During the last week we hosted an event for the changing of the Mayor. Basically a special city council meeting. So our job was to recreate the city council meeting chamber on our stage complete with audio, video and lighting in order to webcast the meeting out to the city TV station.

This is a gig which we have done on quite a few occasions (and at different venues).

Since the theater is in the middle of changing all the mid level management and operations personnel, for various reasons which I will not opine upon here, there was absolutely no plan for the day from above. And that meant that I was left to plan and work out the complete wiring of the event (as far as all video was concerned).

Luckily I have done this gig enough to have a good idea of how to get the thing done in my head. I consulted the city’s video guy (who works at the council chambers) in order to make sure my plan would work for his purposes (which it mostly did with just some minor adjustments).

So I proceed to lay out the cabling and network cables needed to make it all work.

Below are photos and information about the build of the event.

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My primary job on this show is as the house V1 (video engineer). But I am also doubling up as an A2, which has also kept me pretty busy working to fulfill the needs of Ian Smith the company’s Sound Designer. Mostly my A2 skills are being used just in case things go sideways! I will take care of everything in the orchestra pit, while my friend and coworker, John, the primary A2 for this show is handling things like getting lav mics on to the actors. He and Genna wired the microphones in the orchestra pit earlier. John doesn’t work as an A2 very often, and this is a big job for anyone.

As the V1 I am responsible for making sure that any video related needs of the visiting company are met. I’m working with Greg Mitchel, the company’s Projection Designer to do so. And there’s a lot! The company is doing some complex image mapping using a pair of different ultra wide lenses. Last week, in preparation for this opera I changed the lamps in our two 14K Christie Roadsters and discovered that one of the lamp driver boards went bad! So that threw a monkey wrench in things. The rental projector came late on the first day that the opera company was in the room and we had to take down our projectors again (We flew them after I changed the lamps for a show the evening before the opera showed up.) Then we rigged up the rental projector and hung both projectors back up with the company’s lenses, after testing. One of the lenses the opera rented had a bad motor. I had to disengage the focus motor, then zoom and focus to the approximate dimensions we needed. Then there were two 150 ft cables which we ran from the fourth floor balcony that went bad and had to be replaced for the supertitle projector.

Every day something new has been added to the gear in the orchestra pit, not unusual for a show that’s just being teched for the first time (being put together)- but a little annoying. We will move all the gear off the tech tables and relocate it a few hours before showtime on the day of the first performance. So there will be that to deal with. Hopefully all goes well. 

At least the show looks and sounds great! And the company’s technicians and cast have been really friendly and cooperative. Although the work has been hard and the days have been busy, I hope that they will return for another event.

I’m working seven really long days in a row, and everyday more hours get added for me to come in to work early, or leave late. That’s fine with me, I love making the overtime hours!

I also had to act as a medic one day when one of the actors, Vitor, a Brazilian ballet dancer, choreographer and actor scratched up his arm on stage. It was a pretty minor injury, and I fixed him up in no time. He’ll need a surgeon for the horns, though!

I’ve been writing this over a few days. We got the show up and running with only minutes to spare. Everything during the two show runs went great, and the show was a hit with the audience!

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Next up was British Rock Royalty with Brody Dolyniuk. This is only one of Brody’s many shows and includes the music of The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen and Led Zeppelin. Brody has been at our venue many times, and his production value is high as Brody cares a lot about every little aspect of the show and is involved in everything. He is a perfectionist. There’s always a good light and laser show. Brody and his band are great musicians, and they play the songs of all these bands better than anyone else you’re likely to see in concert other than the actual bands themselves. So if you see his name on an advertisement anywhere- go see the show. You are guaranteed not to be disappointed.

The last show of the weekend was a matinee with Frankie Avalon. Frankie is another performer who has visited many times. He is a great guy. His band includes two of his sons, Jr. who plays drums and Tony who this time played bass, but also sometimes plays guitar. The sound check went late due to the band members getting stuck in bad traffic here in Los Angeles. Frankie was not even able to check with the band, and then, only sound checked alone fifteen minutes before the doors opened! But Frankie was easy on us as usual and only took about three minutes to get done.

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But today I want to talk about the heart of what makes a theater: its crew—and specifically, some of the new young people.

