The Lighting Tech

The assistant director gave the cue "Ok, fade up lights on cue 142. Go sound effect 26."

I raised the main power slider to full and hit the computer key to cue the lights to their preset intensities. The lights on stage illuminated and the play continue after the intermission.

The sound of a window smashing and the tinkling of glass hitting a floor can be heard as Paul cued sound effect 26. An actor climbs through the window frame located stage left. He's dressed in 1990's jeans, tee shirt, and an open plaid long sleeve shirt. He's got dirt on his face and he is out of breath.

A woman comes running on stage as if she was in another room reacting to the break in.

She screams! Not in terror, but in recognition. It's her boyfriend. He looks like he went 10 rounds in a street brawl and lost badly.

Shelly, our makeup artist, did a great job on the cuts and bruises. She had a talent for blending the different colors of red, blue, purple, and black to make the actor appear like they were hit by a freight train and walked away.

This was the 5th month that the play had been on the road and it was our second week in Rochester. Everyone in our production company had learned this play inside and out. During the second month the crew would mouth or say the lines along with the actors. By the third month the crew was passed the mock the play phase during the performance. By month four everyone was working on autopilot and just hanging out anywhere the audience couldn't see or hear them.

Every now and again the AD, that's the assistant director for you non theater types, would call out a different cue and Paul or I would execute it.

"So after the show and the wrap up, where do you want to head to dinner?" Ad asked.

Ad was short for Adriana. We called her this for three reasons. One, it was shorter to say over the headsets, two, we had a back stage hand also named Adriana and three, she was the AD so it made sense to truncate her name to Ad.

"How about that BBQ place near that big venue downtown. You know, the one near the river and bridge. I think a big library is near there too." Paul suggested.

"Do you mean the one where we waited like an hour last time and we didn't even get a table since it was so packed?" I asked.

"I don't know guys. I don't want to stand around for another hour and go hungry again." Ad said. "Lighting cue 156 and go."

I pushed the button on the lighting board for 156. "What about that Indian place we went to the other night? It had really good curry chicken. The nan was good too!"

"Still have the heart burn from the last time." Paul grimaced thinking about the spices in the food. "Besides, once we get done here it's going to be late and they'll be closed anyway."

"Wings and pizza?" I suggested.

"Had that last night" Ad reminded me.

"Chinese?" Paul proposed.

"Night before" I recapped.

"Lighting cue 157, and go" Ad directed.

I stabbed the GO button on my control board. "We need to decide. I'm not going back to the hotel room for another microwave meal for one again. There are only so many nights a man can take of that!"

"Sounds like a personal problem!" Paul chided.

I gave Paul a look.

"Paul, sound cue 29 and GO" Ad instructed.

"Hey guys, are you thinking about where to go for dinner tonight?" Mark our backstage coordinator asked over our headsets.

"Yeah Mark, but we can't think of anything new. Any ideas?" I asked.

"What have you already thought of?"

"Pizza and wings, Chinese, BBQ, Indian..." Paul trailed off.

"Oh God! No more Pizza! That BBQ place was impossible too!" Mark exclaimed. "What about Thai?"

Everyone in the control booth looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that works. Why don't you figure it out and we'll meet you on stage after we rap for the night." Paul instructed Mark.

"Sounds good" Mark agreed.

The play continued and everyone worked through it. The entire crew just wanted to finish up for the night and get out of there. People were hungry and getting tired. If you have never worked in back stage theater, there is a lot of standing around while the play is going on.

"Ok guys, lets finish this one off" Ad said. "Lighting cue 246 and sound 123 GO!"

Paul and I looked at each other and counted down from 3 out loud. The last cue had to be perfectly timed to give the proper effect to the audience.

At the moment we hit one, both of us stabbed our respective GO buttons. Paul's sound effect was of Chinese fire crackers going off and my lights started to strobe as if you could see them going off.

"Audio to standby and BLACKOUT!"

Cue 247 was to turn all of the lights off in the theater. Paul turned all of the mics to mute so none of the actors could be heard as they setup for a curtain call.

"And bring up the house lights and cue 248. GO." Ad instructed.

