howeird | Move-in (of the theater kind) (Reply)

Too many of my FB friends are in this show, or staff for it, if you're wondering why I've been venting here.

This morning's WTF was email from the assistant director, who happens to be a pal from Palo Alto's Jekyl & Hyde, saying I forgot to put my bags in the baggage cart on my first entrance.

I have no bags.

I have never been given that blocking.

Turns out the AD forgot that this was just something he and th staff had been talking amongst themselves about during last night's rehearsal.

There is no reason for me to have bags, because my first entrance is a cross from the staterooms to the gangplank to meet the reporters. And the baggage cart is several feet behind where I meet the press, I would have to go out of my way to upstage myself to do that bit. It would be a very funny joke if they had everyone who comes up the gangplank toss a bag into the cart (one comic leads is hiding in the cart), but the way they have blocked it, no way.

Got to the theater at 10 am as scheduled, only to find the parking lot closed for what looked like re-paving. The workers had the whole lot, front and back, blocked off, There is parking across the street, sort of, at the middle school.

Inside, we were still waiting for the truck from the set shop. It was about an hour before it arrived. Unloading was not too bad, there was someone on stage who knew where everything went, there were more than enough cast members and a couple of volunteers to do the work. It went pretty quickly. There was one awkward moment when we discovered the two main platforms (huge 4-foot-high things on wheels) were too wide to fit into the loading dock door, but they fit when we flipped them on their sides.

I was mostly a warm body, and the next WTF was I was told to hold a very heavy platform upright, for no apparent reason. There was plenty of space to lean it against a wall, but the OCD lead set builder wanted them held upright while the set pieces they would be attached to were built. At lunch time (they gave us sandwiches from Eric's deli. All of them had sprouts. Yuk. And no extra mustard.) I yelled loud enough to get OCD Guy to wise up, and we leaned the thing against the wall.

There was a second truck, a lot more huge pieces along with the little bits.

At about 1:30 I was told to go home, they only needed people with carpentry skills. I have none.

The good news is the set looks mega-sturdy, all three levels of it. The bad news is it is HUGE and blocking is going to have to change big-time for anything on the balcony, which is me a couple of times.

They have all night and till 6:30 tomorrow night to finish it. 50-50 chance of that happening.

Waiting at Starbucks for Janice. I went to Pet Club and PetSmart, neither of them had anything resembling the kind of cat tree Domino would like. Online, then....