The one where I make Meatloaf...

We're about to open our fifth and final show of the season, "Albert Herring". I don't know a ton about it, since it rehearses during the day, and my calls are typically at night to run the shows already open.

But today is a day off. I was awoken today by my roommate's alarm BLARING at 8:30am. It must have fallen between the bed and the wall, so it took him a few minutes to get it, and finally set it on the dresser. Without turning it off. Awesome. Both my roommates get home around 4-5am, and wake up at 1-2pm for a 3pm call. Why he has an 8:30am alarm, I will never know.

Anyway, it was raining all this morning, so I kept sleeping until the rain stopped, since I can't go anywhere (no car, no bike, remember?) The apartment is kind of a mess, so I decided to make a run to CVS for a bunch of cleaning supplies. When I came back, my next trip was to Trader Joe's. The entire day threatened with low, dark clouds and rain.

Flashback: A few months ago (actually, I think it was in the fall), Caitlin and I went to the Baltimore Book Festival. Caitlin is an avid reader (an understatement? I love you, baby!) and wanted to check it out, and I tagged along. I never would have gone if she hadn't suggested it, and it's another reason I love being with her: She encourages me to try things I never would have on my own. I am also a very picky reader, with an affinity for non-fiction science. I've leaned a lot towards space race-era books, and biographies of tech companies or their founders ("iWoz", "Code Name: Ginger", etc). We headed to the Daedalus Books tent and I actually found two cookbooks for $5 each (each one used to be $20 each.) When we got home, I started flipping through and earmarking recipes that I liked, and Caitlin did the same.

Now, a few days ago, I told Caitlin I was bored with the food I was making, and then remembered that I brought my cookbooks. Awesome! I flipped through them, finding recipes I could make fairly cheap (Two Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's in walking distance, but not a REAL grocery store). The one that stood out to me was "Mom's Meatloaf".



I love meatloaf. Bring it on. It was a lot of ingredients, but nothing too obscure. The most trouble I had finding was the brown sugar. I had to get organic brown sugar from Whole Foods (everything is organic there. I don't want organic butter for $5. I want cheap butter!)


Everything pulled from the fridge, ready to go. Let's do this.

Started with the pack and a half of ground beef, and added a bit more green pepper and onion to the mix, since it was left over from the chopping (like 20% more from the recipe), then the egg and the oats (why oats? i have no idea). Then the mustard, worchestershire sauce and ketchup (oops, recipe wanted tomato sauce).



Next, it called to be mixed and shaped into a loaf. First I tried it with a potato masher:



Fail. Then a spoon, that failed too. I gave up and just dove in:



Shaping it into the loaf wasn't that hard, actually. I just wrapped it up into a big ball, plopped it into the greased pan, and shaped it.



I mixed up the sauce, and topped it, and threw it in the oven.



Okay, for the next hour? Smell overload. The entire apartment smelled of awesome meatloaf. I kept checking it every 20 minutes or so to make sure it wasn't burnt, but mainly to get a waft of awesomeness. The hour wasn't over soon enough, and I was presented with this:



And then after some "quality control testing":



Yep. Awesomeness.

Conclusion:
Total Cost: $12 (not including staples like mustard, ketchup, salt, pepper, and what I did include in the cost were the portions, like 1 egg, 1 onion).
Serving Size Cost: $2.38 (Beat THAT, take-out!)
Difficulty: 2 out of 5 (Lots of chopping, mixing, you may not have all ingredients handy)
Taste: 4 out of 5 (It was missing "something", that extra home-made goodness wasn't *quite* there.)

Would I make it again? You bet your ass! It sure as hell can't be good for me, though!

I followed it up with some of the best yogurt i've ever had:



I can only find them at Whole Foods, and they're $.99 each. Totally worth it.

An update, and more photos!