If you’ve read my book, you may remember a chapter about a new kid I called Ducky. That was eight years ago—and wow, has he become an important part of our organization since then. Right now, he is technically my supervisor. Crazy.

As amazing as his rise has been—from a new person with almost no knowledge of the business to where he is today—it isn’t unique, just highly unusual.

We now have a new batch of “kids” (they’re really in their twenties, but they’re kids to me). Some are outstanding.

Let’s talk about two of them.

First, there’s Jason.

Jason is a bright young guy who wants to work as an audio engineer, and as you can see, he’s already moving toward that goal. As it turns out, he’s also one of the more gifted new hires—although he doesn’t know it, even if you were to tell him.

I’ve also taught him how to run our video rig, which he learned faster than anyone else I’ve trained. He’ll need to work on his confidence, but he absolutely has the potential to thrive in this line of work.

Right now, my top pick to skyrocket to success is a young woman named Sarah. She is, without question, the brightest, most organized, and most driven new technician I’ve seen since Ducky showed up on our doorstep.

I keep thinking she’s been here longer, but she says it’s only been about nine months.

She excels at nearly every task we give her—and then some. Ducky had even started teaching her the art of mixing monitors until our Executive Director put the kibosh on that effort. Which brings me to the “troubles” section of this post.

One of the reasons we need to teach a “new kid” how to run the monitor board— one of the most technical and responsible jobs in a venue, is because we no longer have anyone doing that job in-house. We are currently relying on contractors.

Our monitor engineer/audio assistant, Kerry, stepped down from mixing. He simply didn’t need the stress anymore. The place burned him out. After mixing hundreds—literally hundreds, possibly thousands—of shows, along with many other duties, he’d had enough. I empathize completely, as I stepped away from mixing myself years ago. Not gonna mix again.

We were all hoping Ducky would step into that role, since he had been mixing frequently as the second monitor engineer and had become extremely good at it.

Good luck keeping track of this story!

Last year my ex-roomie Jack retired. He was our front of house engineer. (Main sound guy for the civilians out there.)  He was replaced by everyone’s first choice: Jon, an incredibly talented and knowledgeable engineer.

Then my longtime friend, business partner, and other ex-roommate Tom—our Operations Manager and Technical Director—also retired. After almost a year, he was finally replaced by Steve, one of our smartest and best technicians, who had been working in the city’s IT department. (Steve had also been a monitor engineer here before leaving to IT.) He was fired without cause after only a few months.

Then Paula—our Stage Crew Supervisor and my favorite boss ever (and everyone else’s too)—was promoted to the front office. A big step up in pay and prestige. While this was a huge loss for the backstage crew, we were genuinely happy for her. (The smart move would have been to keep her backstage and pay her executive wages.)

After a loooooong time, Paula was replaced by Brenda, a valued tech, especially on the lighting crew. Brenda lasted only a few months before being let go in the middle of a workday.

Meanwhile, Rogan—our Master Carpenter/Rigger and union president—finally retired after years of talking about it. His assistant, Alma, had already left more than a year earlier and was never replaced. Her position remains open.

Ducky, realizing the audio assistant job was unlikely to open anytime soon (based on the painfully long delays in filling other positions), applied for assistant to the Operations Coordinator. Both Ducky and a wonderful, talented young technician named Tori were hired. Everyone was happy—both are incredible people and excellent techs.

Then our Operations Coordinator, James, decided he’d had enough of the bad management above him and quit. His job was integral to our operation, especially since he had already been covering the duties of the Stage Crew Supervisor, including scheduling the crew.

Which meant Ducky and Tori were suddenly doing all the work of the Operations Coordinator, the Stage Crew Supervisor, and their assistants.

So now they’re my supervisors.

Circling back to Sarah: our Executive Director has now decided that since Ducky holds a coordinator position, he can’t touch the soundboard (because union blah blah blah). Which means he can’t teach Sarah—or Jason—how to run monitors.

P.S. Ducky is also on the union board. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Simple, right?

The Titanic has hit the iceberg, and our Executive Director is trying to turn the ship around for another pass.

What’s holding this place together now is a handful of longtime crew members and the courage and dedication of a few young technicians who have stepped up to enormous challenges under chaotic and deeply flawed management.

