Carly's Theater Tech Internship

       The second weekend of performances of The Graduate was the longest, with 5 performances from Thursday to Monday. By the 6th or 7th performance, I pretty much had the show memorized, and was much more confident with the timing of the cues, such as turning on and off the lamps, and the amount of time between scene changes. This weekend we were able to figure out the best order to turn on the equipment to make sure that the sound would work every time. We also had an issue with lights one day, in which there was a light in the back of the theater that was not part of the show, and did not turn off in blackouts, but we were able to fix this midway through act one. After that, I added a blackout check to my pre-show routine, and we did not encounter the problem again. The rest of the shows ran very smoothly.     

       After our week of tech rehearsals, Dirt Dog Theater Company's production of The Graduate  opened on Friday, May 25, 2018. Before and after the first show, I finished learning how to turn on and off all the operating equipment (projectors, light board, sound board, computers), as well as learning what backstage lights needed to be on and off during the show, and what kinds of checks I needed to do to make sure that the lights were running properly before each show. There were 11 performances of this show, so as the weeks went on, this process became much more efficient, and I added other sound and video checks to my list. Our first weekend of shows went really well. We had a show Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. During this first weekend, I got to know the cast and crew better, and finish learning everyone's names. I spent most of my time in the operating booth with the stage manager, so I got to know her the best.       ...

       This summer, I had the opportunity to have an internship with Dirt Dogs Theater Company for their production of The Graduate . I ran the lights, sound and video for the show. This internship lasted about a month, with the show being open for three weekends. Technical theater is something that I have been interested in for a while, however it is a field that I have very little experience in. This internship was an amazing learning experience for me, and I came out with several valuable new skills.         The first week that I started working with Dirt Dogs was tech week for the show. I worked under the management of John Baker, the Design Director for Dirt Dogs. During this week, I had to learn how to make my way around Match Theater, where the show was taking place, learn the names of the cast and crew, learn how to run the lights, as well as turn them on and off, and much more. It was a bit overwhelming and first, but it was...