October 2 – Day 26: The Dawning of the Tech Era


While I’ve threatened in the past that these posts were going to be short, the next few will definitely be, if only because I was too busy to do anything.

Tuesday was our first tech day. The original plan was to report to the theatre at 4:00, then work until 11:00 on teching the show (that is, incorporating the scenic, lighting, and sound elements, as well as props).

As threatened, I got up late, had a bit of breakfast, then walked up to the theatre. I had a tentative plan to make a couple of stops on the way, but ended up just going straight there. It was only about an hour, and the weather was reasonably nice (warm and sunny, but still humid), and I’ve always enjoyed that walk up Park Avenue.

I overestimated my travel time and, despite the call time, arrived a little after 3:00. It was exciting to see our poster on the front of the building, and I sat in the theatre a little while, but quickly became bored, so I went down to the dressing room. (The weird thing was that that same scaffolding was up there last year [for no apparent reason], but was removed just before Sam closed.)

 
 
Not quite my name up in lights,
but it's probably as close as I'm going to get.

There are two dressing rooms on our level of the theatre. One is right next to our theatre (this is the one we used during Sam and Dede), the other is right below it, but is accessible only by using a spiral staircase. We, of course have this one. It’s an okay room (though I quickly got tired of that staircase), but putting seven people in it makes it a little crowded, especially when the curtain between the men’s and women’s sides of the room is included. (Trish, who plays Howard Campbell’s wife, among other roles) had already come to the conclusion that, in a couple of weeks (if not already), we’ll all be so used to each other that that curtain will be useless. She’s probably right.

I claimed a spot in the dressing room, surfed a little while (despite the wifi being terrible down there in the bowels of the theatre), then, as it got close to 4:00, I went upstairs to say hello to everyone and get the tour. There wasn’t a lot to see other than getting familiar with the set, but it was good to get reacquainted. One thing that surprised me is that, when we were here last year, on our second full day in the space, the entire staff of 59E59 introduced themselves and gave us temporary memberships to the theatre. (I’m writing this on Thursday night, and we still haven’t seen them. I hope they drop by Friday, even if we can’t spare the time.)

Even though we were scheduled to start at 4:00, in the 45-plus years I’ve been in the theatre, I have never been to a tech rehearsal that started on time. There’s always something that prevents it, but it’s something a person expects and gets used to. We finally got started at 6:30, and while I think the plan was to get through most (if not all) of Act I, we got only to the beginning of my first scene.

We took a dinner break at about 8:00, and no one had any idea where to eat. I searched on Yelp and found a sandwich place, Angela’s, on 6th between 57th and 58th, and walked there with Elizabeth (our ASM) and Andi (who plays the OSS agent Frances Wertanin, among other roles). Andi ended up going somewhere else, but Elizabeth and I got what turned out to be pretty good sandwiches. I’d think about going back, but A) I usually don’t like to eat before a show, and B) it’s a little farther than I’d like to walk.

 It really was about this cramped in there.

We finished at 11:00, and while I normally might have walked home, since we had to be back at 11:00 the next morning, time was of the essence. This was a good plan except, when I took the 6, it completely bypassed every station between 14th Street and the terminus of Brooklyn Bridge, so I had to get out, cross over to the uptown side, and go all the way back to 8th Street. The good thing was that it was raining pretty well, and the streets were all but empty, so I got home quickly.

My plan was to turn in by 1:00, but circumstances interfered, much to my discomfort on Wednesday.

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