I find that I am most stressed working on a play in that time after
all the lights are focussed and before the show has been programmed
through the first time. As soon as something is in the console for
every moment in the play, I can relax and have a chance to regain my
sanity! It is tempting to think that there could be a way to reduce
this stress. A 'lighting dry tech' is one such strategy. The
fantasy behind this is to get the 'tedious' programming done before
the actors arrive and thus make the actual tech go more smoothly and
quickly. But I think most theater professionals have found this to
be counter-productive. At a recent lecture at the Guggenheim Museum
a month ago given by Jennifer Tipton for their "Works and Process"
series, she stated that she positively refuses to light without the
actors onstage. I have always agreed with this. What happens in a
dry tech is that you indeed do get cues into the console, but most of
the time, it is impossible to create cues that will actually survive
once the actors do arrive.

On a current project, the director insisted that we do a lighting dry
tech before the real technical rehearsal with actors began. I
strongly resisted this request but was unsuccessful in dissuading
him. After a long 4 hour session (there is a reason its called a
'dry' tech) we indeed got cues into the console for the first act of
the show, seemingly well prepared for the actors the next day. Of
course, as these things go, the actors didn't really do everything
exactly like the stage managers (or I) had recorded in our script
notes. Also, once we were onstage with the actors and the director
gained some distance from the scene, so many things changed about the
blocking. So even though I had cues in the console, each one has to
be updated and revised with the actual actors in the actual technical
rehearsal. This revision process was more complicated than
constructing the lighting looks from scratch because for everything
that was wrong, I had to figure out what is wrong, which light was on
that shouldn't be, what system was making that color on the set behind
the pink dressed actress (the assistant stage managers who walked for
us wore white t-shirts). The actors and the other collaborators had
to hear 'waiting for lights' from the stage manager just as often and
for just as long as if we had been lighting it from scratch. For me,
it was more stressful because of the process of 'damage control' as
opposed to constructing cues from scratch means that I spent much of
my very valuable tech time looking for problems rather than positively
creating stage looks. Editing vs. Creating too early in the process.

One other thing that I don't like about dry techs is the unwavering
concentration on lighting that occurs in that too-quiet and
unnaturally un-pressured time period. In a tech with actors, there
are all sorts of things happening. Maybe the subtlety of the way an
actor moves effects everything about a planned scenic move and my
lighting has to be built around that subtlety. Maybe there is an
issue with sound or blocking that has to be worked out. As the
lighting designer, I can use that time to catch up on solving my own
issues, or maybe get a cue or two ahead once a scene has been set-
up. The tech process - with the actors - has a reality and favors
gestural solutions. In a lighting dry tech, a cue that will
eventually be onstage for 2 minutes can get a kind of hyper-
concentrated consideration that can become over-intellectual and
mannered.

I'm not arguing for not planning. When I go into tech, I have a
good idea in my mind's eye what the cue should look like. But the
actual experience of looking at light on human beings in a theater
cannot easily be reproduced. Pre-visualization software shares many
of these same problems that I'm talking about here. Yes of couse,
pre-write your effects, moving light geometries, color string setups,
etc. But as for light on actors, we should only be doing this by
actually putting light on actors.

The east coast premiere of a play by Craig Wright, "Pavilion" will
open on May 13 at the Westport Country Playhouse. Joanne Woodward
and Annie Keefe are BACK as artistic directors and this is the first
time that I've done a show at this wonderful playhouse since 2006.

from the marketing materials: Peter and Kari were the Class of 1988’s
Cutest Senior Couple. In high school, it seemed like everything in the
universe had been working to make their happiness possible. But at the
end of senior year, Kari became pregnant and Peter ran off. The
Pavilion takes place two decades later, in the mythical town of Pine
City, Minnesota, at their 20-year high school reunion. The two have
not seen each other since the day Peter left…and now he’s come to get
her back. The Pavilion is a play about time. It is about the human
condition, about mistakes and about regret. What happens if you made a
wrong decision in the past? What if you ran away when you should have
stayed? Can you change time and do it all over again, but differently,
if you and your old high school girlfriend want to just badly enough?
A masterful blend of comedy and drama,The Pavilion is both
hysterically funny and overwhelmingly touching as it deals with human
relationships on a cosmic scale.

If you're up in connecticut, come see the show!

http://www.westportplayhouse.org/shows/spotlight/3

Bar La Barca: Two Madrigal Comedies, 400 Years Apart!
A fully staged and costumed show featuring Eric Salzman and Valeria
Vasilevski's "Jukebox in the Tavern of Love" (2008) and Adriano
Banchieri's "Barca di Venetia per Padova" (1605).

