Standard disclaimer: these are just some notes that I accumulated over the course of the last few months, when I was too "busy" to document them here.
Tuesday, April 24 - Yet another Dress Rehearsal
Even though I was in absolute shambles internally, I attempted to keep my fun-loving facade up..so naturally I was upbeat and making jokes where I could. I believe it was the performance of a lifetime, but I suspect those that really cared and knew me saw right through it. One of my standard jokes was to tell everyone who would listen that "everything was OK, we'd have this nailed by June".
Tuesday's rehearsal, all in all, was no better than Monday's. Steven had been in (at the request of Erica I presume) and had re-routed alot of the monitor cabling and had worked on some choir 
mics. I was grateful for that, but naturally, things were left in a state of disrepair and at 3PM the flood gates opened again and things were a mess. I quickly ran around and tried to get things set, but once again the rehearsal started in the hole and got worse from there. They had decided to let the kids focus on "acting" and had decided to forego the costuming for this "dress" rehearsal. While I agree that everyone was a little crazed and would welcome the break...the 15 minutes of "downtime" that was gone hurt me, hurt me a lot. Instead of having a couple of minutes to pull the various pieces of the crew together, we were literally starting right away.
And truthfully, the backstage crew performance was a little better, and the black curtains "looked" better. I had decided once and for all who was definitely going to be the "curtains" on Monday, and Alex, Sage, John and Socheata were beginning to get it. I think the black on the curtains made it possible for them see the idea that was clear in my mind. After it was over, both Sharon and Erica sheepishly approached me, and in the nicest possible way, ordered a second layer of black fabric, as they weren't opaque enough. Based on the way they looked at me when they asked, I think they expected me to yell at them, or scream "I quit" or something, but I was beaten and just said "it'll have to get done." On Monday (yesterday) Erica had also threatened the stage crew that if they didn't get their cues right tomorrow (which was now today), they would have to stay after rehearsal and run the show until they got it right. Don't know if that helped but they were a little better. Normally, that would have set 
me off, they were "my" crew and I knew how to "motivate" them. But I took it exactly as it was intended really, she was trying to help and get this show ready. I honestly was so focussed on other things that I really didn't have time to care. The house was still not working like I wanted, it wasn't rolling smooth at all and kept getting hung up on all the bumps and stuff on the stage. Plus it made a deep rolling noise, since the casters themselves were hard plastic. The windows and door weren't there and it still needed to be painted. It looked bad and worked worse really.
I had resolved that I wasn't going to spend much time up in the booth, I had given them a little time on Saturday and Monday, and in my mind, they should've been ready to go. And fundamentally they were, but in hind sight, they (especially Seth) were still kinda winging it and really should've been dialed in a lot sooner. Live and learn I decided...I had other major issues to solve, primarily the house.
After running the girls home, I wolfed down dinner and sped out to Lowes and bought 8 steel and rubber wheels, 7" in diameter, probably for lawnmowers or wheel barrows or something. I also got some big bolts for axles and some washers and headed to the auditorium. It was less than 48 hours before opening night and I completely disassembled a 16 wide by 12 foot high rolling "house" on the stage of our auditorium. By completely, I mean completely. To do what I needed to do required a major overhaul of the very foundation of the set piece, so everything had to be removed, by one very tired guy. I removed the old small casters and replaced them with the big rubber tires. The thoughts of sabotage were back in my head because if this didn't work, I truly didn't know what I would do. I prayed my way through this and after about 5 hours of work, the house rolled smoothly, silently and pretty straight. I had also taken the time to completely finish the piano, as it had been kind of a carcass up until this point. And lastly, and quite possibly most importantly, I got all of my walkie-talkies put together and tested. Now Rachel and Dan, the stage managers, John and Alex, the "lead" curtains and Seth on sound would be linked to me via headsets. So I would be able to talk to them all at once, or address issues without having to be "right" there. The most important thing that I found out later, was that now I would be able to issue cues, commands and warnings...and that ended up being the real trick. I desperately wanted to get enough radios for Kelly, the assistant director, Sarah and Danielle, on props and Sage and Socheata, but I didn't have enough radios or headsets to go around. This would have to be enough. It was about 2:30AM and I was exhausted, but had to be back at the School at 7AM for Allie to be at the drama officers meeting and I had to teach class. I already had a plan for that.