A Working Day Nightmare

Being the Technical Director at this little facility is actually quite a big job. I just had to fill out a self evaluation of my job duties and I spent the better part of an afternoon writing out all the things that this job entails and it took a lot out of me.

It's simply the case that we are understaffed for the amount of activity that occurs in our building and on the grounds.

And this is but a small fraction. work can be terribly pressing, but it's nice to occassionally have it go quiet for a few days after a big event or production has wrapped up and I'm left with a bit of solace as I reorganize and reset the place, usually making a few repairs in the process.

But I have an old war story. I had a production that left utter chaos and destruction in its wake, and Its something I never want to experience again. I'm talking about a massacre, that came in the form of the musical, Grease.

It was put on by a community group lead by a new member that lacked experience. I won't go into that except to say that it happened to show a great deal. I can't find any photos of that show, and I'll say the show struggled to get up and running, but what I want to focus on was the aftermath. That I have documented to a good degree.

First off, there was a blatant disregard for placing care in our tools.

Items were damaged, which isn't a big deal. Yeah, gel frames on the spotlight get bent, sure. Unless instead of fixing said item...

You just leave it broken lying on the floor. It was left like this during performances, mind you.

Continuation of broken items. This microphone, which, I admit, is a piece of junk, (that's why I leave it out) but c'mon now, have some respect. This is how I found it.

Same thing with the sheet music stand on the electric piano. Obviously, people were being cute and sitting on the piano or something silly, but oh well, just leave it for the overworked staff to deal with.

Breakers on the electric panel were also broken during this production. Now, I can't lay the blame entirely on them for this. For some reason, the stage worklights were never run to switches and left like this. So these breakers are tripped on and off everyday. They are not designed for this. However, no one else ever broke them before.

You know how you're supposed to leave a theater as if you've never been there. Well, this group couldn't be troubled to even wash off this dry erase board.

And they left shit here, which almost always happens, unfortunately. With what little room we have, I can't play free storage unit for everyone. I was told this was being picked up the next day, so I figured it could spend the night outside in that case, so it was at least out of my way. Guess how long it stayed here....about three months.

And there's the coup de gras, and one of my pet peeves. Leaving a mess at the paint sink. And this is the worst disaster of it I've probably ever seen.

I went to painstaking trouble to make this area easily organizable with hooks and bolts to put drying brushes and rollers, but they were so far behind on this production, they were painting up until an hour before they opened the show, so I gave them a pass for their opening night, which was a Friday, but I came in to find this mess on a monday morning. They had just left it like this all weekend.

But I survived, I hit the reset button. And then I get my moment of zen.

Ahh, that's better.