Gala Opening Thursday, May 29, 2008, 7:00 PM

with performances:

May 30, 7:00
PM
May
31, 3:00 and 7:00
PM
June
1, 5:00 PM

The Flea Theater, 41 White Street, New York 10013

For information, give us a call at 212-873-2848. For tickets, call us
to reserve or purchase through www.theflea.org.

I work for a lot of dance companies.   One of the greatest things about designing for dance is that one’s work has the potential to be around for a long time.    Because of this, one has to be extra careful to take great notes so that the work can be reproduced at a later time, sometimes years later.    At minimum, this is the paperwork that I try to save about a dance:

1. Cue Printout

2. Ascii Cue File of the Cues for the Ballet

3. accurate MAGIC SHEET which corresponds to the channels in the above cues

4. stage manager calling sheets (I try to ask for a xerox copy of their notes from opening night - even if their not ‘cleaned’ up!!)

5. Sidelight color change information

4. an archival video, hopefully with the headset chatter from the performance on one of the audio tracks so that a future stage manager could hear the calls

5. Copy of my original notes for the ballet

6. Any special focus notes, Length of the ballet, number of male and female dancers, sound notes and any other important information about the ballet (like special spike marks that may be needed, set placement, etc.

in addition, I try to also get a copy the original program for my files.   Often I will put dancers names in my notes and it really helps when re-mounting to know that, for instance Mark is doing Kevin’s original role.     Now a days I try to get all of these documents scanned into PDF documents (except the ASCII file of course).    I’m just starting with one of my companies to put all of these files online so that all of our rotating group of lighting supervisors and stage managers will have access to the docs easily when a work is revived.      I’m also hoping to put the mp3 sound files into this archive so that it’s accessible in case the mini-disk fails on the road.       I use iWeb for this website, but I am finding I want a little better system for this web archive.    I’ve downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver but I’m afraid it seems too complicated.   I’m imagining a system that is like a database manager for all the various files that itself would generate pages for each ballet in the rep and show which files are accessible on the site and which are not available or only available in hardcopy form.      Can the new filemaker do something like this?   Still looking for a solution.    Any suggestions?   

Can I just say, this is one of my biggest pet peeves:   a crew that mounts sidelights onto a ‘pipe and base’ boom without the aid of sidearms.   It absolutely drives me crazy!   In a dance concert, often with a one day load-in, this makes the lights very difficult to focus in a timely manner.    By eliminating the sidearm, one eliminates the ability to easily move the light on both the pan and tilt axes.   What happens is one of two things, either (a) the light ends up at some crazy angle to get the shot and then the shutters don’t really work properly because they’re not aligned to the floor and the legs or (b) an enormous amount of time is taken during focus to loosen the main c-clamp to rotate the unit on the boom itself.   This is difficult for one person on a ladder to do because the light is heavy and a loosened clamp tends to move according to gravity, down the boom.   

For goodness sake, get some sidearms!   They’re cheap!    Your guest companies will really thank you.  

Beverly Emmons and I have given ‘the color lecture’ at the Broadway Lighting Master Classes since 1996.    Its coming up in May again in New York and if you’ve never attended, and you’re interested in lighting design as its practiced in New York, you really should make the time to go.   We’re re-focussing our lecture a bit this year to talk more about mixing sources (arc, incandescent and fluorescent) and automated color mixing systems (like the newly released “Sea Changer” color mixing system for conventional units).   Today, Live Design magazine put out this nifty little interview article with Beverly and myself which you can read it here.   

well, amazingly, I have a week that is free of meetings!    when I was younger, I used to stress about weeks like this, but now a little older, I know to use them to relax, reset and de-stress.   I’m not totally off of course — I’m working on 3 plots that are all due this week - but I’m also getting some hiking time in.    Peter and I went out on saturday and it was a gorgeous day.   There was still some snow hanging around on the north slopes, but it was warm and sunny.    We hiked in the western catskills, in delaware county, and because of the empty sign in book thought we had the place to ourselves.    On the way down from lunch though, we ran into a group of 10 backpackers on a big trip on their way up the mountain.  Its so great to see the trails being used even in this uncertain time (for weather) of the year.

Tomorrow, I have 2 conference calls scheduled so I don’t think I’ll  be getting out on the trails but wednesday for sure.      

This is the first entry for my long dreamed-of blog.   I’m hoping to use this weblog to talk about things that are going in my work and also in my life.    I don’t tour so much anymore, but I do occasionally go out on the road with one of my dance companies and I’m always fascinated by what is going on in the world of production.    I want to talk about these things too because I sometimes think we live in our little isolated islands and don’t know about better practices elsewhere.    Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it.    I also hope you’ll comment on what I write