Day 40/41 - Magic Flute 2/Madame Butterfly 3

Both Magic Flute and Madame Butterfly performances went very well. Both only had one extra apprentice, so a lot of monitor shifts keep that extra person busy. For Madame Butterfly, some of the movements happen simultaneously, which means I need to leave the Control Room. I'm not supposed to do that, but I don't have a choice, since the movements need to take place. I usually take a wireless intercom with me so I can keep in touch with stage management.

In the mean time, i'll give you a little tour of the campus. It's not a complete tour, but i'll add pieces here and there.

First is Stieren Rehearsal Hall. The blog post a few weeks ago showed a monitor I added into a walkway from the theatre to the rehearsal hall. The end of that walkway is the Rehearsal Hall, which contains two angled pieces of steel the same dimensions as the real theatre, the same height as the half-roof.

The great part about this allows the carpenters a way to test-fit scenic elements if the stage is busy, or allows scenic painters to paint the set fully constructed. The rehearsal hall also stores extra-large pieces of scenery that may be inconvenient to fit in the basement. On the west side of the Rehearsal Hall are two large doors that can be opened for scenery to enter or exit.

Walk out the big double doors and go north, and you end up on the back deck.

Continue walking and you are at the upstage side of the theatre (which you've seen plenty of by now)

And the view out the back deck.

Further down the deck is the scene shop. It's big, folding door is the first i've seen of this type:

Here's the wood side of the shop, with lots of stock lumber. We would be jealous at Towson :)

And the steel side, with a large work desk and two snorkels to pull fumes from welding out of the shop.

In a different part of the building, under the center of the stage is the trap room. It appears that most of the center of the stage is "plugged", meaning it's floor can be pulled up for entrances, exits, or special effects. In four of our five shows, there is some kind of activity in the trap room. You can see black netting just below the ceiling, which is moved into place if there's an open hole in the stage floor. The dark, bare wall on the left is the back of the orchestra pit.

Finally, the orchestra pit. The pit itself can raise or lower to the stage level, and is occasionally referred to as the "A-lift". The white line on the floor separates the lift from the fixed pit: the part on the right is the lift, the part on the left is fixed. The trap room is behind the fixed wall, under the stage on the left of the image.