Re: AEA rules...as also pointed out, while in rehearsal actors are only required to be in the building during scheduled working hours (once into performance schedule it's not unusual to have hair or makeup calls before 1/2 hr if there are lots of ppl wigged and only one staff member to do them all or really complicated makeup that takes more than 30 min). All costuming, hair and makeup has to be scheduled into the beginning of each rehearsal call. That 30 min (or more if there's insane wiggage or costume drama) is a great time (in my SM opinion) for the director and designers to sit around and talk through exactly how that next big transition is going to happen, confirm Q numbers, iron out sequencing, blah blah blah (IF the director actually comes back from break on time. Which is a whole different issue. Many will assume that they aren't needed till 30 past and go AWOL which is really irriating if their Stage Manager has questions for them about, say, tomorrow's schedule....)while backstage crew has a chance to set or re-set. Particularly in theatres where house crews (i.e. the ones who haven't been backstage for the five hours of rehearsal and are thus not inncluded in the break time) work on notes during that 2 hr break so it's not uncommon to come back from dinner and find sets have been moved for focuses, other scenic pieces moved for adjustments or touch up, props relocated, new gel colors in lights....you just never know what yr gonna find after break that needs to be restored/repacked and that takes time

Separate issue: dry techs are a total waste in a professional environment where people actually get paid for their time. Like, I did them in college. Never in professional theatre. Not to say that as an AEA SM I wouldn't ask a lighting or sound designer who hadn't already sent me an email q list to meet up the week before tech and sit down with me to number and discuss cue placement...but that's just a meeting so that I'd have a book to start first tech with. Some SM's would just wing it and book everything as they went (too stressfull for me. I needed a starting point, guidelines.) Sometimes *sigh* some directors *sigh* would force the entire design team to do one of those pre-tech meetings (usually after a run through so they were already at the theatre) which was infinitely irritating and rarely helpful. Poor scenic and costume designers picking at their nails going "yup, that's then that happens. that's how much time SM told us we have to get it in done in." Sound designers thinking "dude, the SM already has the q list and just played more than 1/2 of them at the right time on the rehearsal equipment. let me start programming" and the lighting designer thinking "this is the first time I've seen this staging. I need to go home and re-do the plot now. Don't even ask me about q's yet."

Different shows do have different needs. Sometimes really complicated scenic transitions do need to be run repeatedly with just the stage crew for hours before it's safe to go into show lighting and then put actors near it. There goes an hour or so of tech time where actors can be dealing with first costume issues. Or maybe if the theatre is flush with tech time there's a whole day of just scenery and automation where actors get the day off. Bonus for them. Or maybe the chorus needs hours to practice their enormous assembly-line costume changes multiple times before attempting it with backstage lighting. Costume changes are HUGE part of tech. If you're lucky, the SM and wardrobe teams have already collaborated heavily enough that everyone has stopwatches in hand and knows exactly what they're going into. Or not, and it's a disaster, and you have to re-do every transition twice for scenery, once for lights and sound, and 5 times for quick changes.

ETA: and speak NEVER of a cue to cue. That's just asking for disaster, wasted time, and omissions.

Wow, that was lengthy, sorry. And my recent history is all in regional theatres, academic theatres tend to function very differently where a real "paper" paper tech (design and tech team sitting around a table talking through everying) and "dry" tech (onstage with scenery/lights/sound but without actors or costumes) can be valuable teaching opportunities so that the actors spend less time feeling like statues, there only to be lit properly. Professional actors get it, but still complain. I had one actor complain that we made him stand perched on this one spot for SOOOOOO LOOOOOOOOOONG in order to get specials focused on him. But he understood that we don't have stunt doubles for focus purposes, and he had an irritating habit of not hitting his spike so the focus had to be much wider than initially expected.

Anyways, education theatre, totally different world. My poor 17 yo sister after hearing my tales from the professional work looks down her nose with disdain at the local theatre company that deigned to hire her as an ASM/intern and then she just had to sit around! Doing nothing! For hours! *hand to forehead*

My experience of high school and college theatre was a whole lot of waiting while the adults decided what to tell us to do.

I used to love sitting in on other SM's techs. Like, after my own rehearsal I'd go sneak into the theatre and sit behind (or next to) a fellow SM and peek at their book and listen to them call and just watch the process as and observer. I kinda loved that. It's like doing a sit-a-long but with more cursing. Except for the one sit-a-long I did during a preview performance of Dracula, the Musical! At La Jolla Playhouse ages ago. I was in the booth, on headset, standing next to the broadway SM as everything went horribly, horribly wrong. Like, staircases stalling midstage, why is that dropcloth still on that coffin now that it's onstage? A bed that couldn't get to it's spike for a scene leaving half a scene in almost complete darkness before he finally gave up and called an emergency intermission. Bright side: no one was injured. That night. But yeah, other people's techs I find fascinating and highly entertaining.

Wow, sorry to hijack the thread. It's really exciting for me to talk about something other than my ongoing health issues. Fun tidbit from PT eval (seriously, I had to get a referral from a surgeon to a physical therapist who then had to evaluate me before referring me to the actual physical therapists? Starting to think i'm trapped in a kafka sidenote) dude hits all my trigger points. They're all sensitive and borderline flare-ey. He says "have you ever heard of Fibromyalgia" and i point at my chart with one hand while smacking my forehead with the other. With as little sleep as i've been getting, it's a miracle i'm not in a full on flare. As is, not surprised that trigger points are triggery.

seriously, I had to get a referral from a surgeon to a physical therapist who then had to evaluate me before referring me to the actual physical therapists? Starting to think i'm trapped in a kafka sidenote

Hey! I know that dance. We need a referral from a GI to get a swallow study run in radiology by an OT but we have to train for the swallow study with a different OT (not hospital based by clinic based) who can't provide services for feeding therapy until the swallow study is done.

Oh hell, I have to make dessert this morning. Why so chilly, house?

Ugh, worst daughter ever. I was dicking around, watching some TV, thinking about packing in a little bit....when I remembered no, I have to go see my father in the hospital. Oops.

Timelies all!

I have COL(cat on lap) once again. Nova is kneading my thigh.

I admit, I have not looked very hard, but I'm fairly certain no coffee has magically appeared in my house this morning. It's a problem.

Nah, you're fine, Jesse. You remembered!

Went and visited my neighbor. Found out that she was hit so hard that she was actually knocked out of her seatbelt into the passenger backseat footwell. There was nothing left of the drivers-side seat area. Her boyfriend thought she was dead when he found her (he was in the passenger seat.) Gah.

Apparently, coming home smelling of mastiff makes Loki insecure/super affectionate. I can barely type for his attentions.

OK, laundry time.

Man, it's cold. Just back from an hour-long walk, with stop for bagels and cafe con leche.

Long walks with Darb are kind of hilariously circuitous. We end up zigzagging all over the neighborhood because she won't walk past the house of any dog she doesn't like, ie any dog who's ever barked at her.

There are entire blocks we can't go down, and others where we have to crisscross three times.