The Cure for the Short Attention Span...
I'm laughing at myself today, because I'm looking at what all I've done in the past week. I know I have diverse tastes and interests, but sometimes even I look at it all and go, whoa...that's kinda crazy. (Bear with me, I'm going to be talking a lot about myself here...it's not to boast, I'm trying to illustrate a point.)
Yesterday, I didn't go to work at Lagoon. I went to work at Park City, the Egyptian Theater. Their technical director has been our lighting designer at Lagoon for ages, and I've gotten to know him pretty well. When I first started doing stuff up there, it was always just helping him with lights...hanging, focusing, or striking them. Then he called on the off chance I'd be interested in running sound (this was a couple of years ago)...I had a good time, but I'll be happy if I never see Oliver! again in my life after that show run...
I helped build and paint Seussical for them before Christmas. And this time, instead of helping Seth with lighting stuff, I was again helping with the set (they're doing The Full Monty...and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun...) I was reminded, several times, of my earlier post about designers and their excesses, though (it was shades of Dennis...their set designer has been adding and adding bits and pieces to the set, stuff that had initially been cut from the design because of time or budget considerations that he really wanted to add back in...and as a result, there's a whole section of the deck that HASN'T been painted yet, and they were building and painting stuff right up until I left yesterday...about half an hour before the cast was supposed to show up for rehearsal. Hope they got it all out of the way in time...)
Then I left Park City to drive to Clearfield, because a friend of mine hooked me up with a makeup design job for a show there (it's I Do! I Do! Have to admit, this has been changing my opinion of the show, because my only exposure to it prior to this was when UFOC did it in '98... and Ryan's a lot more fun to watch on stage than Michael Ballam.) It's a community theater production...but they're paying me pretty well to come in and teach Ryan and Sally how to do their old-age makeup. It was one of those jobs that I wasn't even looking for...just kind of landed in my lap. I have been having a lot of those lately.
I spent my weekend taking care of horses and working on armor (I'm getting ready to try 'heavy fighting' in the SCA...I've been doing fencing for years, and have actually gotten pretty good. I was glad I had the experience with that when I choreographed the duel for Dangerous Liaisons...which, by the way, I'm not sure I've ever thanked Kevin for suggesting my name. So if I haven't, thanks, Kevin...I had a REALLY good time (for a change, considering it was a Linford/Hassan show), and I got a lot of positive feedback from people about how the duel went.)
I've been building storage shelves at Lagoon (the park carpenters are swamped with projects, I figured things would get done faster if I did it myself.) That, on top of repairing costumes, and rebuilding props, and organizing all the wardrobe spaces...at auditions, when our director was introducing the staff, he'd introduce me and say, "Curtis is in charge of wardrobe...and does a lot of other stuff for us..." (my take on it is, I'm the guy they turn to with the jobs nobody else wants/knows how to do.) That's one of the things I love about that job...it's always changing.
And I'm trying to put together a prop-building team for a film someone's going to be making, here in the state...a comedy with a Mad-Max feel (we get to trick out some motorcycles!)
I admit it...I'm a variety junkie. There are some areas that I'm more inclined to show interest for...but routine kills me. I'd never survive in a 9-5 world (for one thing, I'm natural prone to waking up at 10...) I've tried having 'regular' jobs, and I was struggling to keep myself involved in my work within months. It's a good thing I found theater for a career...because I don't know if I could make a living doing anything else, and still live with myself.
Yeah, forgive the cliche...but Variety IS the spice of life. And mine is Extra Zesty.
I'm laughing at myself today, because I'm looking at what all I've done in the past week. I know I have diverse tastes and interests, but sometimes even I look at it all and go, whoa...that's kinda crazy. (Bear with me, I'm going to be talking a lot about myself here...it's not to boast, I'm trying to illustrate a point.)
Yesterday, I didn't go to work at Lagoon. I went to work at Park City, the Egyptian Theater. Their technical director has been our lighting designer at Lagoon for ages, and I've gotten to know him pretty well. When I first started doing stuff up there, it was always just helping him with lights...hanging, focusing, or striking them. Then he called on the off chance I'd be interested in running sound (this was a couple of years ago)...I had a good time, but I'll be happy if I never see Oliver! again in my life after that show run...
I helped build and paint Seussical for them before Christmas. And this time, instead of helping Seth with lighting stuff, I was again helping with the set (they're doing The Full Monty...and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun...) I was reminded, several times, of my earlier post about designers and their excesses, though (it was shades of Dennis...their set designer has been adding and adding bits and pieces to the set, stuff that had initially been cut from the design because of time or budget considerations that he really wanted to add back in...and as a result, there's a whole section of the deck that HASN'T been painted yet, and they were building and painting stuff right up until I left yesterday...about half an hour before the cast was supposed to show up for rehearsal. Hope they got it all out of the way in time...)
Then I left Park City to drive to Clearfield, because a friend of mine hooked me up with a makeup design job for a show there (it's I Do! I Do! Have to admit, this has been changing my opinion of the show, because my only exposure to it prior to this was when UFOC did it in '98... and Ryan's a lot more fun to watch on stage than Michael Ballam.) It's a community theater production...but they're paying me pretty well to come in and teach Ryan and Sally how to do their old-age makeup. It was one of those jobs that I wasn't even looking for...just kind of landed in my lap. I have been having a lot of those lately.
I spent my weekend taking care of horses and working on armor (I'm getting ready to try 'heavy fighting' in the SCA...I've been doing fencing for years, and have actually gotten pretty good. I was glad I had the experience with that when I choreographed the duel for Dangerous Liaisons...which, by the way, I'm not sure I've ever thanked Kevin for suggesting my name. So if I haven't, thanks, Kevin...I had a REALLY good time (for a change, considering it was a Linford/Hassan show), and I got a lot of positive feedback from people about how the duel went.)
I've been building storage shelves at Lagoon (the park carpenters are swamped with projects, I figured things would get done faster if I did it myself.) That, on top of repairing costumes, and rebuilding props, and organizing all the wardrobe spaces...at auditions, when our director was introducing the staff, he'd introduce me and say, "Curtis is in charge of wardrobe...and does a lot of other stuff for us..." (my take on it is, I'm the guy they turn to with the jobs nobody else wants/knows how to do.) That's one of the things I love about that job...it's always changing.
And I'm trying to put together a prop-building team for a film someone's going to be making, here in the state...a comedy with a Mad-Max feel (we get to trick out some motorcycles!)
I admit it...I'm a variety junkie. There are some areas that I'm more inclined to show interest for...but routine kills me. I'd never survive in a 9-5 world (for one thing, I'm natural prone to waking up at 10...) I've tried having 'regular' jobs, and I was struggling to keep myself involved in my work within months. It's a good thing I found theater for a career...because I don't know if I could make a living doing anything else, and still live with myself.
Yeah, forgive the cliche...but Variety IS the spice of life. And mine is Extra Zesty.
posted by Curtis at 10:28 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home