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Archive for the ‘theatre’ Category

I want the window seat

July 2nd, 2010 by Marvel | No Comments | Filed in Life, Rugby, Updates, theatre

I’ve just realised I go on tour in two weeks with the play I’m lighting. Two weeks, and I haven’t been able to get to one rehearsal. It’s just hit me so hard, I’m actually terrified now.

The first week of rehearsals, I was told not to come. There would be no point in coming because the play would be too messy for me to light so that was fine. I spent that week looking for a job so I could pay the company owner for petrol and accommodation while we were on tour. Thankfully, I got a job, and paid him all his money. And now the play is ready, I can attend rehearsals!

Only, I can’t, because now I’ve got a job.

The boss seems annoyed enough about my touring as it is (I wrote it on my cover letter to every company – which I assume every employer reads and therefore employs me comfortable with the fact I will need some time off.) It would be wrong of me to ask for even more time off to attend rehearsals, but it’s essential that I do. If I ask for more time off though, I loose my job. If I stay in work, I’ll probably loose my place on the play. I got the job so I could afford to go on tour.

I didn’t think this through at all. And now I’ll probably be playing the price. I’m also juggling work and this play with another play, the magazine, rugby and living. This is this week’s plan for me, just so you know I’m not going over the top:

Monday – Work 9:30am – 6:30pm (I should be in rehearsal)

Tuesday – Shirley Valentine 10am – 5pm
Rugby Meeting 8pm onwards

Wednesday – Shirley Valentine 10am – 9.30pm
Rugby Training + Workshop 6pm-7.30pm (Can’t attend, and again, I should be in rehearsals all day)

Thursday – Work 9.30am – 5.30 pm
Shirley Valentine – 6pm – 9.30pm
Shed Seven 7pm – 11pm (I was meant to be reviewing this, I might still get there)
Magazine Deadline (Another day where I should be in rehearsals)

Friday – Work 9.30am – 5.30pm
Production Meeting 4.30 pm

Saturday – Work 9.30am – 6.30pm

Sunday – Work 11am – 6.30pm

Don’t get me wrong, I am eternally grateful for every chance and opportunity I get, and for my job which means I don’t have to sponge money off my parents, but eventually I’m going to have to let people down, and then they won’t trust me anymore. I already think my friends are getting annoyed with me, and my boss is annoyed with me already.That’s the only thing bothering me – that I will undoubtedly let someone down.

I don’t know where I’m going with this blog at all, so I’ll just say that I threw a set of brushes up onto the extras page, and updated some other things that I can’t really remember. And Thom got a blog.

Right, back to work! Adios all xxx

FIRST NIGHT NERVES

June 22nd, 2010 by Marvel | 7 Comments | Filed in Life, Updates, theatre

I fixed my brother’s laptop today. It has an odd screen resolution and my header image goes out of place on it. Is it out of place for anyone else? I’d say it was pushed right by about 50 pixels, but everything else was perfectly in place. I’ll work on fixing that. I also want to add a few bells and whistles to the site soon. Nothing major obviously, this is but a humble blog, but just a few things to make it a tad easier on the eyes.

I had a trial for a job today. The job is in a new clothes shop in the city centre. All the clothes there are £5, and some of them are really nice, but the shop is tiny. The jobs you can do are very limited, and it pays less than minimum wage, but I don’t care. I need this job to fix my teeth and to help pay for university. I think the trial went very well and I’m quite optimistic, but I won’t find out until tomorrow if I’ve got it. The owner of the shop seemed pleased with my work, but he really didn’t seem impressed with me needing around 3 weeks off for the theatre work – but I promised him I’d still be able to come to work while the show was in Liverpool and Manchester – just not Buxton and he eased up a bit.

I had a theatre show on Saturday, and was rather nervous about it. I haven’t been to the studio since about April, and knew there’d only be time for one tech run which isn’t usually enough for me because I panic. I was also very worried because it was described as a variety show.
I’m not sure about anyone else, but when variety show is said, I think of bad comedians, dodgy cabaret performers and over-dramatic singers. I really wasn’t looking forward to it at all, and I think my “enthusiasm” showed. Whereas usually before a tech I would be up in the gantry making sure everything was set and clearing any old cues from last show, this time I just sat in the office and read The Crucible. After about half an hour, the stage manager comes up and tells me it’s time to go – and hands me a running order.