It's hard to keep up writing every day when there's little new to write about. We're wrapping up the rehearsals for our third show, "Tales of Hoffmann", which opens tonight. This week has been a myriad of change-overs: During the day, our fourth show, "Life is a Dream", rehearses on-stage. After, we've done a different show almost every night:

Monday: Hoffmann Piano Dress Rehearsal
Tuesday: Hoffmann Dress Rehearsal #1 (Youth Night)
Wednesday: The Magic Flute
Thursday: Hoffmann Dress Rehearsal #2
Friday: Madame Butterfly
Saturday: Hoffmann Opening Night

For those keeping score, at the end of each night, the next day's set is loaded onto stage. Once rehearsal is complete, the day set is loaded out, and evening's set is loaded in. The Stage Crew that does all these shifts usually works a 14-hour shift, from 3pm through 5am, since they load out the day show, load in the night show, RUN the night show (scene changes), and then load out the night show, and load in the next day's DAY show.

We're in the process of opening "Takes of Hoffmann", and the next show to open is "Life is a Dream". Next week is the opening of "Life is a Dream", with a "Tales of Hoffmann" and "Madame Butterfly" performance thrown in. Since "Dream" is done it's day rehearsals, it's time to make room for our fifth show, "Albert Herring" to rehearse on-stage. So just like last week, there will be lots of change-overs during the day and night.

Time for more photos!

The Stage crew completely loads out and cleans the stage before loading in the next set. Here are a few photos of the wings in the rare instance they're (mostly) clear.

Looking upstage, the doors delineate the boundary from "on-stage" to "off-stage". There are six per wing, each numbered with white paint above the door. Sometimes all doors are open ("Madame Butterfly"), and sometimes some are closed. It varies on each show.


Also stage left, this time looking downstage. On the left is a freight elevator that goes below to the 68 Level/Trap room. During the shows, the freight elevators are used as props/costume storage. Next to it is a ladder to the half-deck, and in the center of the wing is a lighting boom (HMI fresnel with a douser and color scroller). There is also a makeshift pipe grid in the ceiling of the wing for lighting instruments, some of which stay and some which rep in and out for each show.


Now onto Stage Right. In the distance is the Stage Management Console that I showed a few weeks ago. On the right is another freight elevator, this one going to the 68/Trap floor, as well as the props mezzanine and the Basement. Along with the B-lift, this is the primary method of getting scenic elements to the stage. There's another ladder to the half-deck, and on the floor is the masking for the strip lights, which live between the front edge of the stage and the orchestra pit. In the ceiling you can see lights set up for "Tales of Hoffmann", which rep in and out for each "Hoffmann".


Another shot of the scene shop, this time showing the scale. It's big, it's tall. But it's usually broken up into different sections, each carpenter working on their own project. It's also used as "warm" storage for the show currently on-stage. On the saw-horses are telephone/electrical poles used for the second act of "Madame Butterfly". In the back left are scenic walls being touched-up for "Albert Herring".

And now for some of those fancy sunset silhouette portraits again...


Just before the house doors open, Stage crew does a final detailing on the "Madame Butterfly" set. The house and deck are made up of wooden slats, and the dirt and dust needs to be vacuumed out of each.


Scenic Carpenter Mike in the middle, surrounded by Stage Crew Chief/Supervisors Ross and Kenny. Along with few other supervisors, they run the crew of 18 stage hands, which handle the scene changes within the shows, as well as the load-in/load-outs of each show.


Shawn, our Production Stage Manager.


The sunset from a few nights ago. It's becoming increasingly cloudier and blocking the sun


Getting artsy. Some props and scenic elements for "Madame Butterfly" prepped for the next scene change.


The opening of "The Magic Flute" pits Tamino against a giant serpent. During the initial staging rehearsals, we realized that two people can't operate the snake, so more handles and extensions were added. Now, roughly a dozen stage, props and electrics crew apprentices operate the snake. This is one of the handles towards the back, making a nice "Cool Runnings" reference


This is a shot of the same stage left wing at the top of the post, but during an actual run of "The Magic Flute" (specifically, just before intermission). You can see the masking walls on the left, and the stairs which get increasingly higher as you go upstage (because of the raked stage). Also visible is the lighting boom with the HMI fresnel (similar to Hoffmann)


Another sunset, this time from an evening of "The Magic Flute".


