42nd Street Week 2 Recap

I haven't been posting very regularly since we started rehearsal. It's been a crazy process and I haven't had much free time, or the mental energy to relive my day after I get home. I have been taking some pictures with the intention of sharing them, so I will try to catch you up.

Now that we've got something very closely resembling a show going on on the stage of the Robinson Theatre, here's what's been going on:

First of all, let me introduce Jameson, our company's "Spiritual Frog."
He sort of showed up one day and I really wasn't sure where he came from or why he was there. His origins are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but he apparently originated with the ensemble men, following them around to various rehearsals and watching over them. When we started working on stage, he was placed in a position of honor between the center footlights on the pit rail, so he could keep a good eye on us. These days he's no longer perched on the cardboard box, he fits quite nicely below the masking for the footlights, where I'm sure he will remain for the run. Update: he's now on top of the piano in the pit, where his view of the stage is somewhat reduced. I'm going to try to get him back on the pit rail, as I think he's helped us out on a few occasions.

You may remember our "Lullaby of Broadway" set that was juuust a little too tall. Here it is in tech, with the top platform and escape stairs cut down by a couple feet.
And here's a typical view from my corner of the tech table:I don't know where my headset is. I'm probably wearing it. But I you can see the little leather baggie that I use to keep my own personal headset safe and separate so it doesn't get mixed in with the theatre's. One of these days I'm going to get a nice hard case for it, as the baggie would do nothing to prevent it from getting crushed.

So tech has been going well. This show is all about quickchanges, and we took some time before our first dress last night to talk through all the major changes so the cast could figure out where to preset their costumes in the wings and work out the traffic. For the most part it worked. We had to stop only once, at the end of "Dames" which features a ginormous quickchange right in the middle of the number. Our goal for tonight is to make that change. There were a few other hiccups, with one or two people scrambling on late, but nothing to stop the show.

We had our sitzprobe with the orchestra on Sunday night, which I managed to get through efficiently while stealing selected people out of the dance rehearsal across the hall. The orchestra sounds great, and it always perks up the cast to hear them for the first time. I had arranged for the whole ensemble to come in and listen to the ballet, but alas time was short and better spent on stage dancing the ballet, so after singing "Sunny Side" they had to leave.

Tonight is our first run with the orchestra.

Allentown, We Have a Problem

M.J. demonstrates why the railway station is just a little too tall.

That's the platform the cast is supposed to enter on. We knew what was going to happen as soon as the set was unloaded, but today the crew assembled the station stair unit, giving a visual element to the assessment that it's HUUUUUGE!!!!

But I learned something today that made the whole set at least make a little more sense. This is a national tour set. See, I was under the impression that it was a large but second-rate touring set. So when I would hear things like some of the drops are over 50 feet tall, I remarked at the production meeting, "Where did they expect to take this, the Fox?" Well, uh, I guess they probably did. Maybe more than once, to more than one of the gargantuan Fox Theatres. Under its worn paint and chipped plywood detail work, I hadn't noticed that it's all made of steel. It also explains why certain corners weren't cut in the design where you'd expect a touring set to be made more manageable. The railway station is a perfect example. It's huge and there are so many pieces, why would anyone ever want to drag all that around and try to cram it into a variety of theatres? Well when you picture it on a national tour it seems perfectly reasonable. Of course the Robinson Theatre is not the Fox. Ideal height of a drop custom made for our theatre: 17 feet (height is a major inconvenience on every show). I believe the grid height is 36 feet, meaning a 53ft tall drop stood up on our stage would be several stories taller than the roof of the building.

I'm not sure exactly which tour the set is from, nor do I know anything about the tours of the original production of 42nd Street to make that determination, but the set has obviously been around the block a few times, so I wouldn't doubt that it could be from the '80s. I'll have to see if I can find out. At any rate, this is one of the things we will have to figure out in the coming days.

Meeting the Dancing Feet

We had our first rehearsal for 42nd Street today. Some of the principals worked on vocals in the daytime and in the evening the full company came together for the meet & greet, then the ensemble learned their vocals, and then went to work on the opening number. They learned the whole thing and it would be no exaggeration to say they tapped up a storm. This is going to be a great company, and there are a number of dancers with whom I've done prior Reagle shows, but haven't seen in a while and am very glad to be working with again.

Meanwhile on stage the crew is going full steam to put this huge set together. The set was just purchased by Reagle at the end of last summer, and this is the first time it will be used. It came in a bit of disrepair from its former owner, and this production will be an opportunity for the Reagle crew to work their magic and refurbish it so that it will be ready for rental to other theatres around the country. The sets, props and costumes that Reagle owns are a great source of additional income. Singin' in the Rain went to Oklahoma as soon as we were done with it, and I believe they open very soon, and the gorgeous Crazy for You package, which is the original Toronto production sets, props and costumes (Robin Wagner, William Ivey Long -- it's amazing), has just returned from Ogunquit Playhouse and will soon be going off somewhere else. I believe the new King and I set is also being saved for future rentals. So getting this set in shape will have benefits far beyond just the next four weeks.

Large objects are springing up hourly. Here we have various pieces of the train cars:
At one point I came out of the shop and onto the stage expecting to look out into the house and found a giant wall had appeared since the last time I passed through. This is the "Maison des Dames," a flown contraption of velour, muslin and hard flats with a set of doors that is used at the beginning of the "Dames" number. The front is quite nice, although it needs a lot of love at the moment to fix some tears and broken moulding.
I believe tomorrow's agenda is for the big railway station set to be assembled.

Also, here are a few shots from the strike of The King and I.
Following the path of exiting scenery, from stage left past the prop table, off the loading dock and into the warehouse across the parking lot.

