Rent, the show with less TB

Rent, geez. I keep starting this blog and erasing and restarting and erasing… I’m not sure what my problem is today.

Well, in the first place I have to say that this is a much more powerful show live than it is recorded. I suppose that’s no surprise but I continue to be surprised by it. There is something about hearing real people tell you stories and hearing music played live that makes the theatrical experience much more moving, even when the material isn’t that great. Having working on film and theatre in this past month, I much prefer the theatre experience. It’s amazing to be present at the moment of creation, to see a show created live every single night, to hear a new audience respond every night and to see the energy exchange between the performers and the audience. Given that, I feel better about my choice to pursue a live theatre tour. I think I’ll enjoy the experience of working with the same show night after night because it’s the same but different every time.

The second thing I’ve learned this week is that there is a marked difference between equity and non-equity shows. Rent is a non-equity show which means that the actors aren’t being held to the standards of the actor’s union and aren’t being paid union wages. And just glancing over the list of credits, very few of them have high profile professional experience. So while that may not show in their performance on stage – and a few of them are really really good, including the girl that I’m dressing – it definitely shows in their attitude backstage and in the attitude of their road crew. For the most part, they are all less professional, less polite, less friendly, less organized and the crew seems less competent than the equity shows I’ve worked so far. Of the 20 or so cast, there are only a few actors who are exceptions to this rule and have gone out of their way to be polite or friendly or even grateful for the work that we’re doing as a crew.

It’s an interesting thing for me since I’ve spent so much time in the past couple of months searching for a job on a touring show and being willing, up to this point, to take anything offered to me. I have to say that I’d actually have to think about it if I were offered a job on this show. Even if it got me out of Tucson and on the road, I don’t think I’d want to work and live with this crew and cast. But it also makes me think that I made the right decision when I decided to join the stagehands union (IATSE). I would much rather work a union show with equity actors and I have a much better chance of getting one as part of the union.

Things to ponder…

As a small aside, the doctor that I work for is a huge opera fan and when I told him that Rent is based on La Boheme and he says "oh right, but with less tuberculosis, right?"

So that's my new favorite description: Rent! The show with less TB!

In other news I’m teaching Sewing I again this mod. It’s now a 5 week class with 5 hour classes, instead of the 10 week/2.5 hour classes schedule I taught last mod. We’ll see how that works. But in my class yesterday I had three students and they are all characters. Here are a few highlights:

1 hour into class student #1 tells me that she might have trouble working in a classroom setting because she’s claustrophobic and needs a lot of space to work and doesn’t like other people working around her. I told her that she could take as much space as she needed as long as she was polite to the other students and left them enough space to work.

1.5 hours into class student #1 tells me that she sews really well but that she has one little problem with sewing on a machine. That small tiny problem is that she can’t sew a straight line. The sound of the industrial machine makes her nervous and jumpy and the fabric moves around and her seams are all crooked. However, and despite that small problem, she’s “a great seamstress.”

2 hours into class, student #2 is still struggling with making a knot in her sewing thread. She keeps making a loop with the thread and then putting the needle in the wrong way and the thread just straightens out instead of knotting. No matter how I show her, she can’t seem to understand the concept. I finally tell her to put the needle on the table and just tie a knot in the thread, which she does. And then looks at me and says, “That’s it? That’s all I needed to do?” yep. That’s it. Sewing lesson numero uno…

3 hours into class student #1 tells me that she hates working with patterns. She just wants me to know. She likes to “make things up” instead.

3.5 hours into class, student #1 tells me that she has one other small problem with working in a classroom setting. She “needs to work surrounded by silk” so it will probably be easier for her to sew at home. I told her that she probably needed to start bringing silk to class then because I need her to work in class…

4 hours into class, student #3 says “You’ve mentioned a “hem” a lot today. What is a hem?”

Never would I be able to make this stuff up!

And on that note, have a good weekend everyone! :)