The stage and house lights faded up together and the curtain call started. The actors took their respective bows while the audience applauded and cheered. The final group ran off stage and I turned off the stage lights officially ending the show.

Paul turned to Ad and I "Good show folks, good show."

"You too Paul and Ad" I congratulated. There weren't any errors in the show like always, but you still acknowledged it.

"Let's close down and stow the equipment and get something to eat" Ad instructed.

Everyone cleaned their work areas and turned off the different consoles and equipment. Desk lights were snapped off and we made our way from the back of the auditorium to just in front of the stage where the rest of the group was waiting.

The small group and I headed to the Thai place, ate, and headed back to the hotel. Everyone said their good nights in the lobby and we all headed our own separate ways. Not terribly exciting, but that's really the life on the road for a lighting tech.

-----

The next morning the technicians and I gathered in front of the stage for our ritualistic box of Dunkin coffee and a brown bag of bagels from a local bakery. Depending on what city we were in would depend on how good the bagels were. Today's Rochester bagels weren't half bad. They weren't as good as New Jersey or New York City, but they weren't the plastic bag type that you normally get farther west.

Everyone finished up and threw their garbage into the can. Each team broke off and went to their respective areas. Paul, Ad, and I went to the booth to run through the entire show. We always did this to check the equipment. If something went wrong or broke, we typically had time to fix it before the shows. Today, one of the lights blew when we were at lighting cue 246, the strobing effect. Now keep in mind that this is very improbable. All of the stage lights were LEDs and have a long life span. I guess it was just the time for that one to go.

"Ad, did you hear the pop?" I questioned.

"Yeah, must have been one of the lights" Ad acknowledged. "I'll go down and watch as you turn the lights up one at a time. Start stage left and work to stage right."

Ad got to the stage, we sequenced through the lights and found the culprit. One of the hanging lights over the audience area had blown. I hid my head in my hands. Normally when a light went over the seats, we'd just lower the lighting rig by winch and correct the situation. Not this theater. Even though they had totally revamped the theater in the last few years, this happened to be one of the last lighting mounts that wasn't upgraded to a winch system. I had to get a man lift and hang over the seats to get at that one. It wasn't the height that scared me, but the bouncing of the lift arm as it extended. That thing would rock over a foot at times. Even with the fall protection it made me nervous.

Theaters are really weird when it comes to how to get into the house. Some have oversized double doors to let equipment in. Others have hidden gates behind the curtained side walls. This venue was a true pain in the ass. The only way to the sound and lighting rig was to use a cherry picker rolled onto the stage itself. You know, one of those ladder systems with the hydraulic arm that swings out with the basket. They're similar to what linesmen use to fix power when it goes out in your town.

I guided the monster through the wing doors to the stage after the behind the scenes crew made a pathway. Climbing into the basket, I clipped my harness in and powered up the goliath with the control panel. Ad handed me the replacement LED stage light and I rose into the rafters on my metal giraffe. Up towards the ceiling I went. Over the first, second, third, forth, and fifth rows I stretched the machine out. I stopped at my lofty destination smoothly, but the cherry picker's basket continued to sway with its momentum.

Before I removed the suspect light, I checked to make sure that it was still plugged in. Like anything electrical in your house, if it's not plugged in, it just won't work. No such luck, the socket was properly secured. On my command, Ad raised the lighting channel to full to see if the light would go on with a shake of the wire. Again, the light stayed dark. It was time to replace the light, unfortunately. The work wasn't difficult at all, just it felt like a pain in the ass to get all of the equipment out to loosen and tighten some bolts.

Once the new light was tightened to the hanging bar and the safety chain was secured, Ad raised the light to full power while I stood to the side and shielded my eyes. The stage light threw out a blinding display signaling that it was working. Ad stood in the target position and helped me aim and focus. The light was turned off and I remove the lumen that wasn't working. With the grace of a drunk donkey, the man lift lowered back toward the stage and Ad who was waiting to help put away the man lift.

While Ad was on the stage, I ran to the lighting booth to cycle the lights through the test program. It was designed to illuminate each light to make sure that they were working with the control software. Everything looked good.

"Why don't you stress test the lights with the lightning scene while I watch from here." Ad suggested from the stage.

