Win Ben Stein's Kaboom!

Stage managing The Dining Room has been going well. It's mostly routine at this point. Rwth and I can set up the set and props without any need for actor input and still have a half hour to cool our heels before we head to the booth.

Today was a big night. It was our first actual full house. (We've filled the house with reservations before, but ultimately had some no-shows. Today, there was not a seat left.) Also, we had our first celebrity. As we were getting set up, I walked into the lobby to steal some candy, because I had missed breakfast. As I did, I thought I caught a glimpse of one patron, who looked like something of a cross between Henry Kissinger and Ben Stein. A few seconds later, Rwth stopped me to tell me that Ben Stein was going to be in the audience, which explained my earlier vision. I guess he's put on a bit of weight; also, he was wearing a very Kissinger-esque hat and overcoat, from the rain. Also in attendance were my parents, who sat next to Mr. Stein.

As I mentioned earlier, the show is getting to be routine. Other than minor mistakes brought on by the eccentricities of our analogue light board, the only major problem was our CD player deciding to stop reading our pre-burned CDs during Act II. But there isn't much for Rwth and me to do in Act II, so I was able to find a replacement CD from my personal collection (which music is now the standard post-show music.

Tonight, everything was going swimmingly. In fact, I was able to put my head down and rest my eyes for a bit (a big help at the end of these long weeks). But then, at the beginning of the penultimate scene, as I slowly faded to a more somber lighting cue, the major instrument of the cue went out. OK, I thought, No problem. I'll just bring up some other lights for now to focus on the actors, and we can change the bulb later. So, I pulled up another set of instruments. Nothing. I tried another. Nothing.

I stood up so I could get a good look at the scene. It appeared that my three "washes" (lighting arrangements that lit the entire stage without emphasis on any particular focal point) had unexplainedly and simultaneously ceased functioning. There were a few other, more directed instruments that may or may not be working, and there was a set of instruments that I could use to illuminate the main part of the stage. Unfortunately, the actors in this scene move to a position on the stage where the only way to light them is to use the washes. So I resigned myself to letting them wallow in backlighting for a while until we can move to the next scene. I sent Rwth backstage to tell the actors for that scene not to leave center stage (they did anyhow), and made up a new cue for the final scene. Ah Theatre!

After the show, I briefly spoke with my parents, and then dedicated all of my time there before work (that's right, I'm still lobster-shifting it during the run) to trying to figure out what had happened. It appears that something shorted all of the circuits running along the pipe farthest from the stage, the same one that holds the washes. The other circuits seem to be fine, and the dimmers (the devices that allow me to smoothly change the intensity of each instrument) appear intact. Unfortunately, the house management usually isn't in on Sundays, and it's unlikely that we'll be able to get them over to the space in time to fix the problem before our matinee. We are trying to get in touch with our Lighting Designer who, though he's unlikely to fix the problem, will be able to help set cues to work around the missing instruments. However, he may be at work, which won't help us either. It might end up being just me manipulating the dimmer levels in a maddened frenzy of improvisation, in a manner only seen in silent movies of The Phantom of the Opera.

Anyway. Ben Stein seemed to enjoy it.

ACPT.

I've been keeping hobbled pace with the daily crosswords, recently, and I've often kept times on them, but I haven't managed to write them down in my journal like I used to. Sometimes I'd scribble them down on Post-Its, but they inevitably disappeared without a trace. (Except for one, which disappeared with a trace. I smeared piece of yellow fell out of the pocket of some pants after laundry.)

This is of note because the last day of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is getting underway. That's right, competitive crossword solving. A lot of people I know from the npl and the MIT Mystery Hunt. In fact, one of the Team ACRONYM members came in second last year.

Still, it's not something I'm really interested in. Sure, if I lived in Boston or New York where Stamford is a drive or a train ride away, I'd probably make the effort and compete for the hell of it. But to fly across the country for just crosswords? That has no appeal. I suppose nonpuzzlers find something odd about my willingness to fly to the East Coast to solve incredibly hard puzzles for sixty hours straight but not to compete in a nice ordered tournament, but there it is.

Anyway, I hope tahnan, saxifrage and all of the other contestants that I can't recall at the moment do well. I'll be checking the standings tomorrow for certain.

SunNYTX: 17:15. A brilliant creation on a what could be a rather trite theme. SunLATX: 14:15.

YOY.

I'm still winding down from yet another show/work/nap/show day. I'm also cooking some food. I'm also mentally preparing for my date tomorrow morning. I'm excited and anxious and hopeful. I picked up a gift for the girl I'm going to see. Some guys bring flowers, I bring a book. Yeah, I'm a big dork. It's a cool book, too. It will be hard to part with it, but that's what makes it a good gift, I guess.

I bought a whole bunch of other books too, and I was only in the store for about fifteen minutes. This is why I try to avoid Dutton's except when I'm feeling very flush.

Well, it's time for bed. Or for eating before bed. Whatever.