The Season

I went another round with the job search machinery. It's a desert out there. And it's not even a pretty New Mexico kind of day. It's cold and windy, with dark clouds that threaten rain and/or snow. The news people have been trying to scare us with a severe winter storm warning for days now. If I hadn't lived in Florida with hurricane warnings every other minute from June through November, I might have been scared. Plus, the last big scary winter storm that blew through here dumped almost an inch of snow on us. After four years in Massachusetts, anything less than eighteen inches is a flurry.

So White Christmas opened Friday night at Albuquerque Little Theatre. I got my (tiny) check and my six comp tickets Friday afternoon. I wish I hadn't picked up a program while I was there and seen that my name was never mentioned for building almost the entire show. My Facebook friends are outraged over that oversight. I must admit I'm disappointed. I was going to mail it to my parents. The review, out today in the Abq Journal, is very complimentary about the show, but never mentions the sets. They seldom do, I suppose, unless the sets are the best thing about the show. We'll be seeing it in a few weeks, after the dreaded MFC interview, coming up this Friday.

Carmen flies to San Francisco this week so she can stand before the Ministerial Fellowship Committee and be grilled about her fitness for ministry. This is a big fat hairy hurdle, one she's been preparing for for several years. If (when) she passes that test, she can begin earnestly searching for a congregation that is searching for a minister. The Unitarian Universalist Association has a whole online system in place for that process. How did they used to do it? On horseback?

I have the last of the music in hand for Carmen's "Reliving The Christmas Event" service. That I can wrap in a few minutes. More problematic is the ox for the Christmas play. I promised that the head would pivot back and forth. Now I have to figure out how to make that work. BUT- I have more time now that I don't have any sets to build. Assuming I don't suddenly get a job out of nowhere- because nowhere is where the jobs all seem to be at this time.

The good news for you five- I'll be writing much more often in the weeks ahead. "Dial M For Murder" is the next show at ALT, and it ain't no White Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2009

I'm thankful for many things today. First and foremost, the cats are fed, the litter boxes are scooped and the kitchen is clean, including a freshly clean load in the dishwasher. Second and fivemost, Carmen is cooking her famous honey-mint carrots to take to somebody else's house for dinner. Who knew she had a famous dish in her tiny cooking repertoire?

Four years ago I heard an advertisement on the radio for a live theatrical production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas at the Wang Theatre in Boston. We bought tickets for the Christmas Eve performance. I had some trepidation about it. I was sure they would have rewritten the movie (which has been on our Favorite Christmas Movies List for over twenty years) to adapt it to the stage. Would they ruin it? Our favorite moment is when Phil and Judy dance their way out into the Florida sunset for "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing." That had better be good! And there were some awkward things in the movie that I would have deleted if it were me rewriting the script. We went and were blown away. The basic story is the same, but the awkward stuff WAS deleted, the story details are better than the movie, the production numbers were spectacular, and it was better than my wildest hopes.

So Bob and Phil go to Jimmy's Back Room to see the Haines Sisters. The set is small and intimate, in the center of the stage way down front. After the "Sisters" number, all four sit at a table and talk for a few minutes, then Phil and Judy get up to dance. As soon as they're off the set, it splits in two and leaves the stage to both sides, leaving the stage empty with a sparkling star drape across the back and sides. Fog blows in, and there they are, Phil and Judy, with the whole stage a dream world where the best things can happen while they're dancing. Then, at the end of a beautiful and exciting dance routine, they dance their way front and center, the set moves back into place, and they sit down again with Bob and Betty. Double you oh double you!

The next day after we saw it (some folks would call it Christmas Day) I was online ordering a ticket in the balcony for New Year's Eve. I had a big head in front of me the first time around, and missed some scenery changes. It came to pass, however, that I couldn't make it that night, the closing night of the show.

Two years ago I heard an advertisement on the radio that White Christmas was coming back. We got four seats in the balcony and went with our friends Misty Dawn and Jenna. I was able to see everything, and during the two years in between, I had worked on a couple of Show Motion projects with automated scenery technology, so I even knew the mechanics of all of the magic onstage. This knowledge would spoil the effect for some (including Carmen) but it just gets me excited to know that I am capable of creating that same magic.

So now we fast forward to October, 2009. I walk into the scene shop at Albuquerque Little Theatre. Colby Landers, the Technical Director, is cautiously hopeful about my coming. Once Sleepy Hollow is staged, he has to build eleven sets for Irving Berlin's White Christmas, and here I am, a huge fan of the show and a professional scenic carpenter unemployed in Albuquerque.

It's almost enough to make me think there might be a god.

NAAAAAAAAH.

