The Little Dutch Boy

So I started teaching at a local college last week. I won't mention the name here, but it's a technical school and I'm teaching History of Fashion and Draping I (a method of pattern making for sewing). Because I'm fond of lists, here's my "Oh good Lord, you must be kidding me" list.

A. The History of Fashion class is a 4 hour lecture class from 6-10PM.

Four hours.

At night.

4 hours of me talking to sleepy students at night. Or just 4 hours of me talking and trying to think up ways to keep them engaged and awake.

B. The Draping class is a 5.5 hour class from 5-10:30PM. But at least we're moving around doing things.

C. The first day of my Draping class, I call one of the other teachers - who teaches Draping during the day - to ask her about something class related, and she says "Oh, I meant to call you and tell you that they changed the textbook for the Draping class." This is 2 hours before I have to go teach this class (for the first time) and I already have my syllabus all together using the old text. This other teacher found out by GOING TO CLASS and discovering that all the students had a different text from hers (which is also the way I would have found out, had I not called her...) Apparently the guy who orders textbooks ordered the wrong book and no one in administration bothered to tell the teachers.

Oh, but there's more.

C. I breeze into my Draping class, pass out the syllabus, tell them that I'll have to revise it once I've had a chance to look at the new text, spend 20 minutes or so going over the requirements for the class, lecture some about the dressform and then ask them to measure their dressforms to get a basic set of measurements to use throughout the class.

About halfway through this process, one of the girls says something about her tape measure that doesn't sound right and it occurs to me to ask " Does everyone know how to read a tape measure?"

I look around and see most of the girls shaking their heads "no."

So I say, "I thought they taught you that in basic sewing..." Blank looks on all faces.

And I say " You have all taken basic sewing, right?"

Uh, no. 75% of my class has never taken Basic Sewing (which is technically a prerequisite for this class).

They don't know how to read a tape measure.

They don't know what seam allowance is.

They don't know how to use a sewing machine.

I'm teaching people who have never used a pattern, how to make patterns.

Well, then.

So I give them a dinner break after this startling revelation and tracked down the Head of the Department, E., to ask her what was going on. She gave me an apologetic song-and-dance routine about how they have admissions at different times of the year, which means some of the students take classes out of order, yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever. And they don't tell the teachers because...???

Added to all of this, I find out that one of my students - who is representative of about half of my students - gets up at 3:30AM to go to her full time job at a call center, goes home to feed dinner to her two kids and then come to my class until 10:30 at night. And she's in both of my classes. Half of my students are working moms, aged 19-22. And they are paying a lot of money for these classes so that they can look forward to a future where they don't have to work jobs at call centers and they can see their kids more often.

So I owe it to them to teach them something that will help them in their future careers, and somehow keep them awake at the end of their 18 hour days.

The good news is, if I can teach these classes, under these conditions and the kids come out knowing something, I can teach anything...

Super Witches and the Macbeth round-up

Well, we closed MacBeth on Sunday night in Phoenix. I'll summarize my thoughts in a numbered list below. Feel free to take notes. There will be a test later.

1. I don't hate opera as much as I did, due to 2 things. When you work a show with music that you hate, you either come around to their way of thinking (drinking the Kool-Aid, if you will) or you go out of your mind because you can't get away from the music. I am, quite frankly, out of my mind enough without help; ergo, the Kool-Aid. The second thing is that I got to hear the chorus sing happy birthday to one of the dressers. There were about 50 of them singing in multipart harmony in a huge high-ceilinged rehearsal hall and it was a stunning experience. I can't hate them now.

2. That list of things that shouldn't ever be on a theatre stage? Children should be listed twice. There were 3 young girls (ages 7, 11 and 13) that I dressed for this show and we had variations on 2 conversations every night for 2 weeks.

Girls (at the beginning of act II): Can we get into our costumes now?
Me: No, you need to wait until the end of the second act. When you hear the stage manager make the call for the second intermission, I will come find you and you can get dressed.

Girls (10 minutes later): Is it the end of act II?
Me: Did you hear a call for the second intermission?
Girls: No...
Me: I'll come find you when it's time.

Girls (5 minutes later): Is it time?
Me: "Are you kidding?"

Girls (30 seconds later): "Kaitlyn...?"
Me: "Don't even ask."

