Sometimes I have a very difficult time trying to figure out which word I want to type first. Today it was sometimes.

Made some lamp shades yesterday. Yup, I sure did. Before I left for the shop though, I was juggling phone calls left and right from directors. Changing cues, asking questions...yada yada yada.

After lamp shades I hurried on over to the theatre early so I could make sure everything was going smoothly before our preview final dress...which orignally was supposed to be plain ol' opening nite. At first, everything seemed to be going fine. However, there's no way that could continue, right?

So my board op (of whom I met for the first time yesterday because apparently he was unaware of the tech rehearsals the day before) began his channel check of the lights. Oops, that wasn't supposed to happen, right? We hit a channel and *pOp*...a light went out. So we searched and searched for a lamp (light bulb) and switched it out and nothing. We really had no idea what to do so we had to wait for the designer to show up and when she did we found out it was a busted scrimmer stick. (A scrimmer stick is basically a mini dimmer and a dimmer is basically what puts power to all of our lights.) So therefore we could do nothing except call the rental company and yell at them for their busted product of which we have received more than one. Also, we had to call the appropriate person to come in and replace it for us.

So I figured, that's it right? That's all that's going to go wrong tonite, right?

Wrong.

Before we started the show, someone who I shall not name came into the booth and was looking at the light board. He looked down at a couple of buttons that were taped over, meaning not to be touched, and said "These lights are usually on!" and pressed the buttons and then decided that was a mistake and walked off. I didn't think it was going to effect much so I attempted to turn it off but then quickly forgot about it...eh, no big deal. Until we started the show that is and all of our cues were completely messed up. Black outs weren't happening where they were supposed to and blah blah blah. SO the first show's lights were a complete mess but we decided to hold off until the next show started to see if they were working properly. They weren't. So in a moment of panic, we left the scene change lights and music up until we could figure out the problem and brought the house lights up telling the audience to hold tight until we fixed our "technical difficulty." I have to say, this was a first for me. So it turned out it was that button that was pushed and it had made the board decide not to run our cues properly. We fixed it and moved on.

Other than that, the show went fairly smoothly. Tonite Im hoping everything is back to normal and all will go well.
I'll be sure to let ya know of course. Until tonite, I sit here on my ass. And that's alright with me.