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CaligulaKangaroo posted:
Mine was originally designed as a stage theatre, still had all those features and the mostly original 1911 hemp rigging system. I am actually working at another theatre that's pretty darn old and has a hemp, but here we use trim clamps and sandbags and I couldn't be happier with it. What I loved most about my community theatre was the living theatre history in action. Flats from the 1920s that still saw regular use, these weird old lights that had the body of an ERS but the lens of a fresnel and so on.
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Sep 3, 2012 08:25
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semicolonsrock posted:Can anyone point me to something to read or watch to learn how to direct? I'm directing for the first time, and while I have acted etc. before, I am not really sure what approach to take. Broadly, I would like to let acctors be in control of the blocking and stuff, and use like the socratic method for them to figure out their characters. http://www.amazon.com/The-Directors-Craft-Handbook-Theatre/dp/0415404398 This provides a step by step guide on how to direct a show with many very good suggestions and will give a nice foundation. It's technique based instead of theory based, and is very practical. There will be time to study the art of directing later, for now just focus on the technique. I love the books suggested, but seriously, Jerzy Grotowski for a beginning director? edit: VVVV Not saying it's a difficult read, but for someone who has no experience directing, starting with Grotowski would be pretty freaking intense. r0ff13c0p73r fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Sep 12, 2012 |
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Sep 11, 2012 15:28
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Sometimes theatre is art, sometimes it's a paycheck.
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Sep 19, 2012 04:02
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CainsDescendant posted:So, by volunteering my services for our community theatre's run of Daddy's Dying, Who Got The Will?, I've been stuck on music/sound design. I got no issue running the high-tech boombox or anything, but where do you go to find great (read: free) sound effects? I need to get a variety of car noises, dogs barking, etc. for the show but don't really know where to start other than grabbing random .mp3's or doing my own foley work. http://www.freesound.org/ Cannot recommend this site enough.
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Sep 20, 2012 08:05
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If you have a car, the SE Pennsylvania scene is pretty great. A lot of actors I know are centered in Philly and then do work in the many regional theatres throughout the state. Also, you're in pretty easy distance to NY, DC, and Baltimore plus all the regionals in NJ as well. Also, if you haven't already, start looking into how to get your Equity card now, most places I've worked/heard of are Equity houses and that's where you'll find the better paying gigs.
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Sep 25, 2012 02:46
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The other thing to consider is tech (COME TO US!). It's reasonable to expect to make a living, a lot of regionals have full time technical staff. Starting out would still mean having to take overhire jobs for experience, but you might find that more enjoyable than your potential office job.
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Sep 26, 2012 06:26
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Load in from hell ended up opening great. Multiple tracking units on winches required us to circ saw cable tracks into the floor...unfortunately, under the masonite was some significantly tracked up plywood that ended up taking out 2 saw blades and a flush trim bit for the router. A week later, after we had finished the set we started having problem with the stage left track. It became a game of tweak the tracks in the morning, run to the shop to try and build our next show, then get a terrified call from the SM who was in tech, run back to the theatre to tweak again. Long story short, load ins are a bitch even if they're supposed to be easy. Anyone else have fun load in stories to share?
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Oct 19, 2012 07:07
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bunnielab posted:This is about how it always is, until you work somewhere with a ton of money, then you only need to fix them every other day. After that, it's worked pretty well *knocks on wood*. I actually was volunteered to go on stage as an extra this weekend and it was a pretty smooth ride. T-Bone posted:I'm looking for a 25-30 minute one act with a cast of around 4-8 people. David Ives has a couple that run that long, Tony Kushner has a "10 minute play" that isn't 10 at all. Honestly, look at "10 minute plays" because that's really just a generalization, a bunch of them are actually 20-30. That being said, a bunch of them are also 2-5 minutes
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Oct 22, 2012 03:40
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Nameo posted:My girlfriend is a recent BFA grad and miraculously landed a job as a tech assistant doing community theatre for one of the nearby park districts. If nothing else, knowing how to support her as an outsider would be nice. Find out when her tech weeks are (if she works those as it sounds like she would). Try not to stress her extra during those weeks, and just be patient with her schedule.
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Oct 30, 2012 07:35
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Fruits of the sea posted:So I said I would play a bit part in a play, and now it looks like I'm helping with the lighting too. Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about lighting and neither does anybody else How large is your stage, what does your space look like? what kinds of lights are they? Could you take some pictures of everything and link to them? Where are they plugging into? Are the lights dimmable (This would mean they are mostly likely attached to a dimmer rack and therefore you might have more spaces, called "circuits," available for more lights). If you do have more spaces, any way to beg, borrow or steal more lights?(local community theatres, high schools, colleges, etc.)
