Week 1
DAY 1: Woo! After not knowing where I'm supposed to be for two weeks, I'm finally here!
Spencer, the M.E. (Master Electrician) is only 26, his assistant, Danny is only 18. The other intern, Jessica is 22. Boy! Do I feel old at 33! They're all a bunch of sweet kids and, unfortunately, they know more than I do! Ugh!
Today, I did more physical labor in two hours than I've probably done my whole life! I had to climb to the grid, the top of the fly system/rail! That's FIVE STORIES! That's 60 FEET! All on a straight ladder with NO, I repeat NO warm up to prepare me for this! Once I got there, I then had to "load weight" and "strip weight" off of the batons or pipes where all the lights were! I think I moved over 800 pounds by myself! OK, it wasn't all at once, but it sort of wears ya down, ya know?
Once we got done loading weight we went to lunch. Boy, did I need that! The best part about it was that Jessica "reverse knee capped" Spencer. It was hilarious!
Spencer had been singing "I Believe I Can Fly" from Space Jam ALL day long. It wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that all he would sing was "I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day" and then he'd be done. By the time lunch was over, it had become overly annoying. Jess asked him to stop. Several times. He didn't. So, as we were walking back from lunch, Spencer was walking slightly ahead of us. Jess reached out with the side of her foot and tapped Spencer just above the back of his knee. He very gracefully and slowly sank to the ground. Everyone, except Spencer understandably, laughed all the way back to the theater. It made it a very good day.
We finished up a couple of things, including, YES! throwing more weight. This of course, meant I had to climb that stupid ladder and load weight, this time by myself!
Ya know overall, I'm whooped! But I love it! I had a great time just being back where I belong. Somebody up there likes me!
DAY 2-5: The rest of our week has been spent setting up the first plot. I've never seen so much DMX cable and mic cable in one spot before! We have cable running from one side of the house (where the audience sits, for those of you not in the theater lingo!) to the other! We started in the house right apartment (a slot in the wall which allows lighting instruments to provide side light from off stage) to the "slot" (another slot, this time in the ceiling of the house) to the grid (where all the on stage lights are hung). That was just for three instruments that needed to be ganged together! We've run so much cable and hung so many lights that there's only about 25 instruments down in lighting storage!
DAY 6:, Saturday, Spencer was kind enough to let me have the day off so that I could go to my family reunion. Got to see cousins I haven't seen since the early '90's that I literally grew up with! We're all parents now! Scary!
Worst part of the day was Gramma Chikita getting sick and taken to the hospital. She was dehydrated and not eating...silly woman! But she INSISTED that she go back to reunion so that she could be on the float! Crazy lady! Gotta love her!
We had a great time with TWO floats this year! We had 65 of 87 of Gramma Chikita's clan on those two floats! Gramma sat in the lead truck. Nobody wanted her to get too overheated, so she was in Uncle Brian's truck with air conditioning on and the windows open so she could talk to everybody! What a blast we had! And what a load of candy! I swear each of us threw 20 pounds a piece! <grin>
The fun part was showing off my already callused hands and my bruised up legs and arms. I swear if my mom hadn't known where I got all those bruises, she'd have thought my hubby had done it! ;)
DAY 7: When I got back, we were finishing up the focusing after we helped the set move in. Whoever heard of HARD LEGS for a one week production?!?!?! They better stay the entire summer or there are going to be some really p.o.ed carpenters!
After the set moved in, we were focusing until nearly 4 a.m. I went home. Spencer and the lighting designer, Jim stayed. They stayed until 10 of 12 was over. Sometimes, I'm glad I'm only the intern!