So finally the stage manager calls for second intermission, God bless her, I take the girls into their "dressing room" and hand them their costumes.

Girls (each one, right after the other): "I don't want to wear these tights!"
Me: "You have to, it's part of your costume."

Girls: "I don't want to wear my shoes, I just want to wear my tights."
Me: "You have to wear your shoes, otherwise you get holes in your tights."

Girls: "How come the tights are so tight?"
Me: *Sigh*

EVERY night. Ask me if I want my own kids...

3. You know how the Shakespearian theatres were designed with seating for the upper class surrounding a stage with a pit where the lower classes would stand, mingle, eat, throw food, etc. while watching the show? Well, working with the supers is a little like being in the pit. The principle actors each have their own dressers and all attention is paid to their comfort, hygiene, temperature controlled rooms, hydration levels etc. The poor super witches - all 15 of them - only had me. Problems with your dress? Here's a safety pin. Can't get it zipped up and I'm too busy helping someone else or wrestling with the kids? Ask one of the other witches to help you. Comfort, climate control, consideration? No. No. and No. Fortunately, they were almost all fabulous people (there are always a couple of exceptions) and sometimes the pit is fun. There's all that food and you get to throw tomatoes when you don't like how the action is going.

4. We had a show on Friday the 13th. And I spent the night surrounded by witches. It goes without saying that I then went out for drinks with them. We had a great time and only got into a little bit of trouble (it's that pit mentality...) :) FYI: try the Bruised Pear, it's a "Black and Tan" but with pear cider on the bottom and Guinness on top. Delicious.

5. Per diem is a fabulous thing. "Tip the waitress 40%, we're on per diem!"

And probably the best thing is that I really got to know and like some of my super witches and they mostly live here in Tucson so I will see them again. One of them said "I pegged you as a kindred spirit immediately. You know how when ridiculous things happen and you roll your eyes and then look around the room to see who else is rolling their eyes? I saw you and I knew we would get along."

So everybody lift their Bruised Pear with cheers to kindred spirits!

And what next you ask? I started teaching last night. History of Fashion from 6-10PM. A four hour lecture class. I had a headache from talking so much by the time I left last night. Despite that, it was fun.

And I'll also be working on the next opera, Figaro.

So, more stories to come...

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

Another old maxim in theatre is that certain things should be avoided on stage. They include:

Water
Fire
Children
Animals

And now, we really should add blood. I actually sat in the audience to watch parts of the dress rehearsal, just to determine that I really don't like opera (I don't). And while I have my quibbles with the staging (A. why is it that in opera you have either 2 people on stage, somehow singing to eachother while both managing to look at the audience, or you have 10000 people on stage all singing in chorus? Nothing in between. and B. What is it with opera sets needing rocks? Every opera set I've ever seen - even the parodies in cartoons - have a pile of rocks on stage?) there is a cool set piece in this opera.

During Lady MacBeth's sleepwalking scene - where I'm sure there's an aria riffing on the "out, out damned spot" line - she wanders about in a white nightgown surrounded by the high white walls that make up the set. At some crucial point in the aria, a mechanical heart-type device under her nightgown (supposedly) starts to pump blood over the neck of her gown as the white walls behind her (allegedly) also begin to bleed.

Well, you can see where this is going.

So I'm sitting in the audience during the first dress rehearsal for the "blood scene" with just about every other wardrobe person because this is the money scene plus we've been privy to all the backstage drama over the mechanical heart thing, how it works, does it work, what is the actress supposed to do to make it work etc. Lady Macbeth begins the aria, wandering around in her nightgown and small red spots are appearing in random places on her gown but it's not the "pumping heart gusher" we were lead to believe. She's also making all these weird rubbing motions with her hands down her body. And then she stops singing and says to the director:

"Bernard, it's dripping into my shoes..."

So a wardrobe person goes on stage to check out the heart, which of course is malfunctioning and refusing to run the blood out the tube and down the front of her dress but instead is leaking/dribbling out the bottom of the container, running down her legs, soaking her shoes and leaving strange footprints and drops on the set. This is where we also discover that the polyester nature of her nightgown means it won't soak up any fluid at all, so the blood is just going to run off of it, no matter what. So they give up on the heart for this rehearsal and decide to try again tomorrow with something different.

