Last Two Performances

Hey guys as you know the last two performances of the winter Small Ensemble were Monday and I'm sorry it took me a while to get them up here. Well I have to say these two were the worst two. Everybody seemed rusty from the weekend, it was sloppy work. Encore seemed to be out of character, jazz band was off beat, dance was way off, and Vocal Ensemble was hitting some foul notes. That was just the first performance of the day (and last of the elementary school) During the Ligon show we were running tight on time. The show takes about an hour and 20 minutes to run through and we only had a little less than an hour. So the Vocal Ensemble girls were nice enough to drop one of their 4 songs, and we tried spending less time in scene changes. Orchestra took way to long for their part and the stagehand techies were hardly doing anything, except for Michael sometimes. All in all we finished with about 2 minutes to spare and everything worked out somewhat fine. But the most unfortunate thing that happened during that second show was that to save time we cut the finale and went strait to the principal telling the students where to go. The bad part is that during the finale the 7th grade actors throw "snow" (paper confetti) from the grid or catwalk above the auditorium when everybody is taking their bows. Nobody told them that we cut that part out so while our principal was actually shouting through a mic at the students they dropped the confetti, which made the kids more excited and the principal more angry. You have to give it to the 7th grade thespians, they are stupid.

Elementary Performances

Hey guys, so today we had to do 2 shows for elementary schools. After show 1 I really didn't want to do another show. Right now I am so fed up with all the music and such and I still have to tech 2 shows! On the good side the shows went flawlessly and the kids loved the "snow" fall. I'll keep you guys posted on the last two shows.

Winter Ensemble First Performance

The first show of the Winter Ensemble was tonight and let me say it was pretty good. There were very few mess ups just a couple confused stagehands, and a false blackout on the light board. But Jazz Band sounded great and it was a big shocker for us because during rehearsals they sucked! Anyway I have to take some good pictures tomorrow because we still have 3 shows to go! Not fun. Anyway all and all the actors, singers, dancers, orchestra/band, and of course us techies did a great job tonight!

Winter Performances

Okay guys so the Winter Performances are coming up soon and that means a lot of work for us techies. We've been hanging gels and new lights everyday now for the dancers alone! But it's worth it when the dancers are so HOT that it's hardly cold outside anymore. I now have new appreciation for the tech class because we get to watch the dancers practice on our stage everyday for 2 weeks! Once again it's the usual lineup for us. Jake Phillips (me) on sound board, Brenna Stallings on lights. Then backstage and so forth is Dana, Michael, and George. (a new addition to the tech team) Well I'll have to keep you guys updated now so keep reading. Oh and tell your friends about this blog if they are interested in tech or theater at Ligon.

Class

Today Ligon had to go to school! So unfair. The hurricanes knocked out our power so today was our makeup day. We started taking down the Odd Couple scenery. Tomorrow we will start striking the set tomorrow.
Jake was telling me that during one of the shows he fell asleep! Must have been a slow nite! :)

First Performance

"Odd Couple" premiered today at 2:30. The show went great I give it a 9/10. There were only few pregnant pauses and Spencer Bloom who plays Oscar was fantastic! It was a wonderful display of thespian-ism from the entire cast. I was on light board and did not mess up once. The only frustrating part was not knowing any cues and getting the curtain call music just minutes before curtain call itself. Hopefully the next two performances will be just a great if not greater!

Odd Couple

Encore is performing the show "Odd Couple" starring Spencer Bloom and Baily Griffin. The play is about a man whose wife devorces with him and he moves in with Oscar (Bloom) They are totally opposites and they try to live together. Come see what happens in this comedic New Jersey play.

Joke Wall

Yesterday, the joke wall almost fell and broke. An actor decided to move one of the 25 pound sandbags that was holding the joke wall up. Luckily, Mr. Martz held it up and it didn't brake. Oh, and in my opinion, yesterday was a 6/10.
The spotlights (including me) have improved quite a lot from the beginning.
We don't swoon as much, and we actually black out the same time sometimes!!
Another disapointing thing was that the spotlighters' names were not on the brochure.

I hope Odd Couple does great.

Last Performance

Encore
The last show of "Laugh In" was last night and it went fairly well. Brenna was out so Philip was filling in on lights. He only messed up once near the beginning when he messed up the preset and turned the house lights on leaving the audience confused. Mr. Martz came rushing up stairs fixing all of his mistakes. Follow spots did OK last night too. Only missing and "swooping" a couple of times. Sound was also pretty nice. We only got a couple complaints that the "Wedding Music" was too loud and nobody could hear the actors. Over all I gave last night a 7/10. The actors did alright and so did the techies. We definitely had a blast doing this show and we hope to have even more fun next time for "Odd Couple"!

Second Performance

Encore
The second performance of "Laugh In" went extremely well! There were hardly any mess ups on the techies behalf. Except for a few follow spot problems we managed to have a 9/10 show. The sound board mics were fixed and we got all of our cues down right. The one time that things started to look sour was when a stage-hand techie tripped over a cable sending a $400 amplifier that was feebly standing up down. Other then that we had very good audio and lights. The thespians did a great job at mastering their part last night. They seem less nervous and more comfortable in front of an audience now. This is their first show of the year and their last performance is tonight at 7:00 at Ligon. Please try to make because it is one awesome show when done right. Hopefully it will all do OK tonight because our light operator, Brenna is out and Philip, who barely knows anything about lights, is filling in. Pray to God that he does not screw up.

First Performance

Encore
The first performance of "Laugh In" was today and my personal opinion is: it sucked. The actors were pretty good I'm not exactly sure how many times they messed up but we had a LOT of technical difficulties. First off the 6th graders on spot lights never actually "hit" their target, Brenna did a pretty good job on the light board only messing up maybe 1nce or 2ce. The sound however had maybe close to the most problems. The worst though was in the beginning of the 2nd act, Kagwe came out to do his bit and he was wearing a mic. Mic 6. Nobody told me (Jake) that he was wearing a mic that was almost all the way up on the board. When he said the first line feedback echoed all around the auditorium. I (Jake) quickly fixed the problem. Other setbacks would be that a giant flat that was the Joke Wall was broken today while moving it on stage for the first time. Also nobody in the booth or backstage could hear during the performance. All of us in the booth were winging it at act 2. With help from Mr. Martz (who was on the stagemanager mic) gave us most directions. Unfortunatly I would have to give the overall performance a 5/10. Altough the actors did a decent job (minus a couple pregnant pauses and nervousness) the technical portion of the play definatly dragged the score from a possible 8/10 to 5/10. Hopefully we can master the cues and technical problems before the next show. (tommorow at 7:00)

Encore--Laugh In

Encore
The Encore ensemble is doing a show called "Laugh In". The show is about the old TV show "Laugh In" with all the same old characters. The show features Paul Hardman and Jared Greene. Also headlining will be Eric Price, Jason Wood, Simone Gregor, Kagwe Muchane, and Gabby Fienstien. The dates for the show are October 23, October 24, and October 25. Admission is $3 students and $5 adults. The shows start at 2:30 for the 23rd and 7:00 for the 24th and 25th. The show is lots of fun and very funny. Not reccomended for young children.
In the boothe is
Brenna Stallings- Lights
Jake Phillips- Sound
Philip Bartholomew- On Deck