But it does make me thankful that all these insignificant elements of the universe found their way to this happy union. And tomorrow I can pick up my check. For that I'm very thankful.

That's What I Get...

So last week the construction was finished for White Christmas. Since then I've worked all day Thursday, all day Friday and all day today on- you guessed it- White Christmas. I'm going back tomorrow, too. What there was to do was stuff I didn't know about, like trim all the way around the exteriors of the flats on the pivoting platforms, wainscotting on the interiors of the flats on the pivoting platforms, changing out the casters for bigger, locking casters on the tap-dance piano, shoring up the supports under the tap-dance piano, fixing a chair the actors broke in rehearsal, fixing a table that broke in rehearsal, installing mini blinds on all six train windows, cutting down a too-big existing flat for the roll-aside barn door, building a hang-like-a-picture window frame, you know, little things. Oh, and getting my paperwork squared away for my 400 bucks Colby is paying me out of his production budget. That's a biggie.

My other Christmas projects, the ox head and the music for Carmen's "Reliving The Christmas Event" service were moved ahead over the weekend. A week ago, while I was enjoying my two-day vacation from the theatre, I cut plywood to the shape of the top view of the ox head and shaped chicken wire (oh excuse me, Poultry Netting) into the head, horns and ears. Saturday and Sunday I covered it with plaster cloth. Then I took Carmen's "Reliving..." script, graciously provided by Marni P. Harmony, and sought out all of the music specified for it. Some we had in stock. The rest I ordered by MP3 download, from Amazon. Before she got home from her afternoon church event, I had a CD ready to plug and play with all but one piece of music, which is not available by MP3 download- I ordered the CD.

Add in my cooking, cleaning, scooping, cat juggling, grocery shopping and Star Trek watching, and it's no wonder I haven't blogged in a week!

Broken Covenant

As you five well know, if I'm home during the day, all the mammals in the house get to go outside for a spell- sometimes several times a day. Today I crammed three big bags full of leaves from the back yard. Add that to the two yesterday from the front. Anyway, it took about three hours to carefully rake leaves from the gravel parts and sweep and cram and tie and set out front to take to Colby (mulch boy) in the car next time it goes to the theatre.

Little Miss Yinny Yin Yin didn't much like the sound of the rake or of the cramming of leaves into bags, so she didn't spend much time out there. Professor Remus J. Lupin, on the other hand, was pretty much out there the whole time. He spent a lot of time along the side of the house, gazing longingly at the gate. Gazing is allowed.

I glanced down there periodically to see where he was and what he was doing. The last time I looked he was sitting up on the four foot high adobe column that the gate attaches to, gazing longingly at the street. I didn't want to go get him, lest he jump down on the other side to elude capture, and maybe run out into the street. So I went back in the house, propped open the front screen door, and came at him from the front. He hissed at me as I approached. I grabbed his ass and lugged him inside, while he writhed and struggled against me. Me, a World Class Cat Juggler! Needless to say, he wasn't allowed out any more. He's mad at me now, and sleeping in my desk chair. Boo freakin' hoo.

Endings

Tomorrow, after I visit my financial planner to work out the last piece of my new IRA that combines what's left of my savings from 401Ks from Image International (1988-1994), F/X Scenery and Display (1996-2005) and Mystic Scenic Studios (2005-2009) into one account, I'm going to Abq Little Theatre to finish up the last of the construction of the quick-change set pieces for "Irving Berlin's White Christmas." I may go back to add details like plugs for the switchboard and attachment technology for the ski lodge front porch- stuff like that. Painting will be done mostly by student interns (if they show up- they sort of have trouble in that area,) and Colby is still thinking about seat cushions and table transportation methods.

I poured on the steam this month, even working two full Saturdays, because the cast needs the pieces to rehearse with, and the scene shift crew needs to practice the fifteen fast and fluid scene changes. The show opens a week from Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. I will be paid in comp tickets to the show. I hope it's REALLY good.

"Dial M For Murder" is the next show, and I'm invited to work on it, but I'm taking some time off. The White Christmas set pieces not onstage will be stored in the shop, so there will be little room to work anyway. And I'm still hopeful that I'll get a job soon. Hope springs eternal.

Meanwhile, I've applied to six jobs this weekend and kept up with cat feeding, scooping and cooking for us humans. I have sadly neglected my blog, and the trees around the house have dropped a buttload of leaves which I'll be cleaning up this week. It snowed overnight last night, so they're wet and frozen at this time. They'll be warm and dry by Tuesday, I'm sure.

The kitties are missing their outside time, although I did let them out this morning. It was 42 degrees, so they scampered back inside pretty quickly. They'll be happy to have me home during the days again. And I'll get to watch The Price Is Right!

