I'm sitting in a dark theatre in southern California, watching the final preview of a new play. It's been a long tech process, full of misbehaving scenery, re-writes and re-re-writes, and marathon computer programming. I wrote a carefully-crafted score, with precise placements of melodic symbols, harmonic development, and interesting instrumentation connected with character development, but as soon as we started tech, those ideas were scrapped in favor of 'we need a piece that's 11 seconds long.' Careful consideration was abandoned in favor of proper timing.
This was also the largest show I ever designed on the LCS system, which is a computer-based sound playback & routing system. I've done a half-dozen or so shows on LCS, but this was the first time that I really ran into the limitations of the system. There are some things it does really well, but there are plenty of things that it doesn't do well. I learned those things in spades on this show.
If everything goes according to plan, we'll freeze the show tonight, which means that we won't make any more technical changes and I can walk away from the show. Sarah and are set to see the show open tomorrow night, but hopefully I'll have a day off. In the last five and a half weeks, I've had three days off. Hoping to get another one soon.
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