King and I Final Week

We are quickly coming to the end of our run of The King and I. A large chunk of the 42nd Street set has infiltrated the back of the shop, as seen at right. The metal things in front are the marquee signs for the ballet, which have a place in my heart as I built all the marquees by myself when I did the show in high school. We don't have a lot of height on our stage, so we will have to see if we can use all of them. One of the big vertical signs is 15 ft. tall, which will fit, but may or may not look silly.

I have to explain this photo. A couple performances ago, a mysterious paper fish on a stick appeared swimming across my booth window. I found this an excellent piece of entertainment during a long show, and the fish made several more appearances. Eventually it was joined by a squid or octopus of sorts, and they would have some sort of a battle. Tonight things quickly advanced: the fish and squid were present, but were later replaced by a shark and a larger octopus, who also did battle. In what I thought would be the highlight of my night, the fish appeared swimming peacefully, when a can perhaps representing a discarded piece of trash or a toxic spill floated down into view, causing the fish to go belly-up. Little did I know.

It was during Act I Sc. 7, Anna's bedroom, that I was minding my business watching the scene, when I detected another stirring below the booth window. I was looking forward to seeing what was coming next, but completely unprepared for what happened. In one smooth motion, a complete panorama of suspended sea creatures was hung over the entire center panel of the booth window. I didn't even have a chance to see it all before I completely lost it. I spent the rest of the scene laughing with tears streaming down my face and gasping for enough breath to give my warnings. They were only up for a few seconds because the ends had to be held by hand. By the start of the second act I was ready to enjoy them calmly, and as soon as the Entr'Acte began they were put back up with tape (which is when I took the picture, which doesn't even show the full width of the display), and I happily called the rest of the show with my new sea creature friends.

Also, a small note in honor of a Reagle landmark:
This the majestic Eagle Lake, sometimes called Lake Eagle. We've had a few days of rain, and the lake was in full form today in our parking area most used by crew and orchestra. This isn't the biggest it gets, as the rain has been intermittent, but this is the biggest I've seen it this year. I made the mistake of not pulling all the way up to the edge of the warehouse and had to go wading to get my bag out of the trunk.

Just a few more performances and we're on to the final show of the season.

42nd Street Pre-production

It's our second week of the run of The King and I, and I'm starting pre-production on 42nd Street. On this, our third consecutive day off (I love this schedule!) I swung by the theatre to pick up some mail, and the casting worksheet and contact info for our 42nd Street cast.

My first step is to go through the cast list and make some kind of mark next to the names of people I've worked with before. These will be the first to go on the contact sheet, by copying and pasting from previous contact sheets. If I have their resume in my pile, I will double-check that the info I have matches the presumably more-recent info on their resume. Since I'm in no hurry, I will take the opportunity to update my personal contact files on my computer as I go along, so that my computer and phone will have everybody's numbers on them as early as possible, before I need to call or e-mail anyone. When I get too many of them too close to rehearsals, or on the first day of rehearsal, it can be hard to find time to properly update everything. So I'm very glad to have gotten that out of the way.

Our director, Eileen Grace, has sent me her tentative schedule for the rehearsal period. I checked it for errors regarding allowed hours under Equity rules, sent back a couple notes and questions, and then will send it out to the actors I have e-mail addresses for when it's ready. With that I have also started my calendar (see this post for the template) based on her schedule. I will fill in the details for tech and dress rehearsals after we decide on them at our production meeting.

Putting a show together is like a puzzle... the next ball I have in the air is the production meeting. Eileen and I have decided on 11:30AM next Tuesday, so I have now reached the point where I'm ready to send out an invitation to everyone else to find out if they can attend. But in order to do that I need to know who "everyone else" is, and there were a few I thought might be changing. A few e-mails answered the questions I had about sound engineer and prop master, and finally I'm able to send out the invitation.

With that straightened out, I was also able to make my "42nd Street Reports" group in Entourage, with all the e-mail addresses of everyone who will receive the report. See this post for more details about the report. I've even updated my rehearsal report template to change King and I to 42nd Street, so that will be ready to go on the day of the first rehearsal. The performance report is a separate template, so I can still use the King and I version of that.

The whole thing has only taken me about three hours, so not too much of a dent in my day off, but a big help in getting things ready for the next show before things start to get crazy. In fact, for both shows on Saturday most of the off-topic discussion on headset was about 42nd Street. Things like load-out, the lighting plot for the next show and how similar it will be, and how that will affect the time needed for lighting load-out and hanging for the next show. I was mostly just listening, but for the tech director, production manager and master electrician to be able to sort stuff like that out, it's pretty helpful.

It's a good feeling to be ahead of the game going into the last show. It's an even better feeling once the last show opens to not have to worry about another show after it. But then of course comes the feeling of, "Oh my God, I don't have a job!!" and "What do you mean I'm not getting a paycheck next week?" It's very easy to fall into a routine and forget what a blessing it is to get a regular paycheck, especially one you can live on. I have one sort-of-job on the horizon, should nothing else come up, but I would love it if I had a real show lined up by the time I leave Reagle.

We're in the money!

As I was talking to someone in the back shop during intermission tonight, I saw this over their shoulder and suddenly exclaimed, "Dimes!" I guess they got a chance to dig into the 42nd Street truck during the day. Aside from $1.80 in dimes and some luggage, I haven't seen what else might have been unloaded, but it was enough to get me excited. I rarely if ever look forward to going back into production, but I love 42nd Street, and I think it will be a very fun way to end the season.

