let's not do that again
It ended up being a 3 day load in. It better not take that long to load out... And it makes me tired just thinking of doing this all over again in Beijing.
Wardrobe had it easy, comparatively. The main issues are communication, between the higher ups, between us and our crews, between us and our translators, etc. Each of the department heads were promised things that didn't materialize once they got to China and even though everyone sent tracking sheets ahead a month or so ago, we found out yesterday that nothing was translated.
!!!
We had crews of people, some with no experience in theatre, that didn't speak English and had no written track to tell them what to do. And there wasn't enough time to train each one individually, even if we had enough translators to be able to work one on one with them. Some of the head took their crews and a translator and walked them through the show during a rehearsal, instructed by pointing at things and running back and forth and just hoped that they would remember what to do when the show started.
Our wardrobe translator spent the afternoon translating our tracks, writing the Chinese characters next to the English words. A couple of hours in, she said she was almost done but it may not matter because she didn't know how many of them could read.
!!!
The bar has been raised. The official worst case crew scenario is having an inexperienced crew that doesn't speak English AND can't read in any language.
We then spent several hours taking them around with translators, explaining what to do, waiting while they asked endless questions and then rewrote the chinese translation on their sheets and, in one case, asked to have the whole thing explained to her again because she had already forgotten it (she is the one that can't read). And the things that hold you up are always the little things. Like definitions of color.
We had dressers looking at their sheets, and pawing through costumes and then come up to us pointing at a costume description on their sheet. Once we found the costume item and showed it to them, they looked at us incredulously and pointed to the color word on the sheet. And then they would cross the word out and write something else next to it. And i just laughed. ok, not green, maybe it looks blue to you. Or whatever. I've gotten that routine from every dresser I've ever known (Gray! you call this Gray?? I'm so glad you pointed that out, I would never have found it!), it's just funny to go through it in pantomime with dressers in a completely foreign country too.
All in all a LONG day.
The show was an invited dress for the press and true to theatre form, the show went up. Everyone and everything got on stage in time by some miracle. And the good news for me is that I now have a track. I picked up several changes that were just too tiring to contemplate having to describe and translate so I now have something to do during the show. Hooray!
We have a 4 show weekend today and tomorrow and I suspect that we'll be in decent shape by tomorrow.
We have Monday off and many plans, so I promise to post pictures.
Wardrobe had it easy, comparatively. The main issues are communication, between the higher ups, between us and our crews, between us and our translators, etc. Each of the department heads were promised things that didn't materialize once they got to China and even though everyone sent tracking sheets ahead a month or so ago, we found out yesterday that nothing was translated.
!!!
We had crews of people, some with no experience in theatre, that didn't speak English and had no written track to tell them what to do. And there wasn't enough time to train each one individually, even if we had enough translators to be able to work one on one with them. Some of the head took their crews and a translator and walked them through the show during a rehearsal, instructed by pointing at things and running back and forth and just hoped that they would remember what to do when the show started.
Our wardrobe translator spent the afternoon translating our tracks, writing the Chinese characters next to the English words. A couple of hours in, she said she was almost done but it may not matter because she didn't know how many of them could read.
!!!
The bar has been raised. The official worst case crew scenario is having an inexperienced crew that doesn't speak English AND can't read in any language.
We then spent several hours taking them around with translators, explaining what to do, waiting while they asked endless questions and then rewrote the chinese translation on their sheets and, in one case, asked to have the whole thing explained to her again because she had already forgotten it (she is the one that can't read). And the things that hold you up are always the little things. Like definitions of color.
We had dressers looking at their sheets, and pawing through costumes and then come up to us pointing at a costume description on their sheet. Once we found the costume item and showed it to them, they looked at us incredulously and pointed to the color word on the sheet. And then they would cross the word out and write something else next to it. And i just laughed. ok, not green, maybe it looks blue to you. Or whatever. I've gotten that routine from every dresser I've ever known (Gray! you call this Gray?? I'm so glad you pointed that out, I would never have found it!), it's just funny to go through it in pantomime with dressers in a completely foreign country too.
All in all a LONG day.
The show was an invited dress for the press and true to theatre form, the show went up. Everyone and everything got on stage in time by some miracle. And the good news for me is that I now have a track. I picked up several changes that were just too tiring to contemplate having to describe and translate so I now have something to do during the show. Hooray!
We have a 4 show weekend today and tomorrow and I suspect that we'll be in decent shape by tomorrow.
We have Monday off and many plans, so I promise to post pictures.
posted by KBARRETT at 9:31 AM
2 Comments:
Don't you love China? It's bringing 1995 back to me with a vengence. Keep in mind that what you are saying in English is not necessarily what they are hearing in Chinese! Mom
Oh Kaitlyn, you are having SO MUCH FUN! I am envious of you, I wish I could be there to bask in your glorious glorious fun!
Hopefully it will get up fine and then remember that if they F up then just hit them. They will think you are playing.
Cheers!
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