Or, How To Almost Not Open An Off-Broadway Show (Just In Case You Were Curious)
12:30pm
It's the last rehearsal before our opening performance at 7:00pm. Staying in compliance with union rules, we could start rehearsal as early as noon, but while we have a lot of notes on our work list, they're mostly tiny acting notes, with just a couple moments specifically for tech (and those are small notes, too). It's been a long week -- today is Friday, we started tech last Thursday, worked a ten-out-of-twelve (i.e., a twelve-hour long workday with a two-hour actor dinner break in the middle) that Friday, had Saturday off, worked a ten-out-of-twelve on Sunday, had a full (but normal) length rehearsal on Monday, and then had been rehearsing from noon to five followed by shows at seven each night since then.
Tech had gotten a rough start, too, with load-in falling behind schedule and the lights giving us lots of technical problems -- things weren't not working in the artistic sense but, rather, in the "they won't turn on" sense. Our lighting designer had maintained the patience of a saint, and somehow never snapped or yelled during each additional hardship that fell upon him through the entire process. (Though he did drain a large number of whiskeys at impressive speed when we went out to the bar after work.) When he had gone back home to Minneapolis yesterday night, he probably felt like he couldn't get out of this theater quickly enough.
Anyhow, people are tired, so even a half-hour's respite is not something to be scoffed at. And at least it's an easy day's worth of work. Without any big tech fixes on our to-do list, it's just the actors, one of the directors, the crew, and me.
1:15pm
As we work on notes in one of the scenes, I notice a round circle of light on the upper border of the stage -- i.e., completely off of the stage and not where it should be. I ask the light board operator what he thinks of that. Yup, definitely off, he agrees with me, but he isn't very experienced on that particular light board, so he doesn't feel comfortable just going in and futzing around. (Light boards are the computers that are used to control the lights for a show. Similar to how there are Macs and PCs for computers, there are different types of light boards that "talk" to the lighting instruments in slightly different digital languages and aren't totally interchangeable.)
So I give the lighting designer a ring. We figure out that the mirror component on the offending lighting instrument has slipped. It's been doing that, the lighting designer cautions me, he'd had the theater's resident lighting supervisor -- let's call him Jorge, a soft-spoken man, rail-thin and long-faced -- fix it just yesterday. So I go find Jorge, and have to do a moderate amount of convincing that we're actually having this problem, since he protests that he'd just fixed it yesterday. But he surrenders and comes to fix it (and indeed, the mirror had slipped). Naturally, this requires him to grab a helper, as the light can only be reached by dragging a giant extension ladder out into the seats. But we're able to get the fix underway with minimal disruption to our rehearsal.
It's when Jorge and friend have almost finished fixing that light when the light board op tells me that his monitors just went out and he's lost control of the lights.
While obviously an undesireable inconvenience, at least Jorge is right in the room to take a look at it. Between Jorge, his friend, the light board op, and also the sound board op/mixer, they figure out that it was just a power issue, probably a short in the extension cord. They replace the extension cord, get the board started back up again, and we're on our way.
2:50pm
And then the board goes off again.
I drag Jorge back into the room as he expresses disbelief, what with the problematic extension cord having been replaced. The light board op has gotten the board up and running again, but they discuss how they will replace the power strip as well when the move the board from the house to the booth before the show that night. It's annoying to have had another disruption, but at least it's fixed and they're able to continue working onstage while I facilitate the troubleshooting.
3:40pm
Everyone's favorite sound: the tinkling smash of glass being broken. Where by "everyone's favorite sound" I mean "fucking hell what now."
It turns out that a fluorescent light bulb that sits along the top edge of a tall wall on the side of the set had fallen out of its fixture and crashed to its death below. Very fortunately, nobody had been nearby underneath when it made its swan dive, so I check in with my assistant (who runs the deck, i.e., everything at stage level) and start the director rehearsing a different moment on the other side of the stage while the crew cleans up the mess. And also find Jorge to tell him that the fluorescent light will need to be replaced over dinner break.
4:30pm
We're so close to the end of the day, we can all taste it like we can taste the dust that seems to linger ever-presently in the air here. Down to the last few things on our work list, we head into a transition that involves the lights doing some fun spinning and moving. And it's while they're doing their spinning thing that the light board operator's voice comes over headset to me: the board has crashed completely and he's lost control of the lights.
