Friday, June 11, 2021

the final curtain

 Tonight was the big show, the grand finale, the campers' performance for their families.  The theater was packed, SRO, and the children all did well, except for a few tiny things.  I arrived in good time to be trained in running the lights.  The real theater tech had everything programed into the system and all I had to do was push one button, cleverly labeled 'go' at each change of scene, and, oh yes, there was one other button, a big red slide actually, that she cleverly called the 'heart attack button.'  It brought up all the lights very quickly in case someone falls off the stage or has some other catastrophe.  Luckily that didn't happen.  However, during the one and only full rehearsal, right before the actual show, they ran the numbers in a completely different order than what was printed on the program, from which she had programmed the whole show.  So suddenly, instead of one button, I had a mouse and a lot more flexibility, and more responsibility.  Happily, I had it all figured out by the end of the rehearsal, which is when the choir director came to our booth and informed us that he had it wrong and we would be following the original printed order.  So there I was, back to the original one button. So easy.  My part went very well for the rest of the evening. Sadly, one of the littlest singers threw up while they were all lining up for the opening songs, which were performed with the children standing in a large U until the mess, quickly covered with a mass of paper towels, could be really cleaned up by the custodian.  Live theater is such fun. 

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