So kudos to the “kids.”

My hope is to work another couple of years, helping these young crew members carry this place forward for decades to come and live the dream—just as my friends and I did for so many years.

Fingers crossed.

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A DiGiCo Double Play for the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts

See the link above for the whole article. The venue where I work, The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, has substantially upgraded our audio system. Starting with the audio desks. Two new Digico Quantum 338’s.

We have also acquired a line array, from D&B audiotechnik, and a full stage monitor system, each including amplifiers and all supporting gear.There’s a lot to list and it’s almost showtime so I don’t have the time to do so right now. Maybe later.

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Another thing which is included with this system is a new switcher which we can switch through an iPad from the stage managers panel (SMD) or anywhere in the theater. This alone is a huge improvement, as now nobody has to run up to the amp room on the second floor to switch the video from the advertising during preshow and intermission to the camera for the show presentation. There’s still more to do but things are vastly improved.

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People always ask how we know where all the set pieces go on the stage in the dark. Above you can see spike tape on the marley floor. Different colors and shapes tell us exactly where to place things. The tape stays on the floor, which travels with the road crew and is rolled out and taped down the the stage at each venue. 

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The prop department is responsible for many jobs on a Broadway/musical production.

The first job that the props department usually does is loading in gear from the trucks with the rest of the crews. Then we lay down marley. Marley is a vinyl-based, slip-resistant surface used as a dance floor. Almost all musical productions will use marley. It comes in giant rolls, which weigh hundreds of pounds each, and usually arrives on large steel carts capable of carrying around six rolls. The whole setup weighs several tons, and marley carts are responsible for many broken or injured stagehand feet. The vinyl surface is laid down over the stage floor and taped with marley and gaff tape. After this, the props department will sweep and French mop the surface (which they will do between and after every performance).

A French mop is basically a large, barely-wet towel slung over a big push broom. Very fancy.

A lot of stuff stored in the shop after the load-in,

The main job of the props department is to lay out or pre-set small items that the actors will use during the show. Objects like hats, pencils, pads, scarves, swords, pitchforks, fish etc.

After pre-setting props before the show, the props crew will also hand out props to their assigned actors during the performance. All of the cues (instructions about who, what, when, and where) are contained in what we call tracks—usually typed up on a piece of paper or a laminated card. The prop master (with the touring company) will also sometimes cue the crew during the show or give us a “standby” and “go” at the time when we should hand off the prop.

Many people wonder how we see everything in the dark. Everything is on a shelf and labeled in its place with tape that glows under blue light. It’s hard to miss that glowing tape.

When the shows are over the prop crew packs up the boxes and rolls up the marley, and of course we also push everything to the truck with the rest of the crew.

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Wednesday is the actual event. First the employees will visit for the corporate meeting where the big wigs of the company will go over the numbers for last year’s sales in the different departments and present new products on stage. And there are testimonials from end customers and dealers. Ducky is working as the A2 today, placing lav mics on presenters and handing out handheld mics to people going on stage- which there are a lot of.

A band of employees plays a set of cover tunes and then everyone will go to the lobby and courtyards to have dinner.

After dinner is the headline entertainer. Tonight the guest band is one sponsored by Yamaha, a performer named Avery Sunshine.

Avery was here in 2019 for another event that Yamaha presented. Back then there were other performers with her, (Sheléa, and Grace Kelly) and a big band full of horns. Tonight should be a great show as Avery is a skilled musician and performer.

Her 2019 performance was incredible. Tonight she is here with her own band to sing and play keyboards.

The show went great, however there was one mishap near the end. The band was playing, and the bass player got a bit over enthusiastic and decided to walk downstage. I was standing next to the monitor desk with Kerry when he suddenly started yelling, “DI, DI, DI!”. I immediately looked over at the bass player and saw that the DI box, which connects the bass guitar to the bass amplifier and the audio desks, had fallen off the top of the amp and was hanging in the air! If it had became unplugged the bass guitar would fail, and it also will make a huge exploding sound through every speaker, and maybe blow them up. I ran out onto stage and held the DI in my hands until the bassist noticed what was going on and came back upstage. Everyone in the band thanked me after the show. Good thing Kerry saw that so quickly! One more disaster mitigated.