"Sure. Let me call up the cue." I stated as I cycled through the show routine. "Are you all set?" I called out.

Ad gave me the thumbs up while shading her eyes with one hand from the upcoming wave of lights.

The sequence started and Ad swiveled her head following the color show. Left, right, upwards, sideways, upwards, right, left, etc. Toward the middle, Ad started to slow her movements down and press her hands to her temples. A wave of pain crossed Ad's face. She waived her hand at me and I cut the lights off.

"Are you ok?" I called toward the stage.

"Umm... I got a headache all of a sudden. I don't feel so well. Let me sit down."

With a thump, Ad dropped to the floor and onto her butt. I sprinted down the aisle and through the house to her. Vaulting the orchestra pit, I got to Ad as quickly as I could. She was very pale and her face was screwed up in anguish.

"Ad, are you ok?" I questioned again with more concern.

"Um... I think so..." and with that Ad threw up all over the polished stage. Ad was green and her eyes were sunken into her head and fluttering about without direction. I was very worried. Ad started to faint and I had time to get a hand under her head before she collapsed.

I called out for help and several people came running. A call was made to 911 and the ambulance took Ad to the hospital. The EMTs later told me that her blood pressure tanked on the way to the ER and she was luck to even wake up at all.

Later that day the director received a call from the hospital. He called the entire company onto the stage and gave us an update on Ad's condition. Ad was fine and would be back to work in a day or too he said. He told us that the doctors thought Ad had collapsed due to her not eating all morning and was most likely low blood sugar. The director also said that he would be calling the show from the control booth until Ad was back on her feet.

A few people nodded with relief, but I was a little dubious. Ad had collapsed right in front of me and it didn't look like a blood sugar thing, but something more serious. I pushed my worries towards the back of my mind. The show was to go on as they say and I had work to do before the audience started to gather in the lobby.

-----

Ad was eventually cleared by the hospital and our company's med personnel. She was instructed to take it easy, but anyone that knew Ad would have told you that you were going to be chasing shadows on that one. Ad and everyone else was on the road. Work kept us busy and occupied. There wasn't anything Ad could have done but gone to a coffee shop and read a book or hang out in the hotel in front of the TV. The theater was where her friends were.

Tonight and tomorrow were the last shows in Rochester. Ad was up for running the two remaining shows and everyone was excited for her return. While the director did a good job standing in, there is a different feel to the operation. Don't get me wrong, nothing bad happened, but it wasn't really comfortable either. It's like when your principal is sitting in on your teacher conducting their performance review. Everything goes like it always doesn't but there is a nervous vibe still in the air.

"15 minutes to show! House is ready to open!" Called Jess the House head usher over the radio.

"Back stage is ready!" Mark reported from his post in the stage right wing.

"Audio ready standing at cue Zero Zero" Paul chimed in.

I pressed my mic key, "Lighting set to House Full, Lighting Cue Zero Zero standing by."

"All right everyone, let's get ready for the doors to open on time. Remember, no broken plates this show!" Ad instructed.

"NO BROKEN PLATES!" everyone with a headset barked back at Ad.

It was an inside joke amongst the company resulting from a near disaster during one of the performances early on in the tour. Benjamin, one of the actors, had tripped on a table on stage which caused a plate to fall to the floor and smash. Something like that isn't normally at all a big deal, actors will work around it until a crew member can clean it up during a scene change. This time though the plate was in such a bad spot that Benjamin had to at least clean some of it up while the scene was still going.

Benjamin is a good actor and just rolled the accident into his performance. The audience didn't notice that the plate being smashed wasn't a part of the show. In between lines, he'd kick plate fragments together, pick them up, place them on the table, and continue on. The tech crew was well aware of what happened via radio and was ready to make the quick cleanup when the opportunity arouse.

As the scene continued, Laura made her entrance into the scene blissfully unaware that the pottery had shattered. During her brief monolog, she was to bang her hand against the table in anger.

"Misses BROKEN PLATE!" Benjamin yelled out in warning as Laura slammed her hand down on the table top. She had avoided hitting the glazed shards by only a fraction of an inch.

