Head Electrician
I have been the Head Electrician for three of Loyola's mainstage productions: Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury, Notes From the Field by Anna Deavere Smith, and Legally Blonde: The Musical by Heather Hach.
I also Head Electricianed for our Senior Dance Composition performance.
Fairview
I had the privilege of being the second ever Head Electrician at Loyola and it was a wonderful experience. I got to work with a lot of LED tape, create paperwork, and help fix technical problems. I was learning a lot during this show and it definitely made me feel more confident in my own knowledge. I was a lot more hands on for the future shows but this was an amazing learning experience!
FIELD Channel Hookup
Notes From the Field
For this production, my focus was for lights. Upon starting looking at what was leftover the semester before we decided to completely start fresh. We struck on the lights on the upstage and tension grid. While doing that we hung the lights on the booms and got each of those power and DMX. We started hanging the upstage with work-studies and the tension grid with the classes. Once everything was hung myself and the other work-studies circuited the tension grid and the upstage. This was a hard task trying to figure out the logic for each section and to do it in the most efficient way. once we had a solid idea of how it would all work we started circuiting and included the classes in that. Overall the circuiting process was very smooth and we had the lights working with plenty of time. We then focused, which all went very well.
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The day we were supposed to start tech there was some sickness going around the department and we had to adjust. Our light designer was sick so I was at the light board with the board operator for the show helping her with functionality and programming of the board. We had a dry tech one day which was something I had not done before. The rest of tech was different as I usually am around to help with any issues but for this show I was at the board with the operator for most of tech.
On our Saturday of tech though, our light board stopped working and would not turn fully on. I luckily had saved the show on a thumb drive so we were able to swap the boards and continue to work as normal. The board had to be sent in to get fixed but we did open it up and see if we could fix the problem.
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Other than a bit of a rocky tech, the performances went really well. I was called a couple of times but was able to walk the operators through the issues and it was a very successful show!
BLONDE Channel Hookup
Legally Blonde
​The turn around from Notes from the Field to Legally Blonde was very quick. There was a week before spring break and because work studies weren't going to be working then we needed to ensure that everything was working for when we came back because focus was happening the week after spring break. I was going into the theatre each day that week and spent a lot of my time getting all the lights hung, circuited, and patched. This was a daunting idea because I had multiple weeks to do this for Notes and was a little nervous about getting it all done for Blonde. There were a few panicky moments when I thought I was doing something wrong or that I did not have enough of a plan but as I went along I was figuring it out quickly and did have good plans. We got everything done with lights in that week and it was such an incredible feeling! It was so cool to realize all I/we had accomplished in that week and I was very proud of myself.
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The tech process was a long and difficult one, but it was very fun and informative. The first day was slightly chaotic as I was running around training and fixing certain things before the run started. Each day of tech there were more things that needed to be adjusted and it was exciting figuring everything out and staying on my feet. Eventually we added in a disco ball with lights that was a lot of trial and error but once it worked it was very exciting. The day before the run we moved the hazer and adjusted the LED tape so they were plugged directly into the wall in order for them to work more consistently. After opening night I went in on Friday to fix some mic issues, as Clare was handling most of the sound with my assistance I was a little nervous about helping out with sound but it went pretty well. On the first Sunday of the performances our A1 was out sick and I haven't really worked on this sound board that much since it was installed so I was a bit nervous about helping out. I was asked to stay with our A2 for the performance in order to help out before the show started and during. We called the A1 to ask him about his tips and tricks in order for us to get ready for the show. Right before the show started I was going to stay near the A2 to make sure that everyone who was supposed to be unmuted was and making sure everything went smoothly. Right when the show started we tried to do what the A1 had always done but it was a different process and system than we had anticipated so when mics were not working at the beginning of the show we did some problem solving. I immediately went into the "Pre-Show" cue where we tested the mic for mic check and knew that mics were working there and unmuted those that were on stage. We did that for the first scene and tried the next cue that the A1 had set up but it still wasn't working. Through the rest of the show we were muting and unmuting for when people came on stage or were offstage singing and adjusted levels throughout the performance. The A2 and I were mixing together as it was not something either or I had really done and we did not know the show as well and it was a very fun experience. It was daunting at first and I was a little scared of doing something that I had not really done on this level yet but it was very informational and fun. I feel like I learned a lot from that experience.
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The rest of the show went relatively smooth tech wise. I was called a couple more days to fix little things and came in each day to adjust things that needed to be adjusted. It wasn't until the final performance that I had to come in to fix tech gear right before the show started. While I was called frequently and had to go into the theatre a lot it was an incredible experience! I learned so much from this process and while it was a little scary that Clare was not going to be there for the performances it was a good challenge and when I did not need to call her for anything, it was a good reminder of how much I knew and had learned. It made me feel very confident in my abilities and the work studies were absolutely incredible! Duncan and I could not have done it without them and this show was a great learning opportunity.
Dance Composition
Right when Legally Blonde closed we needed to start working on the rep/event plot to prepare for all the end of semester events. During Legally Blonde we had done a good amount of prep work like hanging lights that were in the rep plot that would not be in the way of the Blonde lights and putting tape on lights that were going to be struck. The Monday after Blonde was over the goal was to be completely hung for the rep plot as we needed lights for the Jazz performance on that Thursday. Within those three days we got everything struck, rehung, and circuited. We used the left over Blonde lights to create the Jazz lights.
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The next day we created a new show file to re-patch all the lights to the rep plot. It took us a couple days to get everything working and in the board and while it was stressful we did a great job! I led the electrics class a couple times to do hanging and it went really well. The Wednesday before Easter Break I led the electrics class in focusing the lights which was very cool as I had not focused such a large plot before. About halfway into the class Harrison showed up and he took over the focus with my assistance. This also went very well and Harrison did great! As work studies we finished focusing once the class was done and were ready to start programming before Easter Break started. Harrison started programming lights and we were cruising! On the second day of tech, the dance professor came up to us a little stressed about the lack of boom lights. This was something Clare and I had talked about before she left and we had not realized dance did not know this. The next day Duncan was our savior and got all the booms hung and he and I circuited. It was very efficient and we had done it so quickly, I was very impressed with ourselves.
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After that everything else went very smoothly. Harrison made some amazing cues and he was really great at talking with the choreographers. While there were stressful moments our whole team did a really great job!​