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Nov 21, 2012 05:28
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Any advice would be appreciated! I think I can figure out the control board (it looks a lot like DJ control boards which I have used before), but I have no idea what to do when it comes to actually making things look good.
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Are the houselights just simple On/Off or are they dimmable? Are the lights over the stage on a different switch than the lights over the audience? Fun thing about small theatre spaces is playing with the standard lighting. With the space you have, you can probably get a decent front wash out of 4 of those fresnels (the small lights) and use the other 2 to get some side light going. Side light is the best thing ever. You can mount these pretty cheaply just by making a wooden box, and then taking off the c-clamp from the yoke and bolting the yoke to the box, and putting them offstage. As for the elipsoidal, it's usefulness is limited by the fact that you can't change the aperture size. Saving it for a single pool of light is really your best bet. With the size of your play space, you could just focus it down center and it would look fine, especially with all the other lights out. As for color, wouldn't worry too much about getting hots and cools. With the production you're talking about, going with a no color/frosted/amber wash seems like a safe bet, and if you want some real color differentiation, try a no color blue in that elipsoidal. As for hanging, your best bet is to mimic the way those fresnels are hanging, bar attached to the concrete wall with some nice, heavy duty, concrete lag bolts.
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Nov 24, 2012 08:23
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Ksrugi posted:"The Best Christmas Pageant" ever is great if you've got a lot of kids to cast and you need a money maker. It's cute and people like seeing it. Like "A Christmas Carol." Guaranteed money makers. The best Shakespeare is always the tongue in cheek Shakespeare (unless it involves Kenneth Branagh)
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Nov 30, 2012 08:55
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rantmo posted:So I'm working on a production of Caucasian Chalk Circle, which has been a wonderful experience and is going be a fantastic production, and I've encountered two reactions when I tell people about it that have surprised me. The only time I've ever seen the show was about 20 years ago when my little brother was in it, so I really don't have a great recollection of it, and so I'm hoping some of you would have more familiarity to see if we are indeed doing some odd stuff. A lot of people just don't get Brecht. He liked to use comedy because he felt people connected better with it (the better to alienate them later of course). People tend to associate his name with avant-garde productions and pretentious theatre majors, they forget that he used a lot of standard stage convention and mainstream ideas just so he could gently caress with them.
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Dec 17, 2012 21:33
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Rashomon posted:
Verfremdungseffekt can work really well when done right. People just tend to go very heavy handed with it. As for his writing? Peter Brook seemed to do okay with Brechtian influence.
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Dec 18, 2012 00:53
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Okay, so my carpentry/production apprenticeship is going to be ending in July and I have a serious need to start planning (so I can apply to jobs and stuff). Most of the guys in my shop worked in New York for a number of years and the general consensus is that there is carp work there if one just looks for it. Has anyone had similar experiences? What are some things to know before I try to make the leap to New York City? Anyone here gone Local 1? Any advice on how that works?
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Jan 21, 2013 01:00
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Yonic Symbolism posted:I have not read all 855 posts, but I do have a small dumb question. I would like to watch theatre performances again, of works written in the twentieth century. Performances is the operative word. There are movies of various works like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, but I do not want to watch a film. It's not as genuine as an on stage performance. I do not have a voice for how people act right now, so reading a play isn't enough. So basically is there a place to watch performances of modern works online somewhere? Netflix as a small amount of stage musicals (like Into The Woods). You can also take a look at David Tennant's Hamlet which is based on the RSC's production from 2008.
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Jan 31, 2013 05:04
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:Right now, I'm not sure there's such a thing as a successful American theatre with no financial troubles. There never is. Even when a theatre is in the black, financially, there's always 1000 things that need replacing/upgrading.
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Feb 3, 2013 08:57
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:Just heard back from UC Berkeley. Their Performance Studies PhD program was the only place I applied to this year, because get in or not I intend to move there and work in the local theatre scene. My odds probably aren't very good since I don't have a Master's and this email's staring me in the face a month earlier than I would have expected. Welp, here goes. Didn't realize someone offered a PhD in that...most colleges require a "terminal degree" before you can teach, but for theatre, most of the profs I know just have MFAs. What do you want to do with it?
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Feb 16, 2013 09:38
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rantmo posted:Oh, you're preaching to the choir here, I've seen some truly amazing lighting design and most of our theatres in Chicago don't have lighting grids at all. Same thing with set design, creative solutions with exceedingly limited resources are the rule. Still, you can't deny that the Met Opera does some stunning work with their millions of dollars and cavernous space. If a great mind can do something amazing with zero funding, imagine what that same mind can do with The Met budget. I have met people that can't make the transition though.
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Mar 8, 2013 03:34
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The season is ending! Then it's 3 months until the next load in! Does this mean we get a break? Nope, building a set for another theatre for the next month and then working on all the backlogged improvements/repairs. Being paid hourly is really great at times like this.