The scene ended without any other close calls. The plate was cleaned up, and the show concluded. Ever since that incident, "NO BROKEN PLATES!" was yelled out over the headsets before every show as a reminder to what out for issues and to have a safe show.

"No broken plates," Ad whispered back.

Paul and I reviewed our equipment and tablets for the next few minutes while everyone waited for the theater house doors to open. I looked at my tablet's clock and noticed that it was 2 minutes after the hour. Ad should have called out over the radio that the house was to be opened to the audience. I looked over to Ad to remind her of the time.

"Hey Ad? It's two minutes after, do you want to open the theater doors?" I gently reminded her.

"Umm, yeah, umm, yeah. Sorry," Ad stuttered. She pressed the send button on her radio, "Open the house."

"You ok Ad?" I asked.

"Umm, yeah. Just a little headache is all. I'll be ok." She weakly smiled at Paul and me.

"You let us know if you don't feel ok Ad. We're here for you girlfriend!" Paul quadruple snapped his fingers in a Z pattern.

Ad shook her head. "I'll let you know. Ok?" she sassed back giving her own quadruple Z pattern snap.

"Good! Fine! OK!" Paul mocked. "We just want to make sure that you don't break your own plate and force us to take you to the hospital again!" Paul chided.

"OK!" Ad threw her hands up in surrender.

After the audience took their seats, the show started as normal.

"Sound and Light Cues Zero Zero Go!" Ad instructed.

-----

"Ok, fade up lights on cue 142. Go sound effect 26." Ad directed, returning the show from the intermission.

Paul and I triggered the audio and visual actions as instructed.

The sound of a window smashing and the tinkling of glass hitting a floor. The simulated lightning struck the back scrim illuminating the stage. Benjamin crawls through the broken window as Laura runs on stage to start the second act.

A few minutes later I was expecting Ad to give me the instructions for lighting cue 143, but she didn't. I looked over at her and Ad's eyes were unfocused and glossed over. I asked her if she was ok, but there wasn't a response.

"Shit!" Paul exclaimed. He had noticed her too.

I stabbed the lighting board to activate the next lighting sequence. It gave Paul and me a few minutes to help Ad.

"Paul, get on the headset and let backstage know that Ad isn't feeling well and that you will call the show going forward. Tell Mark to get on the radio and switch to channel 7 ASAP. I'll see how I can help her out in the meantime". Paul grabbed Ad's script at the same time he made the emergency calls on the radio. I switch my radio to channel 7 to wait for Mark's call.

Paul took over the assistant director, lighting, and sound duties while I tried to snap Ad out of her catatonic state. Snapping my fingers, clapping, and shaking Ad didn't do anything. She just wasn't there. Paul and I were exchanging glances. We just didn't know what to do. Did we stop the show?

Mark called me on the radio sounding concerned. "What's up with Ad? What do you need me to do?"

"Mark! Ad is out of it. She is awake, but isn't present. She isn't talking or doing anything. We tried to snap her out of it. We can't get her to respond to us. What the hell do we do?!"

I could hear Mark giving someone instructions on his end of the radio. He then started talking to me. "Ok, we are going to call 911 and get someone up there ASAP. Once the EMTs get here, let me know. We are going to raise the house lights and I'll make an announcement. I'll send a runner to let Jess know to expect the ambulance and to direct them to the booth. It'll be ok. Stay calm and see if you can get Ad to snap out of it. Don't touch her though since we don't know what is wrong."

I think it was about ten minutes later when I heard over the radio from Jess that the EMTs were there. Mark had heard the call too and instructed me to bring the house lights up. The play was in the middle of a scene, but it just didn't matter. Ad was in trouble and her being help was way more important that a silly play.

Benjamin and Laura had been informed that Ad was sick and Mark would make an announcement. The two actors walked off stage as Mark calmly walked to center stage.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologize for the play's interruption. There is currently a medical emergency going on and we must stop the show until it is resolved. We ask that you remain in your seats so that the EMTs are able to do their jobs as quickly as possible. I understand that you might want to stretch your legs or use the bathrooms, but we really need to keep the lobby clear at this time. Thank you for you cooperation. I will be back in a few minutes to provide you an update." Mark left the stage to return to the stage wings.