That Time I Realized My Father and I Have the Same Job.

When people ask me how I ended up in theatre, I’ll usually tell them about my mom taking me to musicals when I was a kid, about picking up my high school’s tech class freshman year, that point where my director told me, “actually yes, this is a thing you can do for the rest of your life.”  I grew up going to shows, especially musicals, all the time. Every season at The Pantages, Ahmanson Center, or OCPAC, my mom would be flipping through brochures with her friends, figuring out who was interested  in what show.  I saw my first Broadway show when I was six, and went to festivals and such to see theatre across the country over the years.  In high school, I worked productions all four years before starting college for the same.

Working in stage management, I am not only a product of my mother’s love for The Phantom of the Opera and A Chorus Line.  You will not see me in the limelight. I will be hunched in the back, headset on, a script in one hand and a checklist in the other.  That checklist is the reason I am my father’s son.

I should back up a minute.  My father is an airline pilot.  He’s been doing his job for a long time now, and he’s very good at it.  He’s weathered strikes, furloughs, 9/11, bankruptcy, and mergers.  He’s flown destinations on six continents and certainly has stories to tell.  His job is to get 400 people a few thousand miles away with as little disturbance as possible.  No big deal, right?

His job is one of method, an order of operations that cannot be bypassed, interrupted or ignored.  That approach to life is part of everything he does, everything I grew up with.  Camping trips involved detailed lists of every bit of food involved in every single meal (usually repackaged himself to conserve space), as well as the dining room covered in piles of gear before it was packed into the car in an elaborate game of tetris.  Driving lessons were like going through a line check on a 747.  Contingency plans were in place at my house for every eventuality, from blackouts to earthquakes, including disaster kits, generators, and lists of people to check in with.

I hear over and over people asking him the most dangerous place he’s been, the scariest thing that’s ever happened to him at work, most of them hoping for stories involving inflatable slides.  Time and time again, his answer is the same: “The 10 freeway to the airport, every time I’m headed to or from home.”  He’ll also tell you “my job is dull, boring, and uneventful, and I work as hard as I can to keep it that way.”

A week into my show this month I texted him remarking that if I’m turning in a rather boring performance report at the end of the night, it generally means nothing went wrong.  If nothing went wrong that night, I probably did something right that time.  He replied that it’s all a matter of elaborate what-ifs, if you try never to be surprised, you won’t get bit in the ass.

Playing what-ifs is indeed what we do, planning for contingencies no matter how outlandish or absurd, from sick actors and burnt out lamps to a dead audience member.  Once rehearsals are over and the show is running, Stage Management becomes not only an art, but a science. Calling your cues exactly as needed.  The right people need to be in the right places.  At call, fights are practiced.  Effects are tested.  The house is swept, the lights are set.  Every prop, every set piece is checked and re-checked to be sure it’s in the right place, standing by for its moment.

Lists are confirmed, all clear is given, and we begin.

Everyone is in their seats.
Flaps, wheel blocks, cabin pressurized, clear from tower.
Cell phones off. The safety briefing.
Lights up, curtain go.  Takeoff.
Intermission.  You are now free to move about the cabin.
Act two.  Seatbelt sign on.
Final approach. Curtain Call.  Landing.
Lights up, seatbelt sign off.  Gather your belongings and exit via the aisle.
A few hours gone, we return to the real world.

You know I meant to use this site all summer and just never did.  I wish I had.  I’ve got half a dozen half-written pieces I had ideas for that I never got around to finishing up and posting. Stupid.  When I started this in the spring I was adamant I wouldn’t just repost other peoples stuff over and over with nothing of my own—instead I find myself posting nothing period.  Meh.

You know who I miss?  Ray Bradbury.  Yes I know I’m a couple months late on this.  Everybody went around posting about him after he died in June and talking about how wonderful he was and how great Fahrenheit 451 and A Sound of Thunder and everything else were.  Great quote circulated tumblr of Bradbury being brilliant and snarky.

You thought they were over, didn’t you?

I have a few very solid memories of Bradbury’s works and a couple of Mr. Bradbury himself.  When I was a kid, I was always reading.  As I’ve stated before, my house was filled with books.  Let’s be honest, the day in first grade I found out you could spend lunchtime in the library was a magical moment for me—and most of elementary school saw me in the library or reading under a tree outside.  When I was past The Bailey School Kids and The Boxcar Children, I searched the house for something different, something new.  And then my dad introduced me to Bradbury.  He had always read to us as children, (Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Where the Red Fern Grows, and others), but this was the first time he had recommended a book he liked to me.  He said he had read There Will Come Soft Rains in a high school english class and had never found anything like it.  I devoured The Martian Chronicles.  Like him, I fell in love with Soft Rains and the rest of the stories.  I moved on to The Illustrated Man.  Fahrenheit 451.  Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Everything I could get my hands on.

