WWED (What Would Euripides Do?)

I've always been a technology buff. The formative influences in my youth were the polio vaccine, the Mercury Seven, pictures from Mars and deep-sea submarines. I can recall watching open-heart surgery on local television. It was shown late at night so as to avoid disturbing the squeamish but the image of a surgeon holding a beating, human heart in his hand will always stay with me. Good theatre should have a similar gee-whiz factor, either in production, performance or at best, a combination of the two.

While theatrical plotlines remain essentially the same (seven-count em, seven), science, engineering and the audience drive the technological advances in the theatre. Moving lights can produce millions of colors, hydraulics can move tons with ease and high tensile steels and alloys allow for scenery and cables of incredible strength. But the audience doesn't want to see a show about moving lights or scenery or flying people. It still boils down to telling a captivating story. And that human element can still trump technology.

A case in point is automated follow spots. They've been trying for years to find a way to allow an automated moving light to replace a human spot operator. Cheaper and flashier, theoretically you could put twenty spots on a single performer. Its been tried with rock and roll and more recently on a Broadway show. There are two major problems. Lag time and head fakes. Currently a performer carries tracking device that the unit tries to follow. The problem is processing time. Even in milliseconds, the time it takes for a signal to get from performer to processor to the motors is long enough to create a visible lag or jerkiness in the moving head. If you try to preprogram moving head for a point to point cross following an actor, well, unexpected things happen in live theatre. Even the fastest computer processing power will not react faster to a head fake or the suddenly reblocking of a scene than an stagehand who can decide, on the fly, to open the iris and follow the changes as best they can until the regular blocking is restored. Try that with software.

In the first Darpa Grand Challenge in 2004 the furthest an autonomous vehicle got was 7 miles out of the 150-mile course. In the 2007 Urban Challenge, this clip shows how unmanned technology mixed with human traffic . It did pretty well for the most part. For the most part. However imagine being the robot car being a piece of automation and the actors name is Taurus. Ford Taurus. The bugs for follow spots will be worked out.

One potential answer for follow spots may lie in joining facial recognition software in a unit such as High End Systems DL.2 with its built in camera and infrared sensors. By eliminating the need receive a signal from a homing device and introducing the process directly into the software, you may cut down on the lag time. Which could make automated follow spots a reality.

Do I want to hang on to carbon arc follow spots for the sake of job preservation? I would if, with their heat and foul odors, a carbon arc would put fannies in seats. If not, give the people what they want and give me a healthier work environment. Bring on the next deus ex machina. Since the Greeks, it’s always been about spectacle and the story. Why change now?

You design, we decide.

In my mind, the set I've just loaded-in is representative of the disconnect between the so-called information society and the rest of us. Framed out of tubular steel, it produces the illusion of being very slender while still being very strong. It's also been designed with a CAD program that is a marvel of functionality. It allows for 3D views, cut lists,cost estimates and multiple color combinations that the client can approve of without every leaving their office. It is also usually "drafted" by someone who is much more familiar with a hard drive than a drill press, with the language of software than the language of truck drivers. And when the lack of familiarity with the shop process collides with the computer process, it's the language of truck drivers that is heard the loudest when bolts holes don't line up. When the inexperienced doesn't account for the build up of welds when making joints, things can get loud and profane. It's the workman’s skill that makes the real the symmetry of the beautiful drawing on the dirty, sagging floor of the studio.

In my mind this typifies what is going on in much of the business and political world today. There are business school graduates running businesses who have never even watched people unloading the trucks in the business they're running and would never consider unloading one themselves. To them, a repetitive stress injury is an abstraction that only affects the cost of the health plan and not the reality of not being able to play with the kids after work because of the pain. Because of their income levels, politicians can relate in a real sense to tax brackets but only in an abstract sense to poverty levels because they have never felt the stinging isolation of being poor. Designers with MFA's who are breaking into the entertainment industry by doing computer drafting work aren't going to be able to relate to the shop carpenters or stagehands that are going to work the multiple 16 hour days it will take to build or load in the beautiful drawings.

To complain to the boss will result in some flippant remark about “that if I don’t like it here etc, etc”. At this point I know that his kid’s tuition has been paid for, his greens fees have been paid for and that he thinks that he’s probably immune to being fired. For the new designer, one can only hope that he or she acquires his or her skill without someone getting hurt because of the hacks required to make the illusion real.

As for politicians, I have a new rule of thumb. The candidate who has a net worth that is closest to mine will have my vote. I’ve had enough of Ivy League millionaires trying to tell me that I have to live my life according to their standards which they can apply to themselves at their discretion, meaning if they don’t get caught, it’s okay. The operatives of the two major parties seem to have less and less in common with the people they govern and are not working at improving the lives of the governed. They are skilled at fund raising from major donors, improving the tax code for the said donors and getting the government off “our” backs. By getting the government off our backs they really mean that corporations can have free run over the environment, workers, communities, our retirement system, our military, our health care, our education and then pit us against each other for their cynical ends. Here’s a radical idea. Lets bring the government back. Big badass government. A government that will take tax cheats to court, sues polluters, protects workers, gives us the health care we require, the retirement we’ve earned, the education our children really require and allows all of us to live in peace and prosperity. In the words of Lincoln, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Accidents as a way of life

I like to read Roadie.net because it's a look into life on the road and it's a little different world than Broadway. We do exactly the same things(set up stages, lighting, sound) and often in the same kind of lousy weather. However in NYC, we (the local crew) get off work, get on public transportation and sleep in our own beds. The roadies live their lives from arena to hotel to the bus and back.

One of the things often overlooked in the recent dispute with the League is the quality of the Local One crews. Since we do this work regularly, incessantly, we're pretty damn good at it and pretty fast. It's that whole NY minute thing. And we're safe at it. I recently spoke with a Onesie who is out of town. He told me that he was appalled that the Local Crew he was working on took 4 hours to set up part of an opera. "It would have taken an hour at the State and we would have gotten yelled at for taking to long!" Opera is a way of life in NYC. Not so much in other places, so it takes a little longer.

Rarely do we have problems like the canopy collapse at the Akon concert at Emory. In reading the blog about it on Roadie.net, it seem that this is the second time in two years that this has happened to this particular company.

In Spain, three stagehands are killed in a collapse at a Stones concert.

And for anyone who deals regularily with issues of public assembly, be it backstage or FOH, this Great White Fire video should be required viewing at least once a month, as a refresher. It's long and very difficult to watch so be forewarned. Go to the second entry for a link that skip the pop-ups.

In Local One, we've had our share of accidents, regretfully. Most can't be avoided. The causes can vary from exhaustion to carelessness to poor planning. We work to avoid them. The premise is that if I look out for my coworker, they will look out for me. This still holds true for us.

One other place I recommend is Bill Sapsis's site. Devoted to riggers, it promotes safety and technology.