Summer Stock – Week 1

I am back up in Vermont to start my third summer stock experience at The Bread Loaf School of English. I hope to do a weekly recap of my seven weeks here as the master electrician. So far, it has been a relaxed opening week of the summer. The equity actors and production team arrived within the first few days of classes starting, and everyone went straight to work opening up the theatre. There is a welcome back speech the second day, so it is always a rush to get the space prepared for the 250 students sitting in the house. The play this year is the Bard's Twelfth Night. There is a static set for the show, so it seems the show will be lighting heavy to dictate the different locations. Students at the school fill in the additional roles to the hired actors as needed. All in all it ends up being a very enjoyable experience for everyone.New S4

To my surprise I found a dozen new S4 Pars waiting to be installed as the new house lighting system. We are lamping them down to 375 watts so we only have to devote two of our 96 dimmers to the house system. It is going to be a big improvement over the previous system, plus it will provide flexibility for our space which can be oriented in any direction. The theatre is interesting as it is a converted barn with a static grid hanging above.

I also took a drive up to Production Advantage this week, which is conveniently located in Burlington to pick up some L520s for the house lights, but also to pick up an Apollo Right Arm. It's a little complicated, but basically the T.D. here ordered this unit for his theatre, but decided to pick it up in Vermont. So now I have a Right Arm to finally check out and play around with. I have only had time to open the box up, but I will hopefully give a little overview of my thoughts about in, especially in comparison to an Autoyoke.