We had our official opening night tonight and a little party in the lobby after the show. Things are still going well. We have our only two-show day tomorrow. So far I don't have any grand plans between shows. I hope to get an opportunity to battle my Pokemon against Nick, who is the deck electrician on this show, and all to blame for the fact that I am playing Pokemon at all. We keep meaning to have a battle, but this putting-on-a-show thing keeps getting in the way.

King and I Opening

We had our first performance today, a matinee. Well it was a matinee when it started, at least. This show is long. The running time hasn't changed very much at all through tech, but the show has always felt so fast that I would stare at my notes checking and double-checking my math, thinking there's no way it can be 2:42 without intermission. It's now down to 2:40, but the house generally requires a 20-minute intermission, and God help us if we go up late. Today we started at 2:12, which was not the best way to begin a 3-hour show. We had some latecomers, a lot of whom were elderly and in various stages of disability, there was a line for the wheelchair lift, and by the time everyone was settled in, our estimated end time was approaching Les Miz proportions. And I'm not talking about Les Miz after the cuts.

Also at the performance were the students from Reagle's summer theatre camp. There are about 80 students for the camp's second year of operation. The camp is taught by members of the Reagle staff with master classes from visiting artists and technical personnel from the summer shows. Earlier this week the kids had a class with choreographer Gemze de Lappe, along with some of the show's dancers, where they learned choreography from the show. We had a talkback with them after the show, which was attended by more cast members than I expected, enough that we couldn't all sit on the edge of the stage. The kids were very enthusiastic, asking good questions. I can tell from these events that before they see the show they have spent time learning about it. Next week they will have their master class with me, which will be held at the theatre and include a backstage tour. I have a great time with that kind of stuff, and I can tell they'll be a good group.

The show itself went very well, and we had a larger audience than I was expecting. I had heard numbers like 800 being thrown around a couple days ago, but I don't think I believed them. In my very unscientific estimate out the booth window, I'd say it was closer to 900. Anyway, it's already a bigger house than any on the last show. We've got a few production photos up on the website now, which were taken at our dress on Tuesday (minus a final coat of paint on some of the set), courtesy of production photographer Herb Philpott. This one captures best what I sometimes stop and gape at in certain cues:Set: gorgeous. Costumes: gorgeous. Lighting: gorgeous. And all gorgeous in harmony with each other. This show is pretty. It's not fast, it's not difficult, but it just looks so good I feel like I'm still doing something helpful.

New Discoveries

iGlasses
Have you heard the news that the new Macbook Pros have a 1.3MP camera in them? Very exciting to get something you didn't know you were getting. Doesn't look like any apps can take advantage of that yet, but surely it's a sign of better things to come. The test app mentioned in the link is now available for download to be played with by all. You can see the video is quite slow, so some work will have to be done to make real-time video at this resolution practical. But if you just want to take a better snapshot with your camera, you can use this little app and have it saved to the desktop.

All this talk about the camera drew my attention to an app called iGlasses. I hadn't yet gotten around to digging up the best apps for camera-having Macs, and I think this one is a keeper. And at only $8, the improvement in picture quality is more than worth it to me. The terrible single-source florescent lighting in my summer apartment has made for some very dark video chats, and iGlasses' "enhanced" setting immediately improved the brightness to a normal level. It also features some funky options to entertain or annoy your chatting partner, depending on their perspective.

Using Protection
My assistant at Reagle has, as long as he's had his iBook, sworn by using a protective sheet over his keyboard to prevent finger oils from getting rubbed on the screen, and to keep the keys from pressing into the screen and leaving permanent marks. Personally I've always felt I was too busy to deal with such a thing, but this probably stems from the fact that my Powerbook had the "white spots" flaw, which began to show itself after two or three weeks of ownership, and I figured there was nothing the keys could do to the screen that would make it look any worse. Four years later, the screen has a full representation of the keyboard imprinted on it, which I can really only see when it's off. One day during rehearsal I was sitting in the lobby with the MBP, bathed in sunlight from the courtyard, and saw the faint outline of the very edges of my keys on the screen. It's one thing to let a defective screen go to hell, but this machine is being very good to me, and I was not treating it with the respect and care it deserves. I stopped at Staples on the dinner break to get some screen cleaner spray, and vowed to get to the Apple store as soon as I could to buy a proper cover for the keyboard.

You know every Apple laptop comes with a thin piece of foam that covers the keyboard during shipping. Some people keep this and continue to use it. But really, part of the experience of being a Mac owner is spending a bunch of money on a piece of cloth, secure in the knowledge that this is the only piece of cloth ever professionally manufactured specifically for the purpose of covering the keyboard of your machine.

This miracle device is included in the Marware Protection Pack. It's a piece of cloth. It's the size of the keyboard, except it's actually not. It would need to be a millimeter or two wider to be perfectly sized. But it's made of microfiber, which means it can also be used to clean the screen. While it's bigger than the microfiber cloth I normally carry for this purpose, at least it means I no longer have to carry that and keep it clean.

Also in the Protection Pack is a leathery protective sticker that covers the whole wrist rest area. I worry about my wrist rest because I have a metal clasp on the bottom of my watch (which I'm generally careful to keep elevated off the keyboard), and my PB has pitting on the aluminum where my right hand sits when using the trackpad (over the CD slot), and on the trackpad button. While I see this more as a testament to the hard work this machine has done, it's definitely not pretty. Based on my research, I decided the only thing uglier than the pitting was the Marware wrist rest cover. On a Macbook, especially a black one, the color of the laptop and the wrist rest might blend in. But there is a big difference between bare aluminum and a gray leathery thing. How could I make my MBP so ugly for its whole lifespan in the name of preventing it possibly becoming ugly years down the road? Unfortunately while Marware does sell the keyboard cover separately, the Apple Store only had them in the combo pack for $20. I decided since I was worried about the wrist rest it might be worth having the protective sticker just in case. I put the thing on just for kicks, and this was the result:It looks as professional as it can under the circumstances, although again it's not quite cut right to fit the trackpad perfectly. I played with it for a few minutes, took some pictures, and then closed the screen. It wouldn't latch. Maybe because of the four teeny-tiny bumpers around the top of the screen, maybe that made it just a little too thick. I don't care why. After several attempts to press the lid down, I pulled the sticker up and stuck it back on its backing and put it away. This to me was final confirmation that it's simply unnatural to cover up a MBP like that, and I will take my chances without it.

