Interlude: Brief Technical Moments

Who ever would have guessed that someone could learn so much in two hours of hanging up lights and packing up boxes? Not me, that's for certain. Now, in truth, this post won't be here for anything other than a small little update as to the activities that I've been taking up in terms of theater. For the most part, tech time on Thursday the 1st of October (???) was busy work with the sole purpose of organizing and making the new theater look pretty. Included in this technical theater preparation, however, was the readying of the theater for the Arts Pavillion Opening on Tuesday the 6th of October. Having started this post before Tuesday and having finished it afterwards, I must say that the finished lighting that Brad Cooreman, technical director of Bac A Dos, achieved was simple and yet successful in setting the mood for the dance piece that occurred on Tuesday night.

Returning to the "Tech Time" itself, the most important experience with the two hours I spent working with three other student volunteers and Brad was the preparation of the lights itself. Consisting of both taking down and hanging up lights, the two hours flew by rather quickly as I came to realize the intrigue and relative entertainment of such mundane work as taking down lights and setting up ladders. It was, in all honesty, one of my first experiences with lighting design, and in terms of most design work, it was particularly active and far more interesting than one might have expected. It is more than merely placing lights on bars and turning screws. Each light has to be placed with multiple things in mind. Firstly, the light's cord has to be able to reach an outlet, and for this reason, outlets have been placed in relation to where the lights themselves can hang. Secondly, where the lights hang and what type of lights are hanging there determine the amount of light that is produced and where such light shows up on the stage, not to mention whether or not the light itself could end up shining in the face of audience members. In the end, Brad had a much better idea as to what type of lights did what, and what positions yielded what results. Nonetheless it was perhaps the fact that Brad did indeed know so much more than I could have even begun to understood that interested me in lighting design. The very probability that there is so much more to learn when it comes to theater in all forms is incredibly compelling. Without a doubt, however, the most compelling fact of all is that, while I have yet to learn such an aspect of theater, the ability to do so is right at my fingertips through the use of these two-hour-long, extracurricular explorations of Technical Theater.