Act 1:

1 – Hell (orginally by Rowan Atkinson)
2 – Balls! (Fry and Laurie)
3 – French Class (An extract from The History Boys)
4 – Fatal Beatings (Rowan Atkinson)
5 – The Last Supper (Monty Python)

and so on and so forth. Even though I’ve seen all the Monty Python, Fry and Laurie, Rowan Atkinson and other british comedy before, seeing this variety group performing it was the funniest thing I’d seen in ages (and I don’t actually like Monty Python). I enjoyed every second, I was even laughing when I saw the actual show (Once I’ve seen a show in a tech run, that’s it, I don’t find it funny after.) but still managed to keep every cue exact.
I’ve been feeling really down lately, and wondering if I should go to university to study theatre tech, or if I should just get a real job, but seeing this show really made me realise how fun theatre is. It proved to me how much I enjoy it, and how I enjoy meeting new people in a very fleeting way.

Tomorrow is a very busy day for me. I have to go to the bank, go to rehersals and then go to rugby. Instead of going to sleep though, I’m off to play Majora’s Mask. Goodnight all!

IT WOULD PUT ANYONE OFF

June 14th, 2010 by Marvel | 5 Comments | Filed in Life, Ramblings, Rants, theatre

One of the best things about the internet for me is that I no longer have to telephone people to ask things. I hate telephones with a passion, but before the internet they were unavoidable. You always had to ring a shop to ask for opening times, or ring a helpdesk because something was broken – even ringing my friends is a hard task for me because I really hate phones. It’s only within the last few months I’ve been able to speak to my best friend on a telephone with seizing up and leaving huge awkward silences.

So to me, open forums are brilliant. One of the best ideas ever. Instead of ringing a lighting company to ask them what could be wrong with my old school’s broken collection of intelligent lighting fixtures, I just searched for a backstage / tech forum. I found on, signed up and wrote a full, detailed description before sitting back and waiting for other helpful technicians to offer their friendly advice.

It didn’t happen.

People replied obviously, because that’s what happens on a forum, but instead of offering the expected friendly advice, I just got slated by people I didn’t even know. Their problem being that their tax money has been wasted on lights that are now broken and won’t get repaired.

While it’s true that the lights probably won’t get fixed for a while, if at all, I was on that forum for advice, especially with two lights that I simply can’t diagnose at all. Instead, I have grown adults yelling at me, as if I personally took their tax money and bought the lights, then broke them on purpose.

I don’t work in that school, I’m a past pupil who took the time to learn how to use the lights so they wouldn’t be wasted. The school is a performing arts school, and the lights have been put to good use, especially when I was there. I used them nearly every week for various things. I now feel personally guilty to all these people and I don’t even have a reason too. I paid tax too when I was working, now I’m 18 I pay tax on the £3 something that’s in my bank, because I still haven’t been paid from some work I did before Easter. If I ever do get that money, I’ll be taxed on that too.

Next time I have a problem with anything, I’m going to keep it to myself. I’ve never felt so small and stupid in my life. It’s really put me off. Maybe I’m over – reacting. I’m having a bad week, maybe I’m taking it too personally, so if you want to see for yourself, this is the link. If you can be bothered reading it (it makes for a dry read) please tell me what you think.

Right, I promise to do this again.

May 17th, 2010 by Marvel | 5 Comments | Filed in Life, Ramblings, Rugby, theatre

I know it has been so long since I haven’t blogged. I’ve been tired. Basically.

I’ve completely run out of money. I haven’t been paid from one of my jobs, and my last job gave me £160, which is a lot for 10 hours of work, but when that’s the only paid work you’re going to have for a while, it isn’t much. I honestly can’t tell you what I spent it on. I know some of it went to my sister (who has assured me, she will pay me the £210 she owes me once she has been paid) and £10 of it went on a cardigan. Other than that…I honestly don’t have a clue. Food and bus fare it seems, I haven’t even bought iTunes money.