Unlike the other times, the board does not come back. There's no way to get us out of our current light cue -- which, again, are those two spinning spirals, which are now making one of our actors feel nauseous, so work on acting notes is brought down into the first row of seats. The light board op gets on the phone with the lighting designer, and then with the light board manufacturer.
4:50pm
At least we got them to stop spinning.
Though permanently "off" isn't helpful for actually doing a show.
5:00pm
The end of rehearsal. The actors are sent off to dinner break. I tell the light board op that I'll be in the theatre the whole time, so he can let me know if he needs me to go grab him dinner. Still on the phone, he gives me a grim nod.
The director and I agree that the lighting designer probably left a curse upon us when he'd left yesterday, as payback for all of the troubles this show gave him during his time here.
5:10pm
The manufacturer completes their analysis of our error logs.
Analysis: you're fucked. Shit's broken, on a mechanical level.
I update the producer. She gets on the phone, going in a loop to try to get a hold of our production manager, our interim production manager, and the light board rental company's emergency line. The emergency line being because, let us recall, it is now after 5:00pm on a Friday. All of the shops are closed for the weekend.
The director and I agree that the lighting designer is probably a warlock.
5:40pm
So it turns out that the board wasn't rented. The lighting designer had gotten a friend to donate its use. So much for the rental company owing us a working product.
The producer and production managers then set about trying to find anyone from whom we can get any light board.
6:00pm
The crew arrives to pre-set for the show. No light board. I tell my assistant to run set-up as usual.
6:10pm
"I think we're going to have to call the show," the producer tells me, her face mildly stricken.
6:15pm
The theater is asking us how things are going. We're scheduled to open the house to audience at 6:45pm. Patrons are beginning to show up in the lobby.
6:30pm
I go to the dressing room to give the actors their half-hour call. I tell them that we're still working on the situation with the light board and that we'll keep them updated on our progress. Then I go join the grim group gathered around the light board, which is still sitting out in the house.
6:35pm
The producer gets a call that there's an Ion board that we can borrow. Of course, while the show's programming would theoretically transfer over from the Congo format, but there are some things that just won't work. Of course, we would have to go get the board. Of course, the theater in which the board is located is in midtown, while we're in NoHo. And, of course, it's Super Bowl week, and Broadway is closed from 34th to 47th.
The producer takes off. We tell our theater that there might be a delay in starting, but there will be a show tonight.
All we gathered at the light board can do is wait. By this time, the light board op has gotten the board to turn back on... but all the board can muster is a one- to three-minute cycle of turning on, shutting off, and restarting. Rinse and repeat. Not something that can run a show.
And then, the director steps up on to the platform next to the board... and it fritzes a little.
We remember: at least one of the board's malfunctions earlier today happened during a very loud sound cue... loud enough to send vibrations through the entire house, enough to send a strong buzz through your ass if you're sitting directly on the seating platforms. Our gazes turn up to the booth -- farther away from the sound, and with a table securely and permanently attached to the very walls of the theater.
We have nothing to lose.
We turn the thing off, not knowing if it will ever turn back on again. My assistant, the sound board op, and I scurry around under the light board op's orders, clearing space and running cables and moving monitors. We get the board set up upstairs and...
It turns on.
It stays on.
We run the more complicated cues. They work.
6:45pm
"We can open the house," I tell the house manager.
6:55pm
The director and I agree that the lighting designer only wanted to scare us and is, in fact, still on the side of benevolence.
7:10pm
The show starts.
7:15pm
I receive a barrage of text messages from the lighting designer, confirming that he has arranged for a new Congo board to be FedExed to the theater tomorrow morning. The lighting designer is Gandalf the fucking White.
7:40pm
I receive a text from the producer that the Ion is in the house. If the Congo goes down on us, we're prepared to take a spontaneous intermission and switch out the boards.
7:55pm
My assistant goes off headset. It turns out she had to go assist the crew when the wheels of one of the set pieces fell off as they were bringing it offstage during a transition. Being a bunch of troopers, they carry the fucking monkey bars offstage and fix them, without any of it being perceptible by the audience.
8:45pm
The show ends. All of the lights worked.
9:30pm
I'm at the opening night party, which has free food and a cash bar. I don't drink. I lose count of how many sliders I eat. Everyone seems very happy and relieved, but I'm mostly hungry. In the perspective of the universe, the earth is very small, and even smaller are our troubles upon it.
The next morning
The Congo is dead as a doornail. Making it through our opening night had been its last stand. We install the new board. And we're off running.
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