I read most of them when I was entirely too young.  I remember being very confused by Something Wicked, and I barely remember what happened.  When I read 451, I remember comprehending the action, but I didn’t “get it”.  I talked to my cousin after reading it, and he told me all about all of the symbolism, how the mechanical hound represented totalitarian governments and all of that.  I kept telling him I didn’t see/understand that part, and thought that was stretching it a bit.  Flash forward to 2008 or 2009, I saw a stage production of 451 at a tiny theatre in South Pasadena, produced by Bradbury, who happened to be sitting in the front row that particular day.  This man talked to us for ten mintes before the show, rambling a bit, but making the point that the english teachers had gotten it wrong for the last fifty years—this was not a book about censorship, but, as he put it, “how much I love libraries.”  And it was clear to me.  They weren’t burning books because nobody could read them.  They were burning them them because nobody wanted to read them. Nobody cared.  And that apathy is truly the most terrifying part.

He signed books and programs after the show, and I purchased a copy of The Illustrated Man right then and there for his autograph.  A few months later I heard him speak at the library and he told us about his life, his self-education through libraries, why he cared about these books so much.  I kept my eyes out for productions, readings, anything else in the area, but never made it to anything again.  Last winter I was driving through South Pasadena and saw him in the car behind me, hunched over in the passenger seat, smiling as he carried on with his aid driving him.  I’ve always liked short stories, especially science fiction and horror, reading anthologies of Poe, Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, or HP Lovecraft.  The Martian Chronicles and of course There Will Come Soft Rains still ranks as my favorite of any of them.

I need to return to Bradbury’s Mars again, wander through the abandoned towns, that twisted House of Usher, the barren expanses of desert where you can FEEL time.

Last week we took an enormous leap in our journey to walk the Martian surface.  Our rocket summer is still years away.  There may not be expansive Martian citys to explore, we may not find replicas of small town America, but there are things to explore, another rock spinning in this universe just waiting.  Waiting for us.  The future is pretty damn exciting.

—————

Burgess Meredith reads “There Will Come Soft Rain” [YouTube]
X Minus One on Archive.org includes a few Bradbury stories including Soft Rains and The Veldt.

(Spoilers somewhat below)

I returned to the McKittrick Hotel last night.  I said before, it was only a matter of time.  This may have been my favorite visit yet.  I was sincerely surprised by the amount of new material I discovered this trip.  New actors, even new characters I had never seen before.  Rooms I had never been in or known existed.  This time I spent a lot of time with two particular characters.  One was the bartender of the speakeasy in Gallow Green, the other was Agnes Naismith—a young woman searching for her missing sister (even turning to Hecate for answers), and in real life a convicted witch in 17th century Scotland.  Both of them primarily stayed on the fourth floor (the town of Gallow Green) though occasionally would sprint to another floor to meet somebody else.  When I came upon a scene I remembered from before, sometimes I would wander away to other parts of the building, others I would remain entranced.  I spent a lot of time exploring the space, no longer preoccupied with finding the actors and following specific scenes.  I read letters between Agnes and her missing sister in Agnes’ bedroom and sitting room.  I explored Macduff’s office and read the nurse’s notes in the hospital.

At one point, I followed the bartender out of Agnes & Hecate’s scene, and was brought to the candy shop (I was the only one with him at that point) where he gave me a slice of something sweet before we continued back to his speakeasy.  He “gave” me to a woman he danced with, who led me away before a man on the telephone told me to “get my bloody hands off of her”.  When I returned to the speakeasy later, the bartender challenged me to to a sort of card game (which I think I lost) and then offered me a drink.

The highlight of the evening was when I returned to Agnes.  She had come into the Speakeasy, but left with a few of us after Banquo came in (I had seen him beaten to death with a brick the last time I was here). In the tailor’s shop she cut a passage from the bible and placed it in a locket and looped a bit of thread to make a necklace.  She cross to her bedroom on the other side of the hall, when she took me by the hand and drew me in.  My mask removed, she gave me the locket and began to speak of Manderley—I quickly realized her words were from the opening of Rebecca.  Finally she told me that the locket would keep me safe before shoving me out the false back of the closet.  I exited onto the main street just in time to see Macbeth sprinting past me towards the bar, and followed right behind into the Witch’s apparition, a pounding, frenzied dance so unlike anything else anywhere in the building.

