Minor Scare
I was all ready to up date my blog when my iPad would not turn on. I did all the usual things to wake it up but it was dead as Charlie Sheen's career. I remembered that I had the same trouble with an iPod once and there is a way to hard boot it. I figured that Apple had created the same back door for their iPad. I looked on line with my Blackberry to see if there was any information on a dead iPad and indeed there was a solution. I eventually got it to work and I feel like a scientist who has just discovered the cure for cancer. We depend on electronics so much and when they do not turn on instantly it becomes a panic. The thought of not having my iPad for the plane ride home in a few days was disconcerting. I think I will be okay now.
The show went well tonight. Every venue is different and there are always adjustments to be made, but that is what makes live theatre so exciting. You go out and do what you do and it is never the same twice. This theatre is a hundred years old and there was a intimacy to it that was charming. They are used to having concert type shows here and I think it was a little bit of an adjustment to mount our show. It all worked and I am now thinking in disbelief that we actually did two shows in two nights in two different states. It really feels like Vaudeville.
Radar ran the lights tonight. There was aa house tech but he was very willing to have someone else run the show who knew it. A couple of hours before show time John and Radar were on head set talking in a lanuage that only they seem to know. John was in the audience looking at the lighting cues and Radar was up in the booth programing them. I sat behind John while this was going on, marveling at the knowledge these guys have. Because there was no booth per say John called the show from backstage left. It was odd to have him there, and he said he felt odd not being out front. When my stage managers have called the show from backstage they have always been stage left for some reason. I am comfortable with that, but really would rather have my eyes and ears out front.
Tomorrow it is a 5:30 am call in the lobby so we can get to the next venue. It has all gone too fast and I am just beginning to settle in to this hectic schedule. John and I talked about the magic of the theatre and how is exists as an illusion for the moment. We set it up, work it out, do it for an audience and then pack it all up in cases again. At this moment there is no evidence at this theatre that this show even existed. It was only for the moment and only for the peole who were there. Something about that impermanence that is really fascinating to me. Like a cloud in the sky that is there for a moment seeming very solid and gone the next without a trace.
i have not had time to really get the full story of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The reports I hear from people who have an update on the story are really frightening. Living on the cusp of the ring of fire in LA, earthquakes are really too close to home for me. As I contemplate my illusionary life, I am anchored by the reality of what others are going through across the globe.
So off tomorrow to Vineland, New Jersey. Ready or not NJ here we come. Don't bink or you will miss us. It only happens at the prescribed time... so I hope you are there.
As you were,
Jay