I was also interested in this trackpad protector. I've never had a problem with a trackpad, but as I said my PB's trackpad button is all messed up. It was reported to be basically invisible (it's on in that picture above), and it is. However, I did have a lot of trouble with the trackpad response. I have seen reviews saying it's fine, and some saying it's less responsive. I had trouble adjusting, but then again I had a lot of trouble with the MBP's trackpad when I first got it and now have gotten used to it. I didn't give it much time, not even a full day, before removing it. But I kept the button cover on, and saved the trackpad cover. The box actually comes with two of each, which is nice of them.

So after all that I am still using the keyboard cover and the protective sticker on the trackpad button, and I feel like I'm doing my part to keep my MBP in good condition.

Oh My God, It's a Truck!

When I arrived at the theatre today, I was shocked upon arriving at our parking lot to find a trailer parked at the loading dock. I was highly confused about what show we were doing, as it's not customary for a truck to show up on the day of the first dress rehearsal. I quickly realized that this must be the first of the 42nd Street trucks, arriving simply because it can. Reagle owns the set, which like all of the sets that they rent out, is stored in its trailers and parked at an off-site facility when it's not needed, packed and ready to be driven wherever it needs to go when rented. It won't be unloaded just yet, but as King and I's set is almost completely stored on the deck, there is lots of room in the shop for 42nd Street to start coming in and being put together during the run of King and I.

Tonight was our first dress rehearsal, first rehearsal with orchestra, and the first time we ran the show like a performance. Usually these things don't all happen on the same night, but the show is in such good shape, the slightly unconventional schedule shouldn't hurt us at all. I called the show from the booth tonight. This was only my second time calling a real run, and the first time to really get the uninterrupted flow of the show, but I find it so relaxing I didn't mind. Our master electrician suggested it because she reminded me that when I call from the tech table with the orchestra, the sound is so loud that it gets into my headset and drowns out the calls. I normally move to the booth for the Tuesday run, but usually having had the first dress on Monday to call from the tech table. The show is very quiet at times and we've had to really struggle for the crew to be able to talk quietly enough so it isn't distracting, but loud enough to hear each other. So as much as I wanted to stay in the house for one more day, it was more important that I be able to speak as much and as loudly as I have to, so I welcomed the move to the booth.The run went very well. I had to adjust a little bit, as always, to figure out what I'm listening for in the orchestra in cases where it sounds much different than it did on the piano. I'm having a great time calling this show. It's easy, but quite rewarding. All the design elements are beautiful and complement each other very well, I find the show itself funny and moving, the actors are great to watch, the dancers are amazing, the singers sound wonderful, the kids are cute. The show is looking to be a solid three hours with intermission, but I have not yet gotten bored while calling it. And calling the ballet is like its own little show-within-a-show, and while it's still relatively easy, it stretches slightly different stage management muscles, so it provides a nice change of pace for about ten minutes toward the beginning of the second act. We have one more dress rehearsal and then the first performance at 2:00 on Thursday.

King and I Tech

Done. We had a very successful tech today. Despite my bold predictions earlier in the week that we would be able to run the show or at least one act by tonight, we did not. We did, however, finish the show in less than our ten working hours. In fact -- I can't say I have ever had this experience -- we finished the show, let the cast go, had our production meeting, and stood up to go home at 9:55. Rehearsal was scheduled from 10AM - 10PM. We were all shocked that we were leaving before the day should even have been over.

We didn't really end that early, maybe 20 minutes at most. The tricky part was that we teched the show out of order. It's always an issue in shows with a large cast of young children, especially those that aren't getting paid, to figure out how to use the kids' time without unnecessarily keeping them up past their bedtime, or simply wearing them out to the point where a four-year-old just doesn't feel like going onstage or doing her blocking. So we called the kids first thing in the morning and teched all of their scenes first, which happen to also be the most complicated by virtue of having 50-something people on stage. After several hours the kids were dismissed, but we did not go back to the top of the show because the first scene change is an absolute nightmare, with only a silent and rather uncomplicated crossover to cover it. Anna, her son Louis and the Kralahome (King's prime minister) arrive at the palace. Two sailors are following with a large trunk. They cross from stage left to stage right. That's it. Meanwhile there's five pipes flying, and about 20 people on the deck required to move all the scenery (for which we've used some of the non-union cast to supplement the crew).

Because of all the people involved and the need to assign and teach the change to the cast, we began with scene two and teched from there until the lunch break. The crew set up the first scene during the break. It's on board a ship -- there's several flats including the ship's cabin and smokestack, the sides of the ship, a big paddle wheel thing, a bunch of crates and trunks -- a lot of it was supposed to be flown, but this goes back to the issue at the production meeting about ugly aircraft cables ruining the look. So before even attempting the scene we ran the scene change twice.

