In the summers of 2012 & 13 I had the brilliant experience of being the Technical Director for Acadia Repertory Theatre on Mt. Desert Isle, Maine.
We built 5 shows in 3 months with a crew of 1-6 people. All the sets, props, and effects for all 5 shows averaged a new show every 2 weeks. I had a crew of novice actors who would assist me between rehearsals and an incredible TA. A "prodigy" who was like a cross between Radar from M*A*S*H and Mozart with the skills of a stage craft technician way beyond his years. The minimal and archaic shop was in the basement of the Masonic Temple that housed the theatre in the summers. The "Temple" was actually an old firehouse. And this is old by Maine standards, which in America, is ancient. It was seated on the edge of an inlet from the Atlantic. The ceiling of the shop was barely over 6 feet - a good size for me, cuz I'm an elf, but impossible to build 20' tall sets. We had to do all major construction in a cracked uneven parking lot. Imagine the weather that flies over an Island in Maine. Yeah, it was terribly unpredictable and would go from perfect 70 and sunny to gales of wind with horizontal rain. I rigged a ninja tarp and rope shelter system with the help of the phone company's bucket genie truck in the background of this first shot:
Every morning my crack crew of theatre geeks would hoist the lines and fly the tarps as we assembled the set pieces in a methodical order that would have made my college tech theatre profs proud. And they were never proud. I never imagined myself a Tech Director before this job. In the spring of 2012 I was building a banana tree in a parking lot out of my Volvo (like ya do) and a this wizard walked up to me and asked me, "Brently, whatya doin' this summer, cuz I got this theatre on an island in Maine, and we need a tech director and you'd be perfect." I was finishing up as Prop Master for "Learn to be Latina" at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis. I knew loads about Technical theatre, and yet I'd never put myself mentally into the job of being a TD, until then. As it turned out, I was perfect. And my magical summer began... (cue dulcet string music)...
Francis the prodigy technical theatre geek, musician, and composer.
My brilliant intern gold lettering an Irish Pub sign.
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