Meanwhile, the walls remain pristinely white. So the rehearsal is halted while several stagehands go back stage to find out what happened to the blood. Whatever was wrong is fixed and some red appears at the top of the wall panels, so Lady MacBeth swings into action, walking around stage wailing and trailing bloody footprints while the walls get redder and redder.

Now the set deck (the floor) was built with a "blood channel" like the groove on a sword, that is intended to catch the blood from the walls and direct it into some receptacle backstage. This is especially important as the stage is on a severe slant (called a rake) so the blood could conceivably, if not contained, run down the deck and into the orchestra pit/audience.

So, a minute or so into the restarted aria, a stagehand appears behind Lady MacBeth and appears to be mopping something up. Then another stagehand appears with more towels, and then another, until there are 10 stagehands on stage behind the actress all desperately trying to contain the blood that is running all over the place.

The actress was a trouper, however, and somehow finished the aria in the midst of stagehand turmoil and the rehearsal was halted for a brief reccess so they could finish cleaning up after that number.

It takes 2 more rehearsals and 2 more heart substitutes before they settle on an IV bag with a hose and sew cheesecloth all over her nightgown to soak up the blood as it runs down. As far as I can tell, the set blood has also been contained although a friend of mine, on hearing this story, has suggested that they tell the audience in the first couple of rows to wear raincoats or carry umbrellas.

Can you imagine?

And as a PS, my witches came back yesterday with blood on their white wedding dresses because they were standing in the back for the curtain call and the walls dripped on them. And that stage blood won't come out for anything.

Damned spot, indeed...

Mackers

So we're in rehearsals for my next job, the opera version of MacBeth written by Verdi in the mid 1800's. Can we get further from my last job? No. No, we can't.

And between you and me, I don't really care for opera. Call me a Philistine, but I think it's overdone and melodramatic. plus it's long. And it's always in another language.

So there I am, sitting in a dark theatre, watching people stab themselves and eachother (because there's always a stabbing in opera) while singing in heavy vibrato in Italian and trying to read the subtitles flashed on the curtains above the screen. It's a foreign language film in hell.

And this opera is no exception. Plus it's based on Shakespeare so it's long, convoluted and confusing with dozens of extraneous characters (20+ witches as a sort of Greek chorus).

yeah, good times.

But as always, backstage is better!

Last night was the first run through on stage but not in full costume. It was also our - the dressers - first chance to meet our actors, look at the costumes, try to figure out what we are doing etc., so we're prepared for tonight, the first dress rehearsal. I'm in charge of the female "supers" - the supernumeraries or bit part non singing characters who are filler on stage in any given scene - and most of them are the above mentioned witches. They are all wearing wedding and mourning dresses - half are white and half are black - with veils, and none are happy about it. What else is new, right?

So last night, the women start arriving and here's the conversation:

Woman #1 - So what are we wearing tonight?

Me - You should wear your rehearsal clothes, your veil, petticoat and boots.

Woman #1 - "Oh no. It's hot in here. I'm perimenopausal and I'm getting hot flashes and I hate that veil. Do we have to wear it?"

Me: - "Well, that's what I was told..."

Woman #1 - "I'm going to go check with Carrie (the Wardrobe Head)."

Me: - Ok

Woman #2 enters - "Hi, what do we have to wear tonight?"

Me: - "Your veil, petticoat and boots."

Woman #2 - ""OK, can I ask you about something else?"

Me (warily) - "uh, yes?"

Woman #2 - "The neck on this dress is really high. I'm having hot flashes and I'm afraid I might pass out on stage."

Me: "Hmmm."

Woman: "I don't want to wear those boots tonight, maybe I'll go talk to Carrrie and find out if we can change that dress and maybe do something different tonight."

Enter Woman #3 - "Do we have to wear our veils?"

Me: "Good Lord..."

So after 4 different women tracked down Carrie to ask her about the dress requirements of the evening, they all put on their veils, petticoats and boots and went out on stage.

And then in a break, Carrie found me and handed me one of the veils and said "I pulled this off Lingzee's head as she was going out to have a smoke. Keep an eye on her, would you?"

Sigh.

So it's just me and the smoking menopausal witches, ya'll. For 2 weeks.

Send me your prayers.