Because we weren't attempting to run the scene, I had the unique experience of being on the deck during a crazy scene change. Normally I sit comfortably at the tech table, call the drop in, and then listen on headset to frantic banging and squeaking and calls of "Fly this out! Over there! OK, clipped! Downstage! Bring it in!" then some more banging and squeaking, the sound of counterweights whizzing up and down on the rail, then a few calls of "We're ready. Are you ready over there? We look ready. OK, clear!" then I say, "Go," the drop flies, and there's a nice shiny new set on the stage. So when I realized this I went and got my camera. Unfortunately the video is not nearly as interesting as I hoped it would be. First of all I wasn't able to get it on at the beginning because I was given the honor of calling the start of the scene change and also fumbling to start a stopwatch. And then for some reason I turned the camera off before it was completely over, probably to stop my stopwatch, or maybe because I realized how lame the video already was. But here it is, shot from stage left.

It's not quite a well-oiled machine at this point (this was attempt #2, 1 minute 15 seconds), but after this we went back and ran from the beginning of the show through the scene change, and the crew and crewlike castmembers were done quite a bit before the onstage cast, who were expertly dragging out what could have been a 10-second cross into an entire play about people walking down a hallway. I'm sure it will only get faster. Actually, the show was written with a whole silent scene there in which we see the palace dancers preparing for the next scene in which they dance for the King -- purposely put there to fill time while this unavoidable Huge Scene Change takes place. The alternative if you have a quick scene change is for Anna and company to simply walk across the stage with their boxes in tow. We went the optimistic route, mostly because all the large pieces were supposed to fly, but I think it's going to be fine.

So after running that change successfully, we then skipped ahead to where we were when we broke for lunch, and continued from there in order, but skipping the second half of the last scene in Act I, which we covered earlier with the children. People love speculating about how long tech is going to take. I'm an optimistic person, but I'm also a realist, and I also know it's better to make pessimistic guesses so people won't be disappointed when it takes longer. By lunch we knew we were moving along well, and people would say so, but then in a low voice they would usually say, "We're going to be spending all night on the ballet, aren't we?" "Do you think we'll end the night with the ballet?" "The ballet is going to take a long time, isn't it?" I think we got to intermission somewhere around 7PM. This was when a lot of the real speculation started. My answer was, "Yes. Hours. I expect 1-2 hours, but I think we'll still finish the show." I wasn't keeping score, but I think it probably took a half hour to 45 minutes.

First of all, you may remember I got to see the entire ballet on the third day of rehearsal. The dancers know it inside out, so there was no problem there. They did it in costume for the first time, and aside from Simon of Legree's giant mask/headpiece being too loose on her head and having to be removed, they didn't seem to miss a beat with the addition of costumes. This isn't a dress rehearsal, but in many cases we added costume pieces when possible and where they would cause potential issues, like for dancers. We had a few small things to take care of, like spiking the location for the gong, and assigning who places it. Once we had done those kind of housekeeping things, we ran it once and were due for a ten minute break. Gemze seemed pretty happy with it, and declined to work anything or give formal notes before running it again when we were back from the break. The second run was especially helpful as we had some followspot assignments that needed to be worked out in a more efficient way, which we applied the second time through.

I said yesterday I was worried about the rapid pace of cues and losing my place among all the "Run, Eliza, run"'s, but when the time came I didn't have any trouble. My first attempt was not at all embarrassing, which was a nice change from the Singin' in the Rain ballet, where up until the final performance I was never quite sure if I was about to make an ass of myself. The key with this one is that it requires 100% concentration, and with that it's actually quite easy to call. I just can't lose my place or fall behind, because there's not much time between cues, and once you're lost it's not immediately evident where you are in the script.

After the ballet it was clear sailing. One by one ensemble members with little to do in Act II were dismissed. We were not running the finale or bows because we did them earlier with the kids. By the end of the day we were down to a book scene with just a couple actors, right before the finale. And thus, with a gentle sigh, ended our tech, about 15 minutes early.

Tomorrow we tech from 10:00AM - 6:30PM. We had hoped to do two runs, but we have already scheduled a 2:30 run. Because of the need to give the kids a definite call time regardless of where we ended up today, we scheduled an afternoon run in advance so they could just arrive at half hour. I picked 2:30 because I didn't feel comfortable with less than four hours to run the show (I'm guessing it will ultimately clock in at about 2:45 with intermission), give notes, and allowing extra padding for any unforeseen disasters. So that means a 1:00 lunch, and we're not going to be able to call the cast, get them in mics, and run the show in three hours. I mean it's conceivable, but highly unlikely. So we're going to do the same thing we did tonight and skip the kids' scenes since they won't be there. Then we run in the afternoon, and after dinner the orchestra has their first rehearsal, which also serves as a partial sitzprobe for the cast to sing with the orchestra for the first time, before they have to do it on Tuesday in dress rehearsal. For this sitzprobe we are calling the singers and dancers who are in the ballet, so they can hear tempos and such and avoid any problems, and once that's done they'll be released. Then the principals will stay to sing their songs and make any necessary changes or requests. Then we go home to enjoy our daylight day of rest.

King and I Approaches Tech

I'm sitting in the theatre, approximately 21 hours before tech begins. I got my cues at the paper tech this morning and have some time to kill before the 1:30 rehearsal. The paper tech moved along quickly, and with some discussion of other production-related issues, came in just under two hours, which is pretty much perfection. I've done some for more complicated shows that have taken four hours. Approximately 140 light cues, so not a very busy show, but enough to keep me entertained. Just on paper, I see a few cues I'm already looking forward to. I think the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet will be fun, but not too hard as to embarrass me, as long as I can keep following along quickly enough. Shouldn't need to call anything off the score, which I like. My opinions on that change, but with recent shows I've tried to reduce it, because I find that following the score means keeping your head in the music too much and not looking at the stage. Even with Singin' in the Rain, I called the 13-minute ballet off the score, but in reality I only really followed the music for a couple cues, and for the most part just flipped ahead to the next cue and knew what it was, so I could be looking and listening instead of being buried in the book and counting.

