A Behind the Scenes Look at Summer to Learn from and Remember…

So now that summer has started everyone who is associated with the school systems, teachers, students, etc. begin looking for summer jobs. I’ve found mine, which by the way is considered to be an internship according to my town but I’m getting paid to do work that I love with people that I love. I work as part of a stage crew for our town’s park which on every night of the week, excluding mondays, contracts artists to perform theater and musical shows. I’m getting the most amazing chance to work with college aged people and professionals who know a good chunk of valuable information about the technical side of theater and shows. I considered myself a “lighting person” until my second or third day of actually working there at the park, and I realized that I know nothing about lighting. My high school stage director had assigned my to be head lighting person, and by the summer of sophomore year I had realized that all that meant was I was the special one who got to push the button the made the lights change for the next scene and if something went wrong, I was to blame, not my prodigy would followed the script to tell me when the cues were coming up. I used to be that person. And it doesn’t sound great but that person has a better job than the head of lighting. By the shows open everyone in the crew knew all the lines and props better than the actors so the lighting prodigy pretty much got to hang out.
However this summer I’m getting the chance to work with and learn from awesome (and I mean awesome) people that can teach me sound and lighting which I’m so psyched about. Evan, one of the guys I work with let me take over the lightboard last tuesday for a small show and it was one of the coolest and most thrilling experiences actually being able to play around with the light and discover and learn for myself. With wise words Evan left me with the lightboard and went backstage. I didn’t screw up but that’s because all it took was those first five minutes to become accustom to the new environment and figure it out. I know and fully admit to being somewhat of a “stagecrew” geek but when you find something you love this much its hard to hide the passion.

BoDash

~ by bodash on July 10, 2008.