A Moll's House

Last show of the run tonight, and as usual it is coming as a big relief. One of the girls in the cast has had to do the last four shows in a wheelchair with a busted knee, another cast member has a broken toe, we have had four re-directing sessions during the week, the head of the department came in and changed all sorts of lighting states without telling the cast, and we have run out of beer in the backstage fridge. Obviously we can overlook broken actors, but no beer? Time to leave before things get nasty.

The tech crew decided to perform a ten minute parody of the show for the cast following tonight's performance, we threw the script together yesterday. Called A Moll's House, it questions the ability of Nora to function as a manipulative bogan. We also question the ability of certain members of the company to act without their hands. It will be funny. The cast will be drunk by the time they see it. It will be funny.

The wrap party will be a strange event for me, though I've become acquainted to hanging around inexorably intoxicated eighteen year olds since taking up this course last year. It's a semi-nostalgic feeling; on the one hand I like to think that we acted with much more dignity and decorum when we were pissing it up at that age; on the other hand I know we hammered much more booze and did much crazier things than they do. And that's just the stuff I remember doing.

So think of me tonight as you abed, for most of you I will be just kicking off as you wind down. Much frivolity will be had, for certain- the case of cava (that's Spanish sparkling wine) I'm taking along will make sure of that. Don't fret- I'm taking a box of champagne flutes from work as well, so we can all drink from proper glasses, like civilised Spaniards. As the great Gene Kelly said- "Dignity, always dignity,".

Hayman Theatre production of A Doll's House

My latest project is undertaking the sound engineering and head of sound duties for the Hayman Theatre's expressionist interpretation of Henrik Ibsen's classic play. This has involved a lot of late nights, or rather early mornings... actually in some cases they should really be called late mornings. I have learned that Adobe Audition is very fun, and that expressionism is very not.

High point of the production process: being asked to create a sound effect that was "a cross between a nuclear bomb going off and a bansidhe wailing". The director was specific about the order in which our audience's bodily fluids should evacuate. Really.

Low points of the production process: killing the speakers with above sound effect, despite telling people I couldn't make it any louder or the speakers would die. They were old, old speakers. Double baby speakers. No sub woofer. No tweeter. No horns. How the hell was I supposed to get a magnificent sound when all the frequencies I wanted for it were anything but mid tones?

I have new speakers now. They have a better frequency range. My custom bansidhe bomb sounds utterly bowel-trembling through them. You'd almost think I killed the old ones deliberately... but I wouldn't do that. Honest.

The show opens tomorrow morning to an audience of year twelve private school girls. About two hundred. Best be off to bed, I may need my energy.

For the show, you pervert. Kids finish year twelve at age seventeen here. That's just wrong.