Took this picture just a few minutes ago:They just put in our groundrow that will go behind the palace. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, but it's really nicely painted, and the set looks fantastic under the lights. I'm loving the gel colors on this show.

Another picture I shot a few days ago but never had a post for:The drop you see downstage is brand new and was specially designed to match our set. This is the "Corridor drop" which is used for almost all the downstage scenes. The audience spends a lot of time looking at it, so it's a good thing it's pretty. This was taken right after it arrived and was hung.

Missing Sync Replacement Icon Set

Missing Sync is pretty much the only decent way to sync various PDAs with Macs these days. The Palm version just recently moved to version 6.0. Along with a bunch of exciting improvements came one incredibly ugly set of new icons that one would be unlikely to recognize as having anything to do with Palms. See here:
Color icons in the menu bar?! Are they crazy? Not to mention that a bumpy orange ball saying "Pa" is not the most intuitive abbreviation for the Palm logo.

I got really sick of this really fast, so as soon as I had a moment I set about designing new icons so I didn't have to look at that mess. At first I intended it only to preserve my own sanity, but then decided that perhaps the rest of the world could use an alternative as well. Because the MS icons are interactive, both in the dock and in the menu bar, it's more complicated than replacing your normal OS X application icon. It requires going inside the app file itself and replacing various .icns files contained within the package. Fortunately I've gone through most of the trouble myself so with a little clicking and dragging you can replace your icons.

This is my icon set:
For the main application icon you have your choice of a variety of Treo models and colors (I think I got all of them starting with the 650).

Here you can see the various states of the menu bar, and what the dock icon looks like with the little sync progress bar over it.
Installing the Files
If you want to be safe I'd suggest before replacing any files to drag the old ones to a folder somewhere where you can keep them if you have a problem, or if you really like orange balls that say "Pa" and want to go back to them.

First download the file MSicons.zip and unzip it.

In the folder "App Icons" you will find many subfolders with the names of various Treo models. Find the one you want, and inside will be the file missingsync.icns with the image of that Treo.

Find your Missing Sync application file (by default it should be in /Applications/Missing Sync for Palm OS -- I assume it's similarly named if you have the Windows Mobile version and want to apply these icons)

Right-click on the app and select "Show Package Contents." This will pop up a new window where you can see the files within the application.

navigate through Contents/Resources and inside the Resources folder you'll see lots of icons. This is where you drop your missingsync.icns file to replace the app's icon. It will ask if you want to replace the file, and you can just say yes, or remove the old one first if you want to keep it somewhere safe.

Back up one folder and you will see in the Contents folder another called SharedSupport. This contains little mini-apps that do various things.

Right click on "Missing Sync Menu Bar" and select "Show Package Contents"

Again go through the "Contents" folder to "Resources," where you will find another bunch of icons.

In the zip file you downloaded is a folder called "Menu Bar" with five files. Those five files get dragged into the Resources folder to replace the menu bar icons. Again, either agree to replace, or pull out the old ones first.

You can now close any windows you have open and you will be ready to go. Logging out is the simplest way to see the changes applied.

Hope you enjoy the icons. Please let me know if I've left out your favorite Palm.

I am the Chosen One

UPDATE A major bug has surfaced in the Verizon MR (which apparently is also in the Sprint MR). The data connection will not work when the phone is in a regular 1X data area, instead of the faster EVDO connection which is now available in some parts of the country. I can't even conceive of how a bug like this got through, and I'm not sure if everyone has it, but please consider that before you go running off begging Verizon to give you the upgrade. If you'd like to learn more, the TreoCentral forum for the 700p has several threads discussing it and other advantages and disadvantages of the MR, but this one seems to be the most directly related.

There's a developing situation in the Treo world centering around the maintenance release (MR) for the Treo 700p.

A brief background:
The 700p was released by Palm over a year ago, and from the start has had a number of bugs, enough to actually make it notable above the normal amount of bugs of any Palm device. The biggest one is what is usually simply referred to as "the lag." Instead of the normal immediate response that Palms are known for (and that makes the limitations of the Palm OS justifiable), the 700p was known for taking several seconds (or much more) to switch between apps or do various things. Some people were very much up in arms that the lag makes it skip when playing MP3s in the background. There is also something apparently wrong with the Bluetooth stack which makes it difficult for the phone to hold a connection with another device.

Cut to far too late:
Palm announces they are finally going to provide a maintenance release (not just a patch, sort of like a Service Pack is to Windows) that supposedly will fix all that ails the 700p, as well as adding a couple enhancements. Much fanfare was made when the MR was released for Sprint back on June 4. Of course the Verizon people were bitching that their version was not released simultaneously, which just poured salt in the wound of Sprint having released the Treo 755p first, also supposedly containing the same improvements. So the Sprint people had two options for a better Treo, Verizon users were still stuck with the buggy 700p.

Things evened out a bit more when after a few days it became clear that there was something wrong with Sprint's MR. Instead of being a simple patch added to the phone's RAM, the MR is a permanent upgrade to the ROM, which leaves open the possibility of the phone turning into a brick if something goes wrong during the upgrade. A lot of users were experiencing problems, either with bricked phones or the update failing to apply properly, and Sprint pulled the upgrade. Sprint then re-released the MR on June 21, which seems to be better at installing itself.