A few minutes later. Yes, it's like this almost every night. Maybe not exactly the same, every night is different. But it's stunning every night.

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.

Day 39 - "Albert Herring" Tech #1

Hi everybody,

Tonight we began technical rehearsals for our fifth show of the season, "Albert Herring". I wasn't scheduled to start until 5pm, but I had to ride in with stage crew to be on time, which arrived around 3pm. Caitlin wants to put up photos that i've taken for her new apartment, so I figured I would shoot some more. I haven't gone out and just photographed around town, and the ranch at the north side of the Opera's campus seemed like I could find some good places to shoot.

I started wandering around the backside of the Ranch, down a dirt road that I hadn't seen before. I don't feel like I have a "creative" photographic eye, compared to some other photographers that I see. They can go and photograph anything and make it gorgeous, and I struggle to pop out a few nice frames from hours of shooting. I have gotten very familiar to the adjustments in Aperture, in terms of color and exposure, and I've played with lots of the presets, so I feel like my good photos are becoming great from these minor "touch-ups".

I have to thank the people in my life who have shown me anything to do with lighting: architectural, theatrical, portrait, etc. Until you're completely immersed in the fundamentals of lighting, you really don't see how light "falls" on to people and objects, and more importantly, the emotional response that is elicited from the angles and colors of light. Light from the front is different than the side, then the top, the back, the high side, etc. Every Take one light and shine it from all these angles onto the same object, and your brain likes some, and hates others.

Theatrical lighting designers, photographers, and anyone else who manipulates light truly understands this, and will do whatever it takes to bring out the emotion and vibrance of their subject. I can honestly say that from the beginning of my photographic career, the only lighting lesson I knew was "Have the biggest light behind your camera, shining on your subject". Being surrounded by lighting designers for the past three years and sitting in technical rehearsals for hours on end looking at nothing but light on stage, combined with reading photo websites such as Strobist, and the finally taking a "Light for Photo Imaging" class last semester, my perception of light has completely opened up. Using any controllable light source (flood light, camera flash, etc) gives you so much more control than just the sun.

Which is why in Santa Fe, I guess i'm feeling a little tied at the wrists when shooting, because my main light has only been the sun. My photo class kept striving to get away from the sun, and use *controllable* sources, ones you can change the intensity of, which help you "sculpt" your subject. With just the sun, I can't change the angle or intensity of the sun relative to my subject.

Anyway, here's what has come out of that hour-and-a-half photo shoot around the Opera campus. Most of the tweaks i've done have been to richen up the color, and add a vignette around the corners to bring focus towards the center of the image:

A lot of the images I shoot in Santa Fe rarely have the light coming from the "front"; it's usually from the back or high side. Much more detail is revealed from this angle (in my opinion), the front light is just not as flattering or interesting as from any other angle. The only image that has lots of front light is the fence, and I processed that quite a bit to get the detail and richness I thought made the image pop.

A few more images from some another night prior, of our Production Manager during his pre-show checks:

Oh, right. Tech, that's why i was here tonight. Technical rehearsal mostly consists of the lighting designer writing "looks" for the various scenes of the show, and helps stage crew work on the scene changes. My job in A/V is to make sure the lines of communication for the lighting crew and designers stay open and working.

My shift usually starts at 5pm, preparing wireless intercom headsets for the electrics crew to focus the lighting rig before tech rehearsal. Focus begins at 6pm, and lighting and stage crew work until 9pm preparing for tech. From 9pm to Midnight, the lighting designer writes their looks, and at midnight we take a meal break. Called "Grey Lady", i've discovered that it used to be catered by older, grey-haired women who would cook the meal for all who braved the rehearsal. Over the years, the catering came in-house, but the name stuck. Tonight's Grey Lady feast was AWESOME: pulled pork, green chile barbecue and cornbread.

Tech usually resumes until 2:30am, but tonight the designer was happy with the progress that we finished our work just before Grey Lady, and we left after the meal.

