tech-a-doodle-dingbat

Currently in a tech/spacing rehearsal at the Paramount theatre in downtown Charlottesville. This is the kind of up-to-the-minute live blogging you've come to expect from Opera America's Blog of the Month. Later this afternoon we are fixing some trouble spots and having a costume parade. Yeah, that's right. A costume parade. It sounds so festive, right? Like we should be sitting on a float and throwing hard candies at little kids. I don't remember the last show I was in that had a costume parade.

Ahhhhh, tech rehearsal. You can just feel the good will slowly drift out to a sea of snappy, snarky bitchiness. I usually remain mute during most tech rehearsals because I don't want to add to the general chaos, and am thus perceived to be angry. I also don't deal well with yelling, so when the director tells us to hold, my blood pressure instantly increases. That's where speaking quietly on a god mike can be a godsend. But when there isn't a mike, the yelling makes me go crazy. I know it's only so the director can be heard, but still I can't take it.

Also, the whole "can we take it from..." conversations that take during tech are CRAZY. Invariably, the director will say "I want to take it from where the Count walks around the desk." The rehearsal pianist will say "what measure is that?" And then the conductor will say, "what are the words there?" - or some such exchange. There shoud be a person whose job it is to liase between all parties, translate, and communicate in a clear, light tone just exactly what the $%@& we are supposed to be doing.

It just occurred to me there is such a person. His name is Alex Farino! Where are you alf?

Gotta get ready for the parade. I hope I don't drop my baton!!!

AW