Verizon drags their feet
With this whole saga apparently resolved on Sprint (despite some new bugs that have arisen with the MR), Verizon users still have not heard a peep about either the fix for the 700p or the release of the 755p. So when I heard the rumor that the 755p was going to be delayed at least 6-8 more weeks, I decided I had to buy a 700p, even though I have a major aversion to paying for something that's already obsolete. My Treo 650 first of all had a talk time of less than 3 minutes from a full charge, and besides that was acting even more buggy and losing more data than even a 650 has any right to. And I was getting tired of the slow data connection, especially given that I pay Verizon $45/mo. for data, regardless of whether I'm getting dial-up speeds or broadband. I was a little worried about the fact that I would be getting a phone without the MR, but since people have at least been living with their 700p's, albeit unhappily, I decided it was OK.

Buying the 700p
So after kicking around some ideas, I decided that since the 700 is not that different from the 755, I should just get on with my life and enjoy the improvement over my 650. Plus, it would keep me from doing something stupid like jumping on the iPhone too early. So I called up a nearby Verizon store and asked if they had any. The guy I spoke to had to look it up, then said, "Yeah, I've got a couple." He took my phone number and said he would get it set up for me to pick up.

When I arrived I was thankfully able to skip past the line of people waiting for service, and we talked a bit about my plan and I made some adjustments from my last contract. Then when everything was confirmed he passed my phone off to be activated, for which there was a bit of a line, so I amused myself looking at all the other PDAs that I had been considering switching to.

I found it kind of odd that they didn't actually have the 700p on display. They had the 700wx, which is the Windows Mobile version, as well as several Blackberries, the Motorola Q, and the VX6700, which is soon to be replaced by the more stylish 6800. I have never owned a non-Palm smartphone, and have often wondered if perhaps I might like a less antiquated OS, but having so much free time to try all of them out, I was unimpressed. I'm sure if I owned them I would be customizing them more to my way of working, but the general feel of them was kind of nauseating. Anyway, it made me feel better about sticking with Palm. But I did wonder, as I watched salespeople showing customers around, how they were even supposed to know the 700p was available.

Finally my name came up on the list and I paid for the phone and signed my contract. However, when the rep tried to activate the phone, it started a reset loop. He showed me and I played with it while they brought out another one and went through the process of marking it as DOA. After completing digitizer calibration, the Verizon Wireless splash screen would come up and the phone would promptly reset.

The second phone they brought out started doing the same thing, so a tech was called out to look at it. He explained that they had just installed new software on all the phones and maybe the upgrades had failed on a few. I was surprised at this, because I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of the Treo world, especially given how desperately I was waiting for the release of the 755p. I asked if this was the big update Palm was releasing, because I didn't think it was out yet. He said they had just gotten it in the day before (which would have been July 1), and he had spent the day updating each of the phones in their stock. I believe he said he did 40 of them.

Of course I was very happy to hear I would be getting the MR, but I was still perplexed at how I could have missed hearing of this huge development. When I got home and checked TreoCentral, I read a thread which said something like "some people say they've gotten the MR," without a link to who these statements. So I chimed in that I had just bought a 700p and was told it had the MR. I asked what version numbers I should be looking for, and was told software version 1.10, and Bluetooth version 3.1.2 were the big indicators, as well as a new feature where you hold the home button and it pops up a list of recently used apps. My phone has all these things. A number of posters contacted Verizon, either the main customer service, calling local stores, or by e-mail, and were all told the MR has not been released to the public, is not available for upgrade in stores, and is not being sold on new units in stores. It was at this point that I took the above picture of my phone's info screen and posted it.

I'm not sure who these other people are who claim to also have the MR, but they've remained silent on all the threads I'm following, and I haven't seen links to any of these claims. All I know is I seem to be the only person in the Treo community who has it, and I'm not sure if I should feel lucky to be The Chosen One, or scared that my phone is running software Verizon swears up and down doesn't exist.

Other notes:
The Sprint MR's most apparent flaw is referred to as the "DTMF tone issue." What happens is that when you perform certain actions that elicit a sound, like a beep when you click on something, simultaneously with the beep coming from the phone's rear speaker, you will hear a sound from the earpiece that is the same tone you would hear when pushing the * key on a phone. As soon as I began using my 700p I noticed this, and being unfamiliar with the 700p, I figured I must have something set wrong in my system sounds or something. When I got home I found this thread, where I realized all the Sprint users were complaining about this on their MR. Just for the record, I would like to point out:

This update comes over a year after the phone was released

Palm has had ample time to test this update

Sprint has done their own tests to ensure it operates correctly on their network

Verizon has taken their notoriously sweet time with their extra "quality assurance"

NONE OF THEM NOTICED SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN HEAR WITHIN SECONDS OF USING THE PHONE

As it turns out, the quick and dirty fix seems to be turning off system sounds altogether, which sucks if you like system sounds. Personally I keep them on because it's a good reminder if I've forgotten to put my phone on silent, I will notice right away that I hear beeps when I tap on things. But for now I'm OK going without. I do hear the tone still when setting ringtones -- if I tap on a sound in the list it will first play the DTMF tone through the earpiece, then the sound through the speaker. It's also heard when that sound is played as an alarm (and presumably for calls as well). The sound doesn't play every time a system sound plays, but one method that's been discovered to be reliable is to go to the phone app and press spacebar. I would like to point out that this even happens if your phone is on silent (probably because silent mode doesn't affect things coming out of the phone's earpiece).

OK, a little annoying, right? But here's the kicker: it really is a DTMF tone, and as such, will send a "*" to your phone whenever it plays. Some people have reported being on phone calls and having it do things, like deleting their voicemail while they were listening to it. NOT GOOD, PALM. NOT GOOD.

