Lady Gaga

I was asked, yesterday, for my thoughts on Lady Gaga, after having called Cirque du Soleil "somewhat cheesy". Don't get me wrong- Cirque does some really amazing things, technically. I just have a hard time getting behind those mass-entertainment corporate types of things.



Now, Gaga is ALSO cheesy (if anyone on Project Runway ever made something approximating one of her costumes, the Klumster would would call it trashy and "just weird", and Michael Kors would come up with some snotty, musical-based critique that said the same). And she's also become a corporate establishment. But, unlike Cirque, the things that she does onstage are somehow unexpected. You KNOW when you go see a Cirque or Gaga show that you are going to be wowed. But when Gaga does it, it has that element of surprise, and it's sometimes darkly comedic. Like when she covered poor Elton John in soot at the Golden Globes. Or when she sings on crutches with a broken neck in her video for "Bad Romance"

She has shot fireworks out of her bra:
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Set her piano aflame while wearing glowing PVC pipes:


And met the Queen of England while dressed in a red vinyl sack:


I guess the thing I like about Lady Gaga the most is that so much of what she does is nonsensical, something my five-year-old self could have come up with, and my 27-year-old self still delights in. She's also giving us a female pop icon who's not about looking skinny and sexual and perfect all the time. All of this, and the woman makes some damn catchy music.

How much would I LOVE to make costumes for this woman...

Anybody out there working on her current tour? Tell us all how fucking amazing it is so we can be jealous...

Hatred #901

We have an abundance of Altman endcaps at the theatre which do not work. Upon taking apart the connectors, all seems well with the world: correct wiring, no corroded copper, nothing crispy. Tracing the entire tail, having removed the sleeve, there are no crimps in the wires, or breaks. The ground is tacked in place where it should be. Which brings me to the inside of the cap, where the lamp housing lives. WHY must the wires be stuck under a riveted housing? Even if I DO manage to get that apart and repair the wiring, I will never get it back together, because I own neither a riveter nor the will to survive after repairing 15-some-odd endcaps.

Colbert mocks the sound editors

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Superbowl Half-time

I've often wondered exactly how it's possible to put up those huge SuperBowl stages, with all their lights and projectors and pyrotechnics, etc. Now I know: with a fuckton of stagehands.

Fire Code Shenanigans

Patrick over at Backstagejobs has a great article on how effing difficult it is to find information on theatre fire codes.



I've run into this problem myself on more than one occasion- in New York City, one would presumably go to the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting website to find out, for example, how many chairs can legally be put together in a row before an aisle interrupts them, or how many and what type of fire extinguishers should be on hand. One might also think that the FDNY site could be a good resource. Now, I know I've found *some* info online before, but I remember digging around for hours before finding out that every audience member must be no more than 7 seats away from an aisle (or was it 6?).

A logical stagehand might think that the city would put this information out there for fire-prevention at the many theaters here. Use a phone, you might say? I've tried that, too. The best I usually get as a response is "the dude who knows all that stuff is out today" or "call so-and-so and such-and-such-a-theater, he's great with all that".

The theater I work at is blessed with many a visit from the fire department, as standard procedure. They send an army of four or five men decked out in full fire gear, five minutes before a show to scare the bejeezus out of anyone waiting in the lobby. Then I have the dubious pleasure of showing them around, making sure to point out exit signs and fire extinguishers.

On one such visit, dude came with a clipboard and a list of questions. One question on his form was "thrust stage, proscenium, other?"
Dude turned to me and asked what a thrust stage was.

I'm not saying that your average fireman has to know what a thrust stage is, but one would hope that the team that is inspecting theatres for public safety might have to know.

Anywho. That's my rant of the day.

Facebook Love/More Job Postings

Hey! I got a metric shit-ton of visitors from Facebook today! Thank you to whoever shared my link- brownie points to you, redeemable for two broken HPLs and a burnt-out stage pin cable!

In other news, some more cool jobs posted around the interwebs this week:

NOTE: I will not be posting Summer Stock Jobs, as I already have quite a comprehensive list of hiring theatres here.

On with the work!

Added Thursday: Bentley Meeker in NYC seeks lighting production manager

Production Assistant, touring Illusion Show (cue "The Final Countdown")
Rigger, Wynn Las Vegas
Trade Show Tech Manager/Driver, Touring
Stage Manager, NYC (stipend)
TV Production Asst., Seattle

Well, that's all I got. It's apparently a not-so-awesome week for job-hunting. Dear readers: what sorts of jobs do YOU have?

Golden Globes

So, who watched the Golden Globes last night? Anyone? No? Okay, I'm not surprised; I wouldn't have watched it, either, except that my friends had a little shindig at their place, and I can't turn down a good time.



So. Lets' talk about all the ways in which the production could have been waaaay better.

1. Don't do an effing dinner service for the audience! It took eons for each winner to get to the stage, having to navigate through chairs and busboys. In the meantime, terrible music clips were played, which sometimes gave a bumbling-idiot feel to their inability to get through the crowd.

2. If you're going to have a host, let him host. Ricky Gervais was barely onstage at all, and most of the time was the most entertaining thing going on.

3. If you're gonna play someone off, don't pussy out. Do it, loud and clear. None of that slow....slow....fade-up of violins. And do it to EVERYONE, for fairness' sake. Yes, Meryl Streep is amazing, but she should know by now not to ramble at awards shows.

4. Wake up the follow-spot ops. Yeah, it's boring work, but when two hosts come up on stage, and only one has a spot on their way, that's weird.

5. I hate to say it, but would some musical acts have killed you? The format of award-award-award seems less sustainable to me than award - rock band - award. Sort of like a 15-minute union break every two hours. Breaks up the monotony.

6. Don't cut to a foreign dude (Schwarzenegger) for the foreign film category. He wasn't IN any of them!! So many awkward camera moments in this show.

Do YOU have any other gripes? Oh right: you didn't watch it.