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Jun 27, 2013 05:20
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It depends on the type of people you're working with. Theatre has a very specific hierarchy, but that tends to break down the less professional the theatre is. What is your job? Does it include giving the director creative feedback (Actor, Stage Manager, Assistant Director, Artistic Director, Designer could all be such a job) If it does not, it might not be a good idea to approach the director unless he asked for your feedback before. It might just be a better idea to wait and see what happens with the opening of the play and then get drunk with him afterward and ask him what was up. Alaemon posted:My personal thing has always been that if you need to change the text of the play you're performing, you're performing the wrong play. It's one thing to me if you have the author handy and they give you the approval, but I have no patience for bowdlerization. In the right hands, a change here and there can be a beautiful thing. As my directing professor once said back in the day: "There are no rules, there are only tools."
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Jul 12, 2013 02:15
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and is about to build a set for a community theater production of a Russian comedy? This comrade! I hope I don't gently caress it up and kill everyone. What's the set like? Just pulled a 16 hour day...now to sleep for 3 hours and head back in to see what I can finish before everyone else shows up...
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Jul 26, 2013 07:26
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's really basic (vaudeville proscenium, footlights, a window) but it's the first thing I've done outside of a classroom. Everyone's being very vague about everything so that's all right now. I'm just glad I still have my backstage handbook to tell me how to assemble poo poo. That sounds pretty awesome. Take some process shots and start building a carp portfolio! Backstage Handbook is pretty great, but sometimes it can over complicate things, don't hesitate to settle with a simpler solution even if it's not in the bible. r0ff13c0p73r fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Jul 28, 2013 |
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Jul 28, 2013 07:49
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bunnielab posted:People do that? It's not usually required for carp jobs, but it's one of those extra miles that makes employers happy if it's done right. Though more and more jobs are requiring visual aids of some kind with a resume. TDs have their draftings, SMs have their prompt books, etc.
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Aug 9, 2013 23:43
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bunnielab posted:Madness. I don't think I ever got a theatre related job through anything other then a personal recommendation or a "gently caress it, we just need warm bodies" type deal. If you're just starting out, with only college level stuff on your resume, it definitely helps. It also depends where you're going to work. If you are trying to get on the overhire list for Local 1, then it probably is a waste of time. If you're applying to a master carpenter position at a high end regional, it can't hurt and will only help.
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Aug 16, 2013 03:20
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They shortened the season from a 7 shows to six starting a month later. This was to theoretically give us more time to prep. Instead, we keep getting builds from outside contractors and random events keep getting scheduled that we have to drop everything and deal with (our shop is 15-20 minutes away from the theatre, depending upon traffic). On the plus side, building for other people allows us to buy new tools! I love pocket hole jigs.
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Oct 1, 2013 05:13
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Magic Hate Ball posted:Einstein on the Beach is the greatest thing I have ever seen. Does anyone know anything about the technical processes behind it? I don't know if I totally understand how they get the bar of light to do that. Do you have a picture or a clip from youtube? Robert Wilson and Philip Glass...who could ask for anything more?
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Oct 13, 2013 00:20
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Look Under The Rock posted:disorganization When you find a theatre that is relatively organized and still has no down time during rehearsals, that's when the fun truly begins.
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Nov 15, 2013 05:43
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SatansBestBuddy posted:oh the sins against the art of carpentry we needed to commit You should take pictures. I'm always looking for new ideas. One of my favorite things about my boss is that as long as it works and isn't/doesn't look dangerous, it's fine (The looks part only holds true for AEA). I've known a few too many scenic carps worried about the "proper" way of doing things, and I've only been in the business for a couple of years. Does anybody work with IATSE local 22 out of DC? I've read the website, and it's one of the best I've seen for IATSE, but I want some more information from people who've done it. How easy is it to get work through their overhire list? How much of the job is theatre versus more commercial production? r0ff13c0p73r fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 07:25
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Burger Crime posted:My question for people out there. I am using arduino tech for my upcoming show and think a good idea for a paper would be documenting my process with the arduino system and comparing it to working with a wireless DMX system. I am going to submit to Sightlines, Live Design Magazine, and Theatre Symposium. Can anyone recommend other publications that would be interested in a design/tech article like this? What about the various regional conferences?
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Jan 31, 2014 08:16
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Darkoni posted:It's at college so I really have no clue what the cast will be like until auditions next semester. Size wise though, in the past we've done small cast dramas with 3-6 people, stuff like Neil Labute. With monologue shows we do about 8 people like Blown Sideways Through Life and The Reindeer Monologues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_With... This one has some great monologues, a little larger than usual, but I've seen it trimmed.
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May 9, 2014 09:03
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