Talk to you next time!
-Matt

Day 38 - Madame Butterfly, take 2

Tonight was the second performance of "Madame Butterfly". Most of my paperwork is dialed in, and i'm getting the chance to relax and focus on the show, rather than everything around it. This will be the fifth time we've run this show (including dress rehearsals). The intercom calls become crisp and the conductor seems much calmer, enjoying himself fully. In our control room above the sound board are two video monitors, one has the conductor's camera and one is usually a stage view. Both are remote controlled, so we can pan, tilt, zoom or focus to anywhere on the stage, or with the conductor cam, to some of the actual house seats. We don't move the camera during a performance, since these cameras feed throughout the theatre, but they're great during rehearsals to get a closer view of the stage.

Anyway, for the past several shows, there has been one person in the control room, along with two other A/V folk helping with the video monitor movements in the wings. Now, we're down to one. This one person has to move around the theatre quite a bit. However, there are times two monitors need to move at the same time, and even though it's frowned upon, I have to leave the control room to do these movements. I don't mind doing it though, it lets me really know what's happening with these movements, since they may have changed since the rehearsals. I take a wireless intercom with me to keep in touch with the stage manager, and notice that several of the moves HAVE changed, which lets me update them in my paperwork. It also keeps me in contact with the assistant stage managers and other conductors working backstage.

The show went very well, and tomorrow is a technical rehearsal for our last show of the season, "Albert Herring". Wikipedia calls it a genuinely funny comedy. Neat.

Day 35, 36 and 37 - Back to Basics

Day 35 was the fourth of July! But since I don't have a car or bike, I couldn't really go to any displays, so it was pretty much a normal day off. I slept in a good bit, because the day before was a long 15 hour day on 5 hours of sleep. The bus wasn't running because it was a holiday, and most businesses were closed.

I was trapped!

Actually, I went out to Trader Joe's a picked up a few things, but for the most part, I stayed inside. I miss shooting fireworks with Brandon and FPI. Next year!

-=-

Day 36 was back into the technical rehearsal grind. It was the third technical rehearsal for "Tales of Hoffmann". There are some neat special pyrotechnic effects throughout the show that were tested.

-=-

Day 37 was another day off. There doesn't seem to be much to do. I took the bus down to the Shopping District. I'm trying to get my pair of Apple headphones replaced, but nobody carries them. I've checked Radio Shack, AT&T Stores and now a Best Buy. I was going to head to Albuquerque, but because of the holiday all my bill payments got knocked back, and I have less money than I thought. After Best Buy I headed to Borders to pick up some books to help with the downtime. I had gone to Borders a few times before but never found anything I liked. This time, I found a bunch, and settled on two books about the space race, and another on cooking. After that, I headed to the AT&T Store to check on some headphones, and finally got my first dose of the iPhone 4.

It's pretty cool. It's hard to demo with all the security cables and clamps that AT&T puts on the thing, especially when they put the security sensor OVER THE CAMERA. The display is really nice, although I haven't found a good way to demo it compared to the older iPhones. It seemed about as fast as my iPhone 3GS. The WiFi in the store was really fast, fastest i've experienced out in New Mexico, and I think the new iPhone rendered data much faster.

Not much else to talk about. The second performance of "Madame Butterfly" is Wednesday night, talk to you then! In the mean time, here's a shot of the theatre from the back of the house, during pre-show of "The Magic Flute":

Day 34 - Opening NIGHT Part 2

Compared to other days, today started very early: 9am. There was a development meeting with potential donors, and today we did backstage tours and demonstrations. A/V was needed for two reasons: A projector and screen were needed for a slideshow, and a closed-circuit video feed was needed, so donors could stand on-stage and watch an effect, while also watching the TV to see what really happens backstage.

During this, we were given a new project: We acquired a fourth wireless intercom antenna, and the idea was to place it in the lighting booth at the back of the theatre to expand coverage into the audience (really needed for technical rehearsals). We had moved an antenna in the catwalks from upstage to downstage, but we sacrificed coverage upstage for it. The idea is now that we have the new booth antenna, we can move the original catwalk antenna WAAY back, farther upstage than before.

