You did a good job.

Tom Burke, to me, after my work as Master Electrician for Zodiaque: Celebration 45

Working on focus with Joseph Crumlish, Lighting Director for Zodiaque: Celebration 45

Here is a quick “cheat sheet” for the makeup design that I whipped up for Pippin. (dir. Paul Stancato) The makeup for many of the ensemble was comedia dell’arte inspired, and there was a main color for the makeup design. This sheet is color-coded for the ensemble and gives a quick definition for each type of makeup design. 

This is the final costume plot I created for Pippin (dir. Paul Stancato)

10/16/2018 - Tracking down ensemble members' basic layers to see the colors some are wearing so we can pick a complementary shirt, or according to the tone of the rest of the design, not so complementary. One of a few last minute changes and updates for Pippin costumes!

Ensemble design by Katie Johnson

11/18/2018 - At the Albright Knox Gallery, taking photos to play with some random backlight. Also a great painting! With the best title. 🖼 An inspirational marigold color in Butch Queen

10/31/18 - Working hard on Halloween! As you can see, all the electrics battens are in, as we finish up hang and cable for Zodiaque: Celebration 45.

11/18/2018 - Also at the Albright Knox Museum! Gaining some inspiration, seeing how the light refracts with the kinetic sculpture

10/4/2018 - For the outside performance I saw Golden Boy at the Irish Classical Theatre. It was really interesting to see the placement of the set within the somewhat small space, especially because the original productions were in a pretty large proscenium theatre. Putting it in the round gave the entire play an entirely new perspective, it made it incredibly intimate between the actors and the audience. The change of scenery just by switching corners and minimum changes seemed super fluid, which seemed like something they would want given the length of the show.

A really amazing production, which was unexpected since I'm not one for wrestling.

11/12/2018 - Sketching some cues for Zodiaque when we realized the cyc light channeling was wrong. Just a quick 20 minutes to figure out the problem and it was fixed!

11/4/2018: A focus call with Lighting Designer Joe Crumlish for Zodiaque: Celebration 45 dance show, which I am Master Electrician for. Opening November 15th.

10/16/2018 - Repairing the rhinestones on Berthe's glasses for Pippin to open tomorrow at UB's Center for the Arts!

10/8/2018 - Today Mary Alice (@malicedtech) and I worked on placement for the "bling" (fake and out of control jewels) that will hopefully stay on Lewis's armour for Pippin

5/2/2018 - On this day, I journeyed into downtown Buffalo, to the Shea’s Performing Arts Center with a few trustworthy friends. (Trustworthy friends being: @insanepoulin and @arielkregaldesigns ) There we rushed the box office, and with student IDs in hand, won tickets to Phantom of the Opera moments before house closed, for a fraction of the normal price. It was a victorious moment, fraught with anxiety as we waited for Katherine Metzler ( @kmetzler ) to park the car. She drove in circles for what seemed like years, adamantly refusing to pay for parking like the truly frugal college student she is. Finally, she burst through the doors. We all rushed up the stairs, and made it to our seats just as the lights dimmed, and the overture began.

The show began! All of us, being Design/Theatre Tech students, were very impressed by the chandelier. The fall of the chandelier at the end of Act 1 was suitably dramatic, but the best part was at the very beginning when all the fabric disappeared off of it. I don’t know where that fabric went inside that chandelier, but it was amazing, and our small group all gasped when it happened.

The most fantastical design element of the show was most certainly the set. The proscenium within Shea’s real proscenium was opulent and beautiful, not to mention the huge spinning set that was used for a large part of the performance. It had so many sections to it, I was bewildered every time a new part of the set was revealed within the larger piece. Just the stairs down to the Phantom’s dungeon were so cool. (There are no other words for it.) There was an especially enjoyable moment with the set where we saw the backstage in contrast to the stage, all on the stage, as Bouquet was hung by the phantom himself. All of the set was very grand in a lot of aspects, which I thought was really fitting for a production of Phantom of the Opera, which is almost comedically grand in concept. In my opinion, the Opera House should match the Phantom in terms of being absurdly full of itself and the set completed that objective so well.

There were some smaller details I noticed, and thought they were at least worth noting. The illusion of candles was made complete while the Phantom and Christine boated through his dungeon, by I believe lighting coming through from below the stage and lighting up the fog that lay low on the stage floor. The use of projections for shadow play were minimally used, but because of that, I think they were more effective than not; it was the subtlety of them at times that really enhanced the aesthetic of the show as a whole. On a negative note, the sound seemed like it could have been improved in some way. Christine was miked while wearing her beaded outfit, and there was audible clicking even as she wore her nightgown, due to the mike. The instrumental music also seemed to be much louder than the cast at more than a few moments.

4/23/2018 - For tech week of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the Lighting/Electrics team really made an effort to use Lightwright for work notes. I was the one in charge of distributing these work notes. I would say the work notes worked well in general, as a way to keep the notes organized, clear, and concise. However, there was some difficulty in distribution, and I was forced to distribute a pdf version of the work notes, rather than being able to just distribute automatically via email through Lightwright. Additionally, it was somewhat difficult to keep the work notes up to date, because no member of the team had the time to update me; I did not have the time to chase down the particular notes anyone had addressed. In the future, I would have to figure out a way to more accurately keep the notes up to date. In the images of these work notes, they had been building up for days, and finally items were checked off before I updated them next.

2/22/2018 - Previously, as Master Electrician for Men on Boats in Fall 2017, I failed to utilize my dimmers and addresses in an organized and efficient way. For Zodiaque Dance Ensemble 2018, I was determined to not make the same mistakes. To that end, I overlaid a diagram of all the stage pin connectors in the UB Center for the Arts Black Box over an image of the lighting plot designed by Ariel Kregal. I planned to carefully assign each fixture an address on paper. I quickly realized this would be incredibly disorganized to do on an 11″ by 8 1/2″ sheet of paper. However, having the locations of the circuits to look at in context of the lighting fixtures made the entire process much smoother than it otherwise would have been.

3/7/2018 - I created a checklist for the Light Board Operator for Zodiaque Dance Ensemble 2018.