albeit from afar) with Edmonton Opera chorus members, Luc Tellier and Christina O’Dell.  Luc was the lead in Young Frankenstein, one of the shows I worked on during my time at MacEwan, and we hit it off instantly.  He’s a terrifically talented actor and singer and I know he’s gonna make it big someday soon! Christina is the sister of Jamie O’Dell, the man who got me through Carrie : The Musical.  When everything was going wrong, Jamie was the one who kept me focused and his lovely sister has kept me laughing through this show on Twitter.  We finally met for the first time about 20 minutes ago though we’ve been going back and forth for a while now ;). Like I always say, networking is a beautiful thing.

If you look real closely in the above photo, you can see Christina O’Dell in her white skirt, dancing with Figaro, Phillip Addis.  Luc is mingling among the chorus men, unfortunately my terrible photo doesn’t show him, so to compensate, here is a photo by the lovely Nanc Price, with Phillip Addis.

P.