We got the antenna run, and then put away all of the gear from the development meeting. I then re-hung the catwalk antenna, as far upstage as possible, and hung underneath the catwalks. It has fantastic line-of-sight for the entire back deck, and should greatly increase reception and reliability of the wireless intercom system.

I was also able to run around during the meeting and take photos of some of the sessions. Unfortunately, Flickr is misbehaving and I can't seem to upload the photos. I'll do it when the internet behaves again.

There are few preshow tasks for the "Magic Flute", so as i'm setting up i'm taking a few photos too. Just as light focus finishes, the stage crew swarms the stage sweeping and mopping. The sun is setting, and without clouds it's very intense. The sun sits low enough that the blue sky and amber sun complement very nicely, so I snapped a few photos:

On left, stage crew mops the deck before the house opens. On right, a stage supervisor reviews the preshow checklist.

The show went off without a hitch. There was a small amount of rain, but not nearly as much as last night's "Madame Butterfly" opening night.

After the show was an Opening Night party, for both Butterfly and Magic Flute. Everyone was dressed up...except me. I forgot to grab something nice before I left in the morning, so I was left in a black t-shirt and jeans. Oh well. Fancy parties are really my thing anyway. :)

Day 33 - Opening NIGHT!

It's opening night!

Now I start to feel the energy of the theatre pick up. Everything is neat and clean throughout the house, ready for a sold-out paying crowd of anxious patrons. As we drive through the main parking lot of the theatre to get to the staff parking, we notice lots of tables with full linens and china on them. In the PARKING LOT. It's explained to me that the patrons who regularly attend the opera take tailgating to a whole new level. More than three hours before the doors open to the opera (and more than four before the opera begins), patrons dressed in full suits and ladies in evening gowns take to the parking lot and have a seat at a table with full china, linens, wine and multi-course meals. Enjoying the sunset and the weather, they dine in high style, a style that is continued to be held high during tonight's performance.

This concept really struck me, and I wanted to run out on a break and photograph these folks dining on steak and seafood in a parking lot, but duty came first, as we prepared the theatre for it's grand reveal. Panning the conductor cameras back and forth, we can see the house begin to fill around 8pm, but most patrons are exploring the theatre, hanging out at the north or south bars, taking in the scenery and the gorgeous weather. Not 15 minutes before the doors opened, I was on the half-roof re-dressing some cable, and the weather was nice and breezy.

I speak too soon.

The show begins, and i'm camped out in the A/V Control Room, running the audio and video side of things for this show (which is "Madame Butterfly") I sit in front of a fairly hefty sound console (not as wide as the one in the picture, but close) and monitor the audio feed going to our CD recorders, video recorders, and speakers strategically placed throughout the backstage. In front of me are two televisions: One with the conductor camera (the same feed that goes throughout the backstage), and above it is a front-of-house feed, which I can change from a remote-controlled color camera, or a black-and-white low-light camera. In the catwalks we have an "IR Illuminator", which puts out light just outside the human range of vision, but this black-and-white camera can see as bright as the sun. In essence, it gives us night vision on the stage. The light is so powerful that when there is a black-out on stage, if you're looking at this camera feed, it's as though no lights have been turned off. I typically watch this night-vision feed, because it gives the most consistent lighting throughout the show.

Surrounding me are many different audio channels, all critical to the running of the show. In the audio rack to my left is an intercom box feeding me the Stage Manager's cue calls. Behind me is the electrics crew on a different intercom channel, going over spotlight cues and levels. Finally, clipped to my right collar is a two-way radio. There are about twenty or thirty folks on-stage with two-way radios, and while the intercom is the show-critical communications tool, the two-way radios are equally as important; the props crew uses them to organize what goes where, the stage crew uses it to communicate about scenic placement or personnel location, and A/V uses it when something fouls and we need to run across the theatre to fix it. Oh, and there are always two CD recorders, a DAT recorder and a computer recording the audio feed coming from the stage for archive purposes.