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Today should be an easy day, we start off by striking (taking down) some lighting fixtures and cables. Mostly ellipsoidal (Leko) lights, a workhorse in lighting – especially in theater.

We unplug power and data cables and then untie them from the linesets, then remove all the lighting fixtures hung on the (battens) pipes for storage on “Meatracks”.

In the foreground of the picture above you can see the thick Socapex cables hanging off the end of the pipe. These cables carry multiple circuits of power for lighting fixtures so they are made out of a lot of copper and thick non-conductive outer casing. They hang from the grid at the top of the flyhouse and we usually keep them coiled up on our midrail which we call the 42ft Level. They need to be pulled up and down that 42 feet whenever they are used, have to move or be stored. They connect to stage pin (Bates) cable through “Breakouts”. (photo above) Those cables then can be split with 2-fers or converted to other types of connectors for moving lights etc.

Aside from Par Cans

and Ellipsoidal (Leko) lights, we will also remove or move some larger moving lights to use on the next show or be stored.

We also have to collect and distribute small accessories for some fixtures. Things like “top hats”, for lighting control on the front of Leko’s, gels for coloring/softening/color correction on conventional lighting fixtures, gobo patterns for creating shadows.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY SAFETY CABLES.

Many fixtures will be coming out of a box where they have been stored, as such will have to have pipe clamps re-attached to them so they can be hung on the battens.

We need to scavenge some Baby Colors from the aluminum truss in the shop.

Moving lights don’t work unless they are connected by DMX cables (or network) so there is a lot of DMX cables that have to be run out to each light. And don’t forget about power. After leaving the Socapex, power is converted to Stage Pin / PowerCon or whatever is needed for a particular fixture.

There’s 5 pin and also 3 pin DMX which can be converted between the two but are definitely NOT XLR cables which are for audio.

At the end of the moving lights DMX cable chain don’t forget to put a terminator on the last data output or things may not work as expected.

The moving lights are each assigned a unique address on the network, some lights have dip switches, this one is a little bit more modern.

Once all the old lighting fixtures are removed, the new ones hung, all the cables stripped and then re-hung for the new placement of everything and all the DMX, Power cables, breakouts, and Soccapex are in place and tied up neatly we can tie on a short border to the front of the batten in order to make sure the pipe and cables go unnoticed by the audience during the show. Like everything in this black hole it should be invisible.

Now that everything is connected and looks beautiful it’s time for the carpentry crew do do their thing. A loader at the top of the flyhouse on the loading bridge (82 foot level) will add or remove steel bricks (the same kind as in the upcoming video). The weight of all the lights, cables, accessories, borders etc. will be calculated by the flyperson (in our case here today Alma), at that time the loader will be told how many bricks are equal to (or very close) to that weight and the loader will place steel bricks on the arbor (a carriage) to counterweight the load on the batten (pipe pictured above). Then the flyperson working at the Rail will pull the batten “out”, which to most people means up!

All the lights are hanging in the air! So I guess were done? Nope, now it’s time to build booms! We are lucky to have rolling boom bases which we can build light trees on and then roll where we need them, very convenient.

Each of the rolling boom bases will be loaded with 24, 22 pound steel bricks. The same type of bricks which the loader on the loading bridge uses to counterweight the fly system.

Pipes, pipe clamps, lighting fixtures and cables are gathered together to be hung on the rolling boom bases using the scissor lift and a ladder.

Fixed Cheeseboro (“cheeseburger”) clamps are used to attach horizontal pipes to the tall vertical pipe (upright). The lighting fixtures will hang from these horizontal pipes.

Everybody on the lighting crew today pitches in to build the rolling booms.

Once the booms are built, all the lights are hung and secured and have been cabled with power runs and data to their bases, power cables are pulled from the floor trough in order to route power and data to the fixtures on the booms from below. Then the ME/LD can test the setup from the onstage control wing of the lighting desk.

It’s a short day so it’s time to clean up now. Here is a view looking up at the Socapex cables hanging from the 42 level and above at 85 feet, the big yellow thing is our grid from which everything hangs in the flyhouse.

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