I was glad to see the apparition again.  I was excited to discover those rooms.  An interrogation-type room with nothing more than a chair and a hanging lamp.  A closet with a filing cabinet filled with bird eggs.  More of Macduff’s apartment, including his office filled with fishing paraphernalia.  I saw plenty of scenes in rooms I’d previously only ever seen empty, and with characters I’d only ever seen on outskirts.

It was a strange feeling returning.  The moment I stepped inside, I felt this immense rush of familiarity and of adrenaline for the possibilites that lay ahead.   One of the strangest things I noted this time was the smells.  I’ve read that smell is one of the strongest and most distinct triggers of memory.  I became acutely aware of the smell of the rooms, the floors, even the people.  The hospital was sharp and antiseptic, life bleached away and left painfully chemical.  The damp earthy smell of the speakeasy, with its woodchip floor.  The forest on the fifth floor.  The most distinct was Hecate herself—her perfume intoxicating and indescribable, lingering behind her as she made her way about the rooms.  While I hadn’t consciously remembered it, it instantly put me back in her quarters when I had a one-on-one encounter with her last year.

I purchased the souvenir program at the end of the night—with twenty dollars I found in the street just outside the hotel.  I haven’t even finished it yet, but it has already answered some questions while opening up a thousand more.  Beautiful photographs pull me back with every page I turn.

The boat is from Hecate, the locket from Agnes Naismith. The left card is newer—the right is from last March.

I am continually lost in the emotions and memories of The McKittirick.  Once again, it will be a long time before I’m back.  I’ve no idea if I’ll return before the production closes—if and when it does.  I would love to see what Punchdrunk comes up with—with Faust and The Maque of the Red Death among their past credits, I look forward to where they turn next.

We can never return to Manderley.

Or maybe, perhaps, with time.

———————
Sleep No More

Monet’s Rouen Cathedral.

in the early 1890s, Monet painted more than thirty versions of this cathedral’s facade, lit at various times of the day.  I saw these paintings for the first time at the National Gallery in Washington DC.  Two of them hang side by side, One in the deep purples and blues of a late afternoon, the other in clean, yellow sunlight.  I was completely floored by them.  I stood in that tiny corner gallery until I was dragged away to the rest of the building.  I returned a couple days later, alone, and probably stared at those paintings for ten minutes.  Back and forth, those windows, those arches, those spires, those columns.  Pushed and pulled in and out of focus by the light hitting different sides.  I moved on to the Van Goghs around the corner, Seurat’s Seascape at Port-En-Bessin, Normandy in the adjacent gallery.  But I always wanted to return to Claude.

I like Impressionism. I remember having a book when I was a kid called Felipe in Monet’s garden. It was about a frog (spoilers, his name was Felipe).  All of the illustrations included or were based around the hundreds of water lilies paintings Monet painted late in his life.

I would not say I’m particularly knowledgeable about art movements, artists, or influences and such.  I may be able to point out Seurat and Picasso, tell you I’m looking at Pointillism or Cubism, but really only for the most famous and/or obvious artists.  I’m sure I don’t have particularly refined or original tastes. But I know what I like and I don’t like.    I’ve always been fascinated by MC Escher.  I  like surrealism and Dali.  I like Van Gogh and Monet.

I went to The Met in New York for the first time last weekend.  My friend and I split up early on, and I just wandered.  No rhyme or reason, not even a destination.  I started in Greek and Roman vases and statues.  I wandered through Polynesian art and Oceania.  A beautiful 50 foot canoe on display, used for fishing, travel, and headhunting.  Baroque furniture turned to medieval iconography turned to an egyptian temple in the middle of the damn Met.  I finally made my way upstairs and into the painting galleries, and out of nowhere my friend grabbed me and dragged me back in front of another Rouen Cathedral.  I was spellbound.  I never wanted to leave.

There is so much stuff in that building.  I could spend another week at The Met.  I want to go back every weekend.  I want to pull a “Mixed-Up Files” and live there forever.

This friend told me once the first time she went saw a Monet exhibit, she literally started sobbing. I’d like to think one day I’ll find SOMETHING, a film, a show, a photograph, a painting, that will move me enough, offer no other choice than to break down in pure emotion.

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, published in 1984.  Fourteen stories, Fourteen pictures.  A title, a single line, and a beautiful image to accompany them.  How could you not fall in love with this?

The portfolio edition, enlarged posters with a new print, was published in 1996.  I asked for both of these books for my birthday when I was a kid.  Well, no it was my 18th birthday.  Because I’d rediscovered the books and remained captured in the simple beauty and mystery of Mr. Burdick.

