Day 5 Preproduction

Day 4 was kind of boring.  You didn't miss much.  I hole-punched about 2,500 pages of script, exchanged some emails with the staff of New 42nd St. Studios, and some other mundane stuff like that.

Day 5 was the fun day.  It started with a 10AM breakfast at a local restaurant with the Associate Artistic Director, General Manager, Production Manager, Technical Director, Company Manager, and Staff Repertory Director.   The meeting was basically an opportunity for the key personnel on the tour to get to know one another and discuss what our working relationship will be on the road, and how we will communicate with the office.  I thought the meeting was a great idea, and we are already feeling like a team.  

After the meeting we returned to the office where Nick arrived soon after.  After admiring the new Macbook he purchased for the tour, we began preparing to pack for the first rehearsal.  We acquired all the office supplies the office had to offer us, and then with the company's Staples credit card in hand, we went shopping!  If you are not a stage manager, it may be hard to comprehend just how exciting a trip to Staples is.  We bought pencils (Ticonderoga, of course, nothing less!), Sharpies, a small box for hanging file folders, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a first aid kit and some extra ice packs, and a few other things.  We also discovered they had 2GB thumb drives on sale for $12, so we each bought one with our own money.  That was probably the most exciting part.

When we returned to the office with our booty, we then went upstairs one flight to Karma Productions, which is conveniently located in the same building. Karma is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop which is my default source for gaff and spike tape.  We bought a roll each of black and white gaff, and four colors of spike (yellow, orange, neon green, and teal).  These bright colors will be just for rehearsal.  We decided to wait before buying the colors for the show itself, since we don't know exactly what color the show deck will be or what the spikes will be used for. Based on the model, the deck looks like some kind of rough wood planking, but it's hard to know now how subtle the colors should be.

Then we put all the scripts in binders and found some postcards for the show, which with a little gaff tape, made nice logos for the cover of the binders.  Towards the end of the day, we piled all our belongings in the designated corner of the office where they will be picked up on Monday morning and brought to the rehearsal studio for us.  With all that completed, we finished work for the week and said goodbye to everyone until the big day on Monday.