# Pleased to Make your Acquaintance!



## Fission (Mar 11, 2014)

I've lurked on this board for such a long time, it's almost a little bit bizarre to be posting. This is such an incredible site - I've had so many questions answered here, without even having to ask them.

I first got hooked on technical theatre in High School. Attracted to the shiny ETC Express 24/48 on a tour of the high school, I joined (became the sole member of) the lighting team and designed the lighting for "Robin Hood" and Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution".

I overhauled that theatre's lighting system by senior year. Re-hung multiple systems of lights and a few curtain warmers, found a bunch of shinbusters in a back room, and tracked down the wired control system for our incandescent houselights. (Previously our house-to-half cues involved abruptly turning off the fluorescent fixtures.) Learned lots about gobos, and colour selection and fell in love with that dusty smell of warm theatrical luminaires.

In my senior year, our drama teacher was retiring and I was graduating, so we went out with a bang. I took on the role of Stage Manager/Technical Director, and we put on "Peter Pan" - an appropriately technically complex production with stage combat, dance choreography and flight cues. We had 40 cast members (primarily from a very large ensemble, and two dance numbers with the fairies and mermaids), and 20 crew from the brand new Technical Theatre class.

We were the first public school in our district to fly student actors - all of it was rigged by licensed riggers who knew what they were doing. (And the stage combat was supervised by a stage combat instructor). Unfortunately, the engineering review of our grid only let us fly one actor at a time, but through careful blocking, they all went up at the right moments.

There really is nothing quite like calling "Go" and having an actor fly into the air right at that moment. I was hooked.

After Peter Pan closed, the head of the company that did our rigging, who was also the Technical Director of a local improv company, asked me to stage manage a production of "Aladdin", as part of their children's theatre shows. I was thrilled when I got the call, and it was a great learning experience.

University, and my first few years of work put a bit of an end to my theatre days for a while, but as you know, it's an itch that won't go away once it's in your blood.

So these days, in addition to a regular 9-to-5, I still freelance as a Stage Manager for a local theatre company - I average about one show per year with them. They rent a theatre in one of the local PACs for each show and it's a great experience to work in the "big leagues". I also once had a walk-on role as the Mayor in one of the first live productions of "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", which was a (metric) tonne of fun.

I enjoy attending live shows, and have had the pleasure of seeing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra twice (they don't tour much in Western Canada) but they put on quite the show.

The majority of my technical theatre time now is spent volunteering with a local church coordinating the areas of Video, Lighting and Projection. 

You'll probably hear more about that in some later posts.


----------



## NewChris (Mar 11, 2014)

You mentioned a stage version of Dr. Horribles sing a long blog... Can I have some more info?


----------



## Fission (Mar 11, 2014)

NewChris said:


> You mentioned a stage version of Dr. Horribles sing a long blog... Can I have some more info?



Sure thing! A few years ago, there was a local semi-professional theatre company that produced, I think, two musicals (_Toxic Avenger _and_ Dr Horrible_), and then fell off the face of the map. I have no idea what happened to the company since then - _Dr Horrible_ was my only involvement with them, and I happened onto it entirely by chance, as I loved the original and had read about a sudden surge of stage performances when licensing became available. 

Recently, however, I've learned that the creators of Dr Horrible have stopped licensing the IP for public performance. From the official FAQ:

*Can I license Dr. Horrible for a commercial stage production?*
Unfortunately at this time, no license requests are being reviewed or granted with respect to performances of "Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog". Additionally, no rights to "Commentary! The Musical" are available to license.

If and when this decision is reversed and we once again will license the rights to perform "Dr. Horrible", we will post that information on the website. In the meantime, thank you for caring enough to even find your way here.​So that kinda sucks, but back in 2010, this company was able to license it for public performance, and I believe it was one of the first, if not the first, authorized public performance in North America, preceding the UK premiere in Scotland by a few months. I didn't have any involvement in the development of the show - it was literally a walk-on role, but I did sit through a tech rehearsal for my own enjoyment - it's fun to watch someone _else's _tech rehearsal. 

The show itself was good - the direction was a little uneven if you didn't know the original source material as a reference, but very enjoyable nonetheless. The very end of the show, when Captain Hammer holds a press release was quite well done, as they took full advantage of that opportunity to bring the audience inside the fourth wall.

We had a civic election on at the time, so one of the actual mayoral candidates played the mayor on a night that I wasn't there. Somehow they also had a local news station record broadcast grade footage of two local anchors reading the "news" pieces within the show, which was played back during the appropriate points between the acts. All-in-all, it was very well done.

I recall the Producer telling me once that he ordered an industrial laser from the States to use as the freeze ray's "beam". He was shocked when it was on his doorstep the next day, and even more shocked when he found that it would leave burn marks in materials at more than a few feet away.

They decided not to go with that effect.


----------



## NewChris (Mar 11, 2014)

Fission said:


> Sure thing! A few years ago, there was a local semi-professional theatre company that produced, I think, two musicals (_Toxic Avenger _and_ Dr Horrible_), and then fell off the face of the map. _Dr Horrible_ was my only involvement with them, and I happened onto it entirely by chance, as I'd read about a sudden surge of stage performances when the rights were released. I have no idea what happened to the company since then.
> 
> Recently, however, I've learned that the creators of Dr Horrible have stopped licensing the IP for public performance. From the official FAQ:
> 
> ...



GrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Why aren't they licensing it! That would be really cool to do. I wouldn't mind borrowing that laser....


----------



## josh88 (Mar 11, 2014)

I was part of a group who looked into it. Basically the person who was in Charge of the licensing couldn't keep up. They had so many requests and no staff or support and couldn't keep up. The unofficial position they took was that if you got the script and music they wouldn't stop you from doing it or come after you. But that no performance could be "official" anymore. That was a few years ago and so far nothing has changed. 


Via tapatalk


----------