As much as I have enjoyed building nearly all the pieces for White Christmas, I'm glad to be done with it. Seeing them in action will be the best reward.

Time

Carmen and I went to the little desert town of Edgewood Sunday. The tiny congregation there meets in a yarn shop owned by one of the members. It's a satellite congregation of the Albuquerque church, and they usually just watch the sermons from First Church on DVD and discuss them. This week they got a live in person intern. Nine people were there to hear it, including me.

The title of the sermon was "A Fulcrum of Time." The crux of the message, for me anyway, was that we must change time into life. It started out with a comment on our times here and now, including the fact that her husband has been unemployed for five months. That's me! She quoted William Ellery Channing, Henry David Thoreau and others who advocated self-culture, improving ourselves for the ultimate improvement of the world.

The congregation passed around a "talking stick," and when it was passed to her unemployed husband, I went on at some length about the wonderful things I've been able to do with my windfall of time- and I didn't even mention my ongoing Scrabble games on Facebook or my ability to watch The Price Is Right.

Three things are paramount: I'm volunteering in a real theatre for the first time since the 80s, I'm writing more than I have ever written in my life, and I'm walking more than I have since I left Vero Beach in 1987. All of this is a treasure for me. I'll be glad to finally get a paying job again, but I'll always look back on this time as a precious gift. Sure, I've been sadly neglecting my blogging lately, but the scenic work I'm doing is just as important to me. And when I finally get to see my work as part of a highly entertaining show, it will be a watershed moment, comparable to seeing my news sets on TV.

Walking has always been a spiritual practice for me, time away from everything that distracts my train of thought. I went to the bank and the grocery store this afternoon. A forty minute walk to the bank, ten minutes to the store and thirty five minutes back home. An hour and a half on the road, off the leash. It was wonderful. Of course nowadays, my cell phone leash is with me, but it never rang.

But now, Remus tells me, it's time to feed kitties. And this time it really is time.

Chug-A-Chug-A Motion

So Monday I arrived at Albuquerque Little Theatre ready to finish my cabinet for the switchboard, and whatever else happened along. Colby came at (about) 8:30 and told me he was going for plywood as soon as he could get away, and if I finished what I was doing on the switchboard before he got back, I should bolt together the four four by eight platforms on stage into two eight by eight. Then I would be putting straight (non-swivel) casters on the bottom side such that the platforms would pivot. Then I would flip them over and put another layer of plywood across them to solidify them big time.

All of this came to pass. The HMMMM moment came in mid-afternoon when I had lag bolted all twenty four casters to the bottom, each at ninety degrees to the line from the wheel to the pivot point. I told Colby I was ready to flip. He looked at my casters and said, "Is that gonna roll?" I told him it's the way I'd always done it. So we flipped one and it pivoted like gangbusters. Hey, I been doin' this a long time.

Tuesday I finally started on the train set. It's three benches with windows behind them and a luggage rack overhead, which clamp together in an eighteen foot long bench. Each has straight casters running forward so that when the scene comes up, they can be rolled downstage as the lights are coming up. Today I finished the construction, clamped them together, and everybody liked it. Yay. I went home early in celebration.

On the way I stopped into the Home Depot to investigate chicken wire. Rev. Robinson at First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque asked Carmen to ask me about creating a talking ox and I just wanted to see what was available and for how much before I proposed my plan. Well damn it, my plan was dashed. There on the floor below the rack of pristine rolls of wire was a beat up, dirty, squished one for half price. I bought it, because you never know when old gnarly roll of chicken wire will come in handy, ox or no ox.

So now you're up to date at last. Boy this working thing (paid or not) sure cuts into my blogging time.

The Biz

I read my previous postings and had to laugh. I've worked in show business for twenty two years, and still I have the temerity to try to predict what will be going on tomorrow. I went to the theatre Friday ready to finish my 12 foot jacks for the barn wall and start on either the barn or the train. Of course I did neither. There is a lot of business with a telephone switchboard at the ski lodge, so Colby and I dug out an old TV cabinet, disemboweled it, mounted a switchy thing on it, built a cabinet around the switchy thing, and voila! a switchboard. It's magic!

The big news is that last night I went for the strike of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. An hour and a half of unscrewing and unbolting later, the stage was clear. Now we can stand up the barn walls, hang a traveler track for the cyc, and mount the pivoting set platforms.

Also in the news: Colby's purchasing account has been replenished, so he can buy plywood for the train car set and other needs. Things are poised for action. Now if he can only convince the Board of Directors to pay me for the run of the show, we'll be all set, because if I happen to get a job (I'm applying for two of them as soon as I finish this) he'll be hard pressed to get it all done for opening November 27th.

The one thing I know is that I don't know anything, and that's plenty.