Saturday, November 5, 2011

Splice. Splice. Splice.

Would you like to know the very tedious task I am performing right now?

I'm putting together THE BOOK. The stage manager's book is, as you know, the show bible. It has every bit of dialogue and music, every light, sound, or fly cue, warnings and standbys, places calls, lists, ground plans and blocking notes...

I've never made a perfect book. Not even close. My books are very chicken-scratchy.

But the book I'm putting together right now has been driving me crazy. First of all, the music is handwritten. It's a 1988 edition. But still, even then, there. were. fucking. printers. This calligraphy makes me a little dizzy.

And what I have, what I'm fixing, is two separate books. One of music, and one of all the dialogue, with indications of when the songs happen. There's a lot of flipping back and forth - and it has to stop.

So the ol' Hewlett-Packard and I are spending a Saturday night recopying half the pages, folded and overlapped, into one continuous script/score. I'm so annoyed, I think I'll take it out on the GTA by having him make some copies of my version. Because the lighting designer needs one, and uh, maybe someone else.

If this isn't living the dream, I don't know what is.