Change Over

Shows here run for two weeks, which means that the next show must get designed, built, rehearsed, prepped and be ready to go onstage in that amount of time as well. Shows close on Sundays, immediately following the matinee and then we have an event called "Change-over." The previous show is torn down, pulled out of the theatre and replaced with the waiting pieces of the next show. There are approximately 24 hours until the first technical rehearsal, which is the first time that everything, lights, sound, sets, costumes, actors are all brought together to see if the mix works. After that rehearsal there is a shorter 12 hour window to do repairs, fixes, and finishes to anything that wasn't ready to go. It's a ROUGH couple of days.

I just finished my 5th change-over. This one was particularly hard, owing in part to the fact that I decreed early on that this show had to be a zero budget show, or as close to that as possible. You see, we had gone over budget on both of the previous shows, and I knew that the next two would need their full budgets if not more, so this was the show that got drafted to fix things. This show had to be an Iron Chef, or Junk Yard Wars of theatre, I could only use what was available in the shop.

It worked out pretty well. All of the scenic pieces onstage were recycled from previous shows that had happened to be in storage, with the exception of one piece that I designed to be built from scrap lumber, and another that was built for the previous show and modified. I was able to find such disparate elements as a large fishing net, 12 yards of camouflage fabric, two steel wash tubs, two eight foot tall square columns and several palm trees and bring them together into something that I hope no one would guess was approached in this manner.

In the end it wasn't a zero budget show, some money had to be spent of course on very unique items that could not just be pulled out... a working onstage shower, and an 8x8' bas relief air plane among them, but it was very close. The next two shows can come together with slightly larger budgets, and more breathing room in what they need.

2 more to go!

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