Did you get all that?

Act I starts strong. The audience is chatty and very involved with the first half of the show. Over the two-way radio, however, we hear the technical director tell us of a strong storm cell moving in our direction. Shawn (the Stage Manager) doesn't miss a beat or get nervous, and simply says "keep me in the loop". As the first act progresses, we hear calls over the two-way from stage crew about the wind picking up. The Assistant Stage Managers are also noting the wind, and a light drizzle. As the act begins to close and intermission approaches, the wind and the rain pick up dramatically. The act itself ends on a romantic note, with soft music and love in the air. As the lights go to blackout, a bolt of lighting streaks across the sky behind the theatre, silhouetting the set and performers, before the house lights come up for intermission. It's one of the most spectacular pieces of foreshadowing i've ever seen in theatre.

The cell stays north and makes its way west over the mountains. During the changeover into Act II, I stepped out to upstage left, and bolted the camera to a nearby pipe to get the following shot:

The lightning storm was incredible, but I couldn't stay long as we needed to start Act II. The second act ran without a hitch, but as Act III began we started getting calls over the two-way radio that a storm worse than the first was starting to hit. Before long, wind and rain were blowing the backstage around. As Act III progressed, the wind and rain started to make it's way on stage. From the video screens in the control room, I could see pant legs and dresses getting blown around in the wind. It was an unbelievable coincidence that the weather was following the story line, as the plot itself was becoming more unstable. Tempers were flaring, and the cracks of lightning throughout the back of the theatre were great accents to the acton on-stage. The lightning was so bright that I could see faces of audience members through the conductor camera when the lightning flashed.

However, nothing beats the finale of the show. As the lead character resigns herself to fate, the wind begins to blow the rain sideways on the set. You can see the mist in the stage lights. As the character's world crumbles down on her, so is the weather. She enters her house, grabs the knife, and commits suicide, with the wind and the rain blowing it's hardest ever. Stage Mangers are scrambling with the Stage crew to secure scenic elements, and the stage goes black for the end of the show.

Lightning flashes and streaks behind the set again. The audience goes crazy with applause and standing ovations.

One of the most amazing pieces of theatre i've ever seen.

Day 29 thru 32 - Dress Rehearsals

The front gates of the theatre as a storm rolls in from the south.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Dress Rehearsals.

In my experience (at Towson), a dress rehearsal is a full run of the show, no (or few) stops, with costumes and mostly-complete lighting. All of the components come together, and we see how the puzzle pieces fit before it goes in front of an audience. At Towson, we do this three times, each time the show refines and sculpts to the perfect piece. Then we have preview, which is similar to a fourth dress rehearsal but with an audience (who paid less than a show during the actual run), then we open the show to a full paying audience.

At the Opera, it's a little more along the lines of "trial by fire".

I use that term roughly, because by the time we hit first dress rehearsal, we're as prepared as we can be. Any more time would be wasted and redundant. However, this first dress rehearsal has a twist: In the audience will be 1800+ youths.

That's right. The first dress rehearsal is to a nearly-full house of kids. It's "Youth Night", and it's a brilliant idea. The less discriminating eye won't mind if we stop and start briefly, and we're exposing more than and thousand youths to a very rich art form. We get to see what works, and what doesn't. The performers finally get an audience to read and play off of. I come from an educational-influenced theatre, and the extra time is necessary as a teaching tool. In the professional world, we can move much faster, and our first dress rehearsal is the equivalent to Towson's "preview" night.

Backstage, it's as close to a real performance as we've gotten. We're all in our running blacks (full black long-sleeve shirt and pants), and we're going through our checklists, making sure intercoms and recordings are working and ready. Stage management is now backstage at their console, versus being in the house. The tech table is still set up, as the lighting designer is using it to adjust cues throughout the show.

All dress rehearsals went really well, without any hiccups that I can think of.

Now, opening night, that's another story...