I was first introduced to Harris Burdick, like most kids, in an English class.  It was the standard project teachers do: pick an image, write a story that includes one of them, vote on the best one.  Mine was “Uninvited Guests”, a small door at the bottom of the basement stairs, the legs of a man descending the stairs.  The short caption, “His heart was pounding, he was sure he had seen the doorknob turn.”  I don’t remember what my story was.  Wasn’t very good.  It was a couple years later I found out this was all the work of Chris Van Alsburg, who I remember fondly from my childhood.  Sitting on my parents bed reading Jumanji, The Polar Express, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.  That one was always my favorite.  His pictures are so beautifully, so detailed and strangely magical.  Harris Burdick boils down the story to little more than those magnificent pictures.

This Christmas I received The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, which expanded each of the pictures into full stories, by famous authors including Stephen King, Lois Lowry, and Cory Doctorow.  The introduction, by Lemony Snicket, starts with this—

Is there any author more mysterious than Harris Burdick?

Modesty prevents me from answering this rhetorical question, but the fact remains that Harris Burdick has cast a long and strange shadow across the reading world, not unlike a man, lit by the moon, hiding in the branches of a tree, staring through a window and holding a rare and sinister object, who cast a long and strange shadow across your bedroom wall just last night.

—and might have been my favorite part of the book, filled with Snicket’s typical offbeat, almost absurdist humor.

All fourteen of these pictures capture the imagination and hold onto you long after the book is back on the shelf.  The mysterious harp.  The floating chairs.  That railroad disappearing into the distance.

Another print titled “What Happened to Harris Burdick” lives at the Book of Wonder bookstore in NYC.  Next time I find myself in the city I must seek it out, and maybe I’ll find out just what did happen to Mr. Burdick.

~~~

http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/wallpaper/harris1280x1024.html

http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/harrisburdick/

The fourteen original prints with a few children’s own stories 

Pulled off the highway in Missouri and low our hearts were heavy laid
Made for the chapel with some spray paint for all the things we’d held in secret
Lord lift up these lifeless bones
Light cascading through the windows
All the rainbow’s heavy tones

I found this image a long time ago, Stumbleupon or something.  It has cycled in and out among my backgrounds, and every time it comes up I’m reminded of how much I love it.  I used it for a project in my lighting class earlier this semester, and my friend remarked it reminded her of The Mountain Goats’ ”Psalm 40:2″.  I make that connotation every time I hear that song, and it really is sort of perfect.

Head down towards Kansas, we will get there when we get there don’t you worry
Feel bad about the things we do along the way
But not really that bad
We inhaled the frozen air
Lord send me a mechanic if I’m not beyond repair

The Mountain Goats – Psalms 40:2
Live at Webster Hall 2009-12-01

————————————

Song via Archive.org.
Image via National Geographic.

The kiss is from Hecate, the first time I encountered her.

I first saw Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More almost a year ago and still have not been able to get it out of my head.  A year ago.  I read about it a couple months before it opened last March.  A New York Times blurb or something that referenced the Boston production.  I instantly knew I would love it, knew I had to go.  I went April 1st, and was back in only a week on the 8th.  The first time was with friends, the second time I took my brother, who was out to visit me for the weekend.  Both times I left them alone and explored myself: rewarded with a one on one encounter with Hecate one of the nights.  I watched Banquo murdered before my eyes.  I stood front row at the witches’ apparition.  I explored every nook and cranny of the hospital on the fifth floor and the taxidermy shop on the fourth.

This is not a review.  There must be hundreds of them out there on the internet and probably much more intelligent than mine could be.  I found Danny Lewis’s review comic Touch Everything, Follow Everyone last week and it is one of the best Sleep No More reflections I’ve found.  No other review quite captured the essence of The McKittrick quite as well as Lewis has.

I want to go back.  When I say I can’t get it out of my mind, I sincerely mean I’ll find myself lying awake, actively dwelling on Hecate, on Lady Macduff and her nurse, on the mysterious girl with the suitcase I  was never able to place.  I still can’t get over the beautiful detail of every square inch of that building.  I tried to see it last October and plans fell apart at the last minute.  Maybe I’ll get there before the semester is out.  Until I return to the McKittrick, wicked dreams abuse the curtain’d sleep—but I would not trade those dreams for the world.

Sleep No More NYC

Finally, a dummy I made for my brother to mount his own mask.

A California native studying for a BFA in theatrical production in New York.

A bit of a hopeless romantic with an affinity for books, for vinyl, for bow ties and suspenders.