# Hi All



## SerraAva (Sep 10, 2007)

Hey all. Just joined, discovered the forum a couple days ago and all the information looks helpfully and constructive. Been looking for a tech forum for a little while now and looks like I found one.  Hope to get to know all of you better as time goes on.

Late,
Ed


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## soundlight (Sep 10, 2007)

Welcome aboard! This is a great place to be, as long as you don't get caught up in the metric wars or Van's bad jokes and puns...oh wait...that's all that we do around here.

Anyways, great place, great folks, welcome aboard, ask and answer questions, just use the search feature before you ask.

Oh, and if you or your venue have a website, post that - we are always up for diversions like that - anything to stay on the 'booth longer during the day.


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## Van (Sep 10, 2007)

Welcome Aboard! What do you do ? Where are you ? PLease feel free to ask and answer. We try to have fun.


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## gafftaper (Sep 10, 2007)

Welcome to the Booth. Share what you know and ask what you don't know. I hope you are Anti-Metric and Pro-Pirate. Have fun.


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## SerraAva (Sep 11, 2007)

What don't I do is less of a question. I am an LD in South Jersey. I do design work mainly for big corporations, like Wyeth and Penske. I also do high end parties, like Hair O' the Dog and New Years Eve Temptations. Then there are random bar gigs here and there when things are slow in corporate land.

My real passion is theater. Best theater I have ever worked in is actually in my high school that I went too. The main theater is a 2500 seat monster. 65' wide by 25' high arch, 32' deep with a 5' apron and thrust with 70' of fly space. Have done work in other theaters like Walnut Street Theater, and Patriot's Theater in the War Memorial in Trenton, NJ. Then the spaces which I really have fun, the challenging places which aren't so lucky. Actually doing Footloose this week in Gloucester County College's theater, on a very tight budget, so it makes for a fun time.

Then on top of this, I go to school as well, working on finishing my AA and then transferring for my BA somewhere in New Jersey. This is so I can continue to work in the area. Boy, that was a lot to take in with one shot. Feel free to ask me anything else, be my pleasure to answer. 

P.S. Hate Metrics, but I'm a ninja according to my friends


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## Kelite (Sep 11, 2007)

Welcome to the ControlBooth Ed, there are always a few topics to draw from and add to- for sure! I speak for all of us when saying we look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Enjoy!


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## gafftaper (Sep 11, 2007)

2500 seat high school theater... That's insane. Did the school have 5,000 students? 

When I was a high school teacher, my big theater seated 1014... and I thought that was big. The best part of that theater was instead of a pit there was a 23 foot gap between the front of the stage and the first row. 40 feet wide by 23 feet wide open tile floor as the "pit". One time I built my entire set in the "pit".


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## SerraAva (Sep 12, 2007)

Yea, the reasoning behind was for indoor graduations in case it rained. School has about 3100 kids in it. My class was 750 something. It was orginally supose to be 2800 seats, but they axed 300 for extra wide seats all over the theater instead of just in certain areas. Some horrible shots of the school http://www.wtps.org/wths/buildpix.htm
And some horrible shots of the main theater http://www.sjlivearts.com/aboutus.html

We have a pit as well, has 3 levels to it. All the way out so it was level with the stage, making it a thrust. Level with the audience for 'premier' seating. The last level is on the floor so it will be like a pit. When it was built, was suppose to be motorized. The builders said, "The water table is too high." despite Rowan Univeristy having one a couple miles away. Instead, they wanted motorized house curtains that block off areas of the theater to make it smaller. 

Well, the 'builders' didn't put in sensors for the things for if they got hung up. So the first time the down stairs ones were used, they got hung up on the doors and the motors burned out. As for the one's in the balcony, some one thought the doors opened on their own. Needless to say they don't and those motors burned out on the first try as well. Of course, the motors are buried in the walls with no way to fix them. :rant off:

Anyway, that pit sounds kinda like the one at Camden County College, minus the tiles. For Diary of Anne Frank, we built over it and use that as the downstairs. Actors hated it because we had 11 people down there for 1/2 before show started, with 4 stuck down there even longer, Mep, Mr Dussel and Mr Kraller I believe (Sorry if i destroyed the spellings, I'm horrible at spelling). The one tech was for headset and the very end, when the Nazi's come. He would hold the door with one of the actors slamming on it with a 2x4 so it look and sound like they were trying to break in.


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