It has recently come to my attention that I have been "sucking" at my resolution to blog once a week. This is true. I will try to make up for it over the summer and get caught up with the actual number of blogs I had proposed to write, whether they come in weekly increments or not. So, with no further fanfare, here is a recap of my first year at Ole Miss. Some of this repeats info from other blogs, but it should get you caught up...
First of all, we have a very nice house here in
The job itself has been exhausting. We produce six shows a year which isn’t too bad, but I have been responsible for designing four of them this year while supervising the lighting design of the remaining two as well as designing sound for two of them and supervising the design of the other four. That, in and of itself, is very time consuming but I was more or less prepared for that when I took the job. What I was not prepared for was the difficulty in getting acclimated to the new environment, learning how our performance spaces work and the course load that I would be carrying in my first year.
The first show of the year took place in our newly renovated theatre space. This was a bad choice on the department chair’s part as it gave no time to deal with any unexpected problems, of which there were many. When I arrived I was told that the money that had been budgeted for the new dimming system in the theatre had been cut and instead of the $100,000 that were appropriated for the system I had $25,000 remaining to get the theatre operational. This was approximately four weeks from the opening of the show. In that time, in addition to figuring out how the money should be spent I had to put together the 138 lights which had been purchased for the space, design the show, hang and focus the show. Most importantly, I had to assess what was in place in the space and how best to spend the remaining funds to make it a viable theatrical performance space as well as a good theatre for the students to learn in. Unfortunately, the equipment that had been purchased had been configured in a manner to work with the new system in mind and was therefore incompatible with the old system left in place. This was a huge challenge to overcome and much of the money I had was spent making the new equipment “talk” to the old system. In addition I had to buy new dimmers, coordinate with physical plant on the installation of additional power into the space, and go through a bid process on the equipment to be purchased. Needless to say, it was a very hectic first three weeks of my tenure here, and one I do not hope to repeat again soon. However, we only missed our deadline by one day and the show opened as scheduled. Everyone seemed pleased with the design and I thought it could only get easier from here. I had no idea how wrong I was.
The next show, Company, a large scale musical, was performed in the existing larger performance space. I now had to familiarize myself with another new space, new inventory, new angles and new headaches. To complicate things, I had expected to come in to the year with three lighting students. However, when I arrived, only one student was left after the others had dropped out or decided that they no longer wished to be actively involved in the theatre department. One of these was supposed to be designing this show, but informed me in the middle of the headache in the new theatre that she would not be able to do it. So, with my one student that was left, which the department chair told me at the beginning of the year would never design at Ole Miss again after some mistakes he had made at the end of the past year, I set about designing this show. It was fraught with difficulty and again we came in one day late in our schedule, but the show opened on time and many people told me it was the best design they had seen at Ole Miss, which is always nice to hear (although the department chair, to this day, has yet to say anything positive or negative regarding my design work).
The next show, Lysistrata, went considerably smoother for the majority of the process. However, the day that we were supposed to start technical rehearsals, at which point we had hung and focused all of lights as well as written all of the cues, we received word that our main theatre space had been “temporarily condemned” due to structural failure in the ceiling from a buildup of water in the attic space (where most of my power is run, incidentally). So, we go away for Thanksgiving break and when we get back we have to move the entire set from one space to the other and I have to completely redesign the show, which means re-hanging and focusing as well as writing a whole new set of cues for the smaller stage which necessitated a fair amount of re-blocking on the director’s part. I thought for sure that my life was coming to an end.
The spring semester started out fairly smoothly. I had convinced the chair to give my one student another chance and he set about designing the dance show. I had a few squabbles with the head of dance which culminated in her asking if I had ever worked on professional dance, in front of the entire cast and crew, and me responding, “I have indeed, and what you are asking us to do looks a lot more like what I have done for a dance recital with a bunch of seven year olds whose parents just want to see their little bunny hop across stage.” So, that went well.
Then April struck. I had four shows open in April and have subsequently spent much time with various medical professionals treating me for what they can only determine are stress related maladies. First came The Grapes of Wrath, which I was ultimately very pleased with, but took a lot out of me. I worked four 18 hour days in a row and did not eat until the fourth of those days. The local paper called that the best lighting design they have seen at Ole Miss, so again, it went well, but tried to take me down with it. Then we had six working days to strike that show, re-hang and focus for the big musical revue we do at the end of the year. In the middle of that my department chair decided that we needed to cultivate a good relationship with the music department which meant that I also had to design, hang and focus the opera that was being performed in our new space. I was the only person in the department working on the show. It was most frustrating, and something that I think I have made clear to the chair I will not be doing again. I went straight from that into the tech week of the revue which I again had students working on. I want my students to be designing, but ultimately it is more work for me as I have to mentor them through their choices and go back and work through their mistakes. However, that is what I am really here to do. The day that the revue opened I drove to
Working with the Rep was an excellent experience. Growing up I always wanted to work at TPAC and I finally got my chance. The show was performed in the Polk Theatre there and was a lot of fun. It was nice to be a professional designer again and only having to worry about designing the show. Several times throughout the process I had to force myself to stop and look around at where I was. I have seen several shows in this space, going back to 1988, and it was just a pure thrill to be working there myself.
I came back from that rejuvenated, and just in time for finals. The day after that show opened I had a root canal which was good as well since the tooth had been giving me intense pain since mid March and I had no time to deal with it until May 2. I did however make time to check on other health problems that came up during this time that required a lot of blood work and a CT Scan that all came back negative. After about $3,000 worth of work (much of which was covered by insurance thankfully) they came back with a response of “I don’t know, maybe it is stress related.”
Add to all of this the challenge of learning how the department and University work, figuring out what some of my classes are (some of them had very nebulous course descriptions and no one around here seems to know what the person before me taught), teaching three courses in the fall and six in the spring, serving on committees to reassess the tenure guidelines, to reassess and restructure the BA curriculum and being the design representative on a search committee, as well as going on four recruiting trips in Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and at the Southeastern Theatre Conference and it has been a very trying year.
Luckily, the department chair seems to be more relaxed and trusting of me now. I wrote a grant proposal which has gotten us $85,000 for a sound renovation in our main performance space, another proposal from which I received a fellowship over the summer to create an initial comparison of the lighting design styles between America and Europe as well as designing the show at the Rep and I will also be designing the inaugural season of the Tennessee Shakespeare Festival in Bell Buckle, TN this year. So, I am doing well with my creative and research goals for tenure. Additionally, the Rep has already begun talking to me about coming back next year for more design work and I have had meetings with the people at The Alliance Theatre in
So, I have survived the year and am optimistic that next year will be smoother, however the first presidential debate is being held here and I learned earlier this week that they will be using our theatre for several functions leading up to the debate which will likely strain my time in heretofore unseen ways. The faculty as a whole are likable and supportive in their comments although not so helpful in their actions. We are all very busy with too much to do, so that is not something that I hold against them. My recruitment efforts have not born any fruit just yet, but there are several high school juniors who will be visiting this summer with an eye toward the 2009-2010 school year, so hopefully my roster of students will begin to grow. I have added one additional student for next year, so slowly we are growing.
I am happy with this choice over
How are things with you?
Enjoy the silence!
