the timboucher experience

This may sound weird, but one of my favorite things about working in technical theatre is that it’s always a different thing that goes wrong. You can plan everything out as perfect as can be, set all your needs up to be fulfilled in the proper order and run the thing a hundred times: and then some new teensy wrinkle will crop up. It’s utterly unpredictable, but it forces you to be watchful, to think on your feet and to act with decisiveness.

I also really like the way time works in theatre. It’s not like “time” so much as it is Time or maybe more properly Chronos. It’s time in some mythic aspect because, in truth, theatre is a ritual space. You enact rituals in it. You bring the dead to life, conjure ghosts and demons out of the imagination and give them a controlled (well, mostly) ritual environment to act out within the confines of.

We’ve done something like 12 or 13 shows now. Not sure of the exact count. I think our final amount will be somewhere near 43. The repetition, if you can stay mindful within it, becomes ritualistic.

Another interesting factor is the convergence of backstage and onstage dialogue. The conversations you have with everyone else while endlessly waiting. You’re always keeping one ear out to the monitors, tracking cues, anchor points and their passing within the dialogue and action. You’re always listening to at least two conversations at once…

But anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. It’s been a long couple of days. Goodnight!

• To Doug on GNAT
• Sean Moriva’s Top Travel Tales
• Time Travel Ticket - Go to the future for $19.95
• E.S.P. Club Ideas
• Media Literacy Questions