It’s been a pretty amazing (and overwhelming) two weeks since I last posted.  Two milestones:  We officially began curricular activity in the Mainstage and…wait for it….Chairs!

Here’s the understructure of the first bit of scenery to hit the theatre in almost a year.

Turn around and the first of the new chairs could be seen!Those large boxes at the top of the frame are full of chair parts.  At the time I took this picture, there were some 280 more just beyond that exit sign.  The lobby was a cardboard fort of chair boxes!

The students moved quickly on the set as the seating was being installed.

Over the course of three days, the seating filled in. 

On Tuesday, February 20th it looks like this:Carpeting is next.  I expect that will happen very soon and should tie the color scheme together.

I turned my attention to the sound system infrastructure.  The last of our reclaimed gear was returned from storage so we are finally getting the full picture of what we have and what we need.  My first order of business was to tackle the tangle of audio/video/com cables in the control booth.  When the cleaning crews pulled out all the sound equipment, they “bundled and bagged” the cables.  Nearly 50 years worth of cables were bunched together in this mess. 

With the help of intrepid recent graduate Kristian Wiborg, we got it sorted out.  As a bonus we removed most of the legacy cabling.  It’s not quite clean and mean yet, but a big step forward in organization.  Hooking all of it up to the various boxes with knobs and dials that make sound/coms/video happen is next.

And last but not least, I’ve been investing time in the assembly of the CNC milling machine whenever possible.  So far it’s been going well and I’ve only needed to search the internet 4 or 5 times for pictures to see what parts go where and how.

This picture is a bit out of date, actually.  I think I’m about half way through the assembly and have completed the hardware portion.  Wiring and calibration is coming up.

There’s been quite a bit of hub-bub about the rigging system going on.  We found out that one of our counterweight tracks was out of alignment and probably has been since its installation in the late 60’s.  This created an unwieldy situation with some minor safety concerns.  We worked with the Clearwing riggers to come up with a solution and actually have two attractive possibilities we can choose from.  We’re still weighing which we’ll go with.

Mike, one of the key riggers from Clearwing who installed the system graciously offered to do training for anyone interested.  I quickly jumped on that that offer and Mike took over two days of my Stagecraft course to give the students a master class in counterweight systems.  I love it when students benefit from our situation and will continue to leverage it whenever possible.

For now, it’s time to get our first show up!  We’ve got some very active (and likely somewhat stressful) days ahead of us but it’s also very exciting and satisfying to see it coming together.