Guthrie Theater

So, I wasn't really sure what to write about when I came in to work tonight, but this show never really has a dull moment, so I should know by now that I won't be hard up for new stuff.

During the Prologue, our violinist, Rachel, was up on the loft waiting for her first cue of the show, when she dropped her bow and it fell through one of the gaps between the floorboards. It hit the floor below and broke. She quickly got down from the loft and went to grab a backup bow from one of our other musicians in the show who wasn't using his at the time. She ended up getting back in place with just enough time to play her first cue of the show, but her broken bow was still onstage. Jim Lichtscheidl was still backstage with Mark Rylance waiting for their cue to enter and I knew that I could count on Jim to pick up the damaged bow from the stage during the last part of the Prologue. Jim assured me that he would pick up the bow, but that it was going to interfere with his method acting. I knew I had to take my chance with this threat, and the show DID suffer because of Jim's lack of preparation, but I still believe that it was the best way to recover the casualty.

Bill McCallum has lost his black prop Razor cell phone that he uses during the Prologue. Luckily, we have a back up cell phone that had been cut from the show a few weeks ago. (Update: the prop phone was recovered by our wonderful cleaning staff who noticed it on a sofa cushion in the Hub after a show. Thank you!)

Hmm...What else?

Like, I said above. Why do I question this show and the stories it may or may not give me? It's live theater. Of course I'll have stories.

So, we just got up to the transition where the table is lifted into the air to create the ship that Peer is sailing on and we had a technical difficulty with a set of cables. We had to wait a few moments (which seemed like minutes to us!) for our crew member to relay to us that the cables were safe before we could proceed with the scene. All is fine, but again, you NEVER know what may happen during the course of our 3 hour show.

Jonas Goslow got a splinter from our floor that he managed to get out by himself onstage. He did stop by to get a band-aid though and then continued right on as if nothing had happened. Resilient actors!

It's sort of strange to think that I'm backstage with the crew, wardrobe staff and the actors, just waiting for something to go wrong. Well, wrong is probably not the right word to use. Let's try the word "different."  After a show is rehearsed, we have a good idea of what to expect onstage, but I know that that same confidence of what happens onstage isn't exactly mirrored backstage. Since I'm partial to the backstage/behind the scenes life of a show, I think the REAL show happens backstage. There is a whole crew of people backstage that the audience doesn't normally get to see that make the show run as smoothly as they usually do. Just last night, Jim Lichtscheidl, forgot to under dress his costume boxer shorts at intermission that he displays in the asylum scene. One of his dressers, Jenn, ran down a flight of stairs back to Jim's dressing room to retrieve the underwear and then back up the stairs to put them on him. Jim made it on the stage with about 3 seconds to spare! Good times.

Our run crew supervisor, Brian Crow, has been shadowing our Thrust Master (fast undulation) Craig. Craig will not be able to be at the show for the Saturday matinee, so Brian has learned his backstage cues, which include running the moving deck. Changing positions like this doesn't happen very often, but hopefully the audience on Saturday afternoon won't even notice that things are different for the crew backstage. We be professionals! Good stagehand!

The other day in the newspaper, we saw that Johan Santana was traded from the Twins to the Mets. His new salary was mentioned and included the detail that he was essentially getting $6,337 per pitch. One of our stagehands, Natasha, decided that if she got paid that much per cue here at the Guthrie, she could save the theater over $12, 000 by not doing just two of her assigned tasks during the show. She obviously became quite inspired by this realization because over the next two shows, she did in fact neglect to perform two of her cues! The shows continued on smoothly nonetheless without her efforts because the rest of us had to pick up the slack. But, we wish that she would tell us the next time she plans to use this wonderful money saving idea before the show starts! 

One of my highlights this week has been to finally finish updating all of my paperwork. Usually with a production, the paperwork is finalized around the opening of a show. This show has been such a different process that I haven't been able to keep up with all the changes as they happened during the preview and tech days. So, I've finally learned where and when actors have been entering and exiting the stage and where they change their costumes. With a cast of 19 and 3 musicians, it can be a bit of a challenge to find one person when there are so many places that a person can be in the thrust. Under the stage is a whole other world to the stage that I'm sure the average audience member doesn't even think about while watching a show. I think it is fun that I can be so close to the audience and they have no idea that I'm even there. I always say that I'm doing my job well if the audience doesn't even know that my position exists.

The other world that audience members (and actors) aren't exposed to during a performance is what we loving refer to as "headset chatter."  Those of us who wear a headset to do our job here at the theater rely on it to communicate with each other during technical rehearsals and during performances. A good portion of activities that the crew performs backstage are cued from the stage manager to the crew over headset. It's the quickest way to talk to someone who may be on the other side of the stage or even in a different part of the backstage area which takes up several floors in our building. Not only do we use them to communicate to each other with show related details, but as you can imagine, it's also used to make jokes with each other, get sports updates, and decide dinner plans on two show days, all while those of you in the audience are hopefully enjoying yourself with the entertainment onstage!

So, it's Sunday night and I'm a bit sad that I can't watch the Super Bowl on TV. But, it's okay because I have a laptop backstage that has internet access, so I currently have this window open as well as Game Cast from ESPN.com. It's half time and the score is New England 7 - NY 3. We'll see what happens. I wish I could see the commercials, but I'm sure I'll hear about the good ones. I'm looking forward to the Twins season where I will once again be "watching" the games online from rehearsal and backstage. Just because I work in the theater, doesn't mean I'm not interested in what happens to my Twins across the street in the dome. I can't normally watch the games on TV, but my laptop is my link to the outside world when I'm sitting in the dark backstage watching the same show on my monitor 50 times.

We had two birthdays on our crew this week that Bill lovingly acknowledged during the prologue speech at the beginning of the show along with Peter's surprise party. To Gary Baird and Deb Murphy - Happy Birthday week!