I did buy two hamsters, but that got taken out of the money I am owed by my parents, and even then, the hamsters, their cage, food, bedding,woodshavings, cleaning supplies and toys only came to £70, which isn’t that bad. And I like the responsibility of having them, they are teaching me to me more mature and reliable.

But anyway, I’m now writing for Bido Lito magazine (another un-paying job, but it makes me a lot of contacts in the media world.) My first job is Wednesday, reviewing The Fall in Liverpool Sound City. I am a huge Fall fan, so I’m actually really looking forward to this. I saw them last time they played in Liverpool and it really was amazing. On Saturday I also have to go and review Go Fiasco, Copyright and The Temps! It’ll be hard writing a neutral review of them, seeing as I’ve known them all for about three years, but I reckon that’ll be a fun challenge!

Also, I got the job as the lighting designer / operator for Ian Moore’s new play. I start that tomorrow, but the play itself isn’t until late July, and when it gets taken to other cities I have to pay for my own accommodation. We’re not forced to stay over, we can travel back to Liverpool every night, but I get so travel sick it really wouldn’t be a good idea to.

I know most people will just be thinking “get a proper waged job then” and I would agree with them wholeheartedly. I should get a real job like real people do. But, at the same time, if I got a proper waged job, I wouldn’t have time to do the different theatres, the rugby and the magazine, all of which are really really important to me and useful experience for what I want to do in the future.

So, until I get paid again, I’m grabbing bits of money here and there. I’ve put a link to my host up, and they’ll give me money if people sign up to anything from my link. I’m also tempted, once my hits have gone up a bit, to put GoogleAds on the site, just as a little extra. Really, I don’t waste my money. I don’t go out drinking, I don’t buy expensive clothes or bags or shoes, most of my money really does go on bus fare to and from places.

I’m doing a bit of work for another band, and once I’ve finished that, I’ll add some more content up here. The Temps website has been updated, and I’m making a website for a band called Dear Chicago. They’re both linked at the bottom.

So, toodles!

This is Probably Full Of Spelling Mistakes

February 28th, 2010 by Marvel | 3 Comments | Filed in Life, theatre

Right now, I’m tired.
Probably technically too tired to be writing, but you never know. I may produce my best writing in a state of near-slumber. Or I may have just proven myself wrong by using a crazy phrase like near-slumber. Who knows?

So, I planned to write more this week, but I was enjoying waiting to see what people thought of my Wolfman review, and people seemed to read it, and that’s always good! Today I thought I’d be going to see The Crazies, but due to…..certain things….I couldn’t go and see it today, so I might go and see it some other time this week. Which was a shame, because I was looking forward to seeing it, especially because the trailer had Gary Jules’ version of Mad World in it.

I started volunteering in a small studio theatre in Liverpool a few weeks ago, but this week I was able to do proper work there as a lighting tech. The first night performance was the first time I’d actually seen the play, because there was no tech rehearsal, so tech wise it was awful. I really wasn’t looking forward to the rest of the nights, but the next two nights were brilliant. The lighting wasn’t hard, just on / off really, but the actors ad-libbed so much, getting the cues right was quite difficult. The play was a 3 act Irish play called Isle of Shadows. It was set around 1960, and told the story of three brothers and their mother just after the death of the father. The play was filled with plot twists and tragedy, but was so enjoyable to watch.The most impressive thing was the set though. I’ve only ever seen one play in the studio before, and the set was really simple. (It was based it a bar, so nothing was built, they just borrowed things from a pub.) This whole play though was based in an Irish cottage kitchen, and honestly, that’s what was created. The attention to detail was brilliant, I never imagined the theatre to look like that. It was built by a cast member over two days and really was the crowning glory of the play. I’ve never taken much notice of sets myself to be honest, as long as the acting was good, but this set was just so well made.

I was also called back by my old school to do some lights for a show. I’m going back on Monday and I genuinely can’t wait. It’ll be like…going home after being on holiday for a few months. The show isn’t til Tuesday, but I’m going in Monday afternoon to position the lights and set everything up. I taught myself everything I know about lighting in that school hall, it brings back memories.

I’ve just found the spellcheck on Wordpress. Forgive my apathy, the title is not getting changed.