Why am I so blessed among all the millions of Verizon customers to be the only one with this obviously carefully tested piece of software? I don't know. But there are many people trying to find out, and I will keep updating as the situation progresses.

Additional Reading:

The Verizon 700p Mr Is Not Available

Where to get Verizon MR?

Touch Tone Sound whenever I do anything! (AFTER MR)

My Pokemans - Let Me Show You Them

Somebody help me, I just bought a Pokemon game today.

It started a few weeks ago during a performance of Singin' in the Rain. One of our followspot operators, Nick, is a fellow lover of the Nintendo DS, and he had told me he had just purchased a Pokemon game. While I have a general knowledge of what Pokemon are, I had never actually played one of the games.

Over the course of the next few performances, I would sometimes hear exclamations from Nick on headset like, "Yes!! My Pokemon evolved!" We have several gamers on the crew, and our off-topic conversations on headset sometimes revolve around games we're playing. So occasionally I would ask a question about exactly how the game worked. One day he had his DS with him down on the ground, and I watched a little bit of the gameplay and asked more questions. Having gotten bored of Animal Crossing for a while, I decided this might be something I should check out. He warned me that it would consume my life, but that would be nothing new. It couldn't possibly be more demanding than Animal Crossing, which punishes you for not playing often enough. I asked exactly which version he had, which was Diamond. I had heard of it, and had a general idea that it was one of the newer titles.

So today I stopped into the local GameStop while waiting for my laundry, and they happened to have a used copy. It started out slow with all the setup of the story and training-type exercises, but yeah, it's kind of addictive so far.

Treo 700p and my first time touching an iPhone

As you may know, for the last several months I've had my eye on the Treo 755p, which came out for Sprint in May, and has been reportedly on its way to Verizon by July. Well despite rumors of a July 4 release, there's been no word on it, and today I read this post on TreoCentral claiming it failed its testing and will suffer further delays. My Treo 650's talk time is now down under 3 minutes from a full charge, and I'm getting sick of how out of date it is, especially since everyone's complaining about how slow the iPhone's data connection is, while it's several times faster than my Treo. In order to remind myself why I don't have an iPhone, I must have a device that is faster. So I weighed my options (everything from getting an iPhone just to spite Verizon, to a Windows Mobile device, to a $40 battery for the 650.) I decided to suck it up and do the logical thing -- get the 700p, which is exactly the same as the 755p except without the slick new form factor. I even get to keep my current SD card instead of having to buy a Mini-SD.

So I called up a nearby Verizon store and had them hold one for me. It took over an hour to get it, as they were quite crowded, and then they had some problems activating it. Unbeknownst to me, the long-awaited 700p maintenance release (read: Palm released a buggy phone a year ago and has just gotten around to patching it) just came out for Verizon yesterday. I hadn't heard anything about it on the internet, which really surprised me when the technician came out and explained that he had just installed the patch on all the Treos in their stock and it had probably patched badly or something. After some time he got one working and I went home.

I also decided to go ahead with the purchase because I actually wanted to renew my contract with the Evil Empire. My current plan is very expensive ($124/mo.), and I wanted to scale it down and add basic text messaging. I didn't realize until I got there and talked to the rep that in the two years I've had my plan they've actually come up with a cheaper one (imagine that!), because there's a phone+data plan now, which saves you $5. At the time I last renewed there was no such combo package. So I saved $5 on the combo (which I promptly spent on the TXT plan), and I also reduced from 900 minutes to 450. I will have to keep an eye on that to make sure it's enough. When I'm really busy my usage can get up to 500, so I'll have to be smart about it. Ever since my parents got Macs and broadband, we use iChat instead of the phone, so that has probably reduced my usage by 100-200 minutes alone.

I feel like a cassette tape user describing to you the wonders of the CD player, so I'm not going to go into any details about what's special about the 700p, at least until I've used it some more. To me it's a nice upgrade, though.

While I was waiting for my turn to have my phone activated, I had a lot of time to kill in the store, so I played with all the other smartphones that I had considered getting. To cut to the chase, all of them sucked. No question, I didn't want any of them, and once I tried them, I had no regrets about going with the 700p. I've never owned a Windows Mobile device, and have always wondered if perhaps I was missing something. When a friend will let me play with their phone I try to get a feel for it, but there's little you can mess around with without screwing up your friend's phone. A store display model is much easier to work with. I'm sure there are ways of customizing them, but neither the Blackberry or WinMobile UIs appealed to me at all. I'm sick to death of Palm OS, but I didn't find the others very usable.

When I arrived at the mall, I thought, "Oh cool, when I'm done I can go to the Apple Store and look at the iPhone." Then I decided perhaps it would be a better idea to look at the iPhone before buying the Treo, just in case the Apple Reality Distortion Field really was that strong. Well, obviously I made it out of the store, but I can't say I did it with confidence. I think I was shaking a little. God, it's pretty. If it wasn't for my strong distrust of AT&T, I'd have overlooked all the phone's other flaws and walked out of the store with one.

In brief, I found the touchscreen to be a little difficult. Every device responds best to a different amount of pressure, I've learned this from all my years with Palm, so maybe it was just that adjustment, but I found it sometimes didn't respond right away, or in exactly the way I touched it. When viewing web pages I sometimes had to poke at it multiple times to get it to click on a link. Everyone is saying "trust the keyboard." I found this to be true. When using it in portrait, I made quite a few mistakes, but the software correctly predicted what I was trying to type. I've heard in landscape mode it's more accurate because the keyboard is a little bigger. I didn't spend much time trying it that way. Overall, I agree with the general consensus online, it's an amazing piece of work. The screen is beautiful, and the design makes you just want to keep using it. I am more than ever looking forward to seeing what the next version can do.