Opening Night: Evaluation 7 June 2007

WOW! What a show. Everything went smoothly except for two miner screw ups. (I was part of one of them.) The whole production team: actors, designers and directors met up early to get psyched up. We played bang as a warm-up game and I sadly lost quite quickly. We then chatted, put on makeup and ran through the final check list of SFX and LFX. The ninth graders had their productions first and they were surprisingly good. I expected something more elementary, but they were really touching. Finally with a small interval, it was time to prepare. Seb and I took our places in the tech booth and waited for our cue to begin. The play started out brilliant. Everyone did their part well and the crowd was captured. The lighting worked well to portray certain emotions and my sound really helped explain the setting and certain actions on stage.

All, except one actor played perfectly. Christi had missed nearly all of our rehearsals and lessons of preparation. She messed up a couple of lines and missed some cues. Besides that it was fine. She even managed to put on an alluring accent to add to the setting of the play. I must admit that I messed up too. While playing one SFX I accidentally pressed the space bar a second time initiating the next SFX. I quickly corrected the sound by stopping it. It managed to play for maybe one second so it didn’t affect the play much. I saw it as more of a foreshadowing of the somber tune to come.

When it was finished the crowd roared with satisfaction. They more or less portrayed the feeling we all had as it was done. I feel that everyone played an excellent part. The costume and set designers really pulled the whole play together with their props and clothing ideas. The actors managed to remember their lines and produced an amazing piece. The tech crew, even though behind schedule most of the time, performed almost flawlessly and finally the director; they were the core of this project. They organized the whole production and made us all work together. It seemed to go on and become a catastrophe, but managed to be a successful showing in the end!