Trial of Sharp War

Jason and Daniel volunteered for rain duty.

Jason gestures to the audience.

Last week we did another rain test, our fourth. Two student stagedogs (the workers' term for themselves), Jason Anderson and Daniel Recker volunteered for the soaking. The water coming out of the pipe is warm, so while they were in the "storm," they were comfortable, but afterwards they were quite chilly. Of course, these guys were in street clothes, so I'm imagining that costumed actors will find their clothes uncomfortably heavy.

The rain is starting to look good. The width and depth of the rain on the stage looks convincing.

We are still trying to work out how best to light the rain in order for it to show up for the audience. Side light seems to work much better than top or bottom or front or back, hanging lights high and low from the side of the stage is where we are right now. Tonight we have the actual actors in the rain. That should be interesting. . . . The guy hollering in the video (below) is production manager manager Rod McCarty. He is all over getting the rain effect up and running.

Lights Burn Blue

Behind the curtain at the stage manager's
desk from which he calls the show

Today is all-day dry tech. That's theatrespeak for a technical rehearsal with no actors present. Basically, I sit at the director's desk about mid-way back in the house with the lighting designer (Rich Streeter) and the stage manager (Tim Endean), and together we set levels and timings (how long a sound or light fade will be, where it will come in the script, etc.) for the whole show. Rich (and later sound designer Bob Johansen) comes with his best ideas, and then I tweak/readjust/edit so that the show looks, sounds, and feels the way I think it should.

Richard III: The Terrible Reign is fairly tech-heavy. Lots of exact timings on lights, doors opening and closing, spooky music, clanging, and so on. There is give-and-take and lots of collaboration. It's a ton of stress (the first three scenes today took three hours), but it's the first time the show begins to really look like a show. I love it.