Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Find Your Light

Victoria Perry
K-12 Committee
High School At-Large
k12.hsatlarge@tetatx.com

Every director has an Achilles’ heel. You know that there is one thing that you do not do as well as everything else. For me, this is lighting. I am terrible at it! I would rather do anything than worry about it. This is from, in part, having an archaic lighting system at my high school. I am not kidding when I say archaic. It was last updated in 1989. It is constantly refusing to work, and has even turned off or started flickering during performances. My board used to save cues on floppy disks, but even that stopped working last year. Sigh.



My ancient Colortran dimmer rack finally met its demise on October 29, 2013. The air flow fan just gave up, so my district searched online to find the correct part to replace it. The problem was that our system and parts are hard to find, and when the new part came in, the wiring was different. Sigh.

My amazing principal and our awesome Administrators did everything to revive the system. We called every company that might have the relic, had companies come out to look at it, and then even tracked down a blueprint of the wiring system to try to get the new part to work. It did not work, and now I do not have any lights at all. I have no light.

My fall production of “Alice in Wonderland” has been the most tumultuous show I have ever worked on. I will not give you my list of grievances, because it would take at least three Texas Theatre Notes articles to finish it. Suffice it to say, the lights not working was the nail in the coffin. I was so despondent that I was about to pull the plug on the show altogether. Still, I soldiered on, and had to consider how I was going to light the show.

We did try to move it to another space, but that fell through. Moving it outside was an idea, but my students were less receptive to that idea. We do not have the budget to rent lights, so that was out. What is left? How do I find my light?

I found it in other people. Our drill team sponsor graciously loaned us working streetlight props and a bucketful of white Christmas lights. My husband’s school sent over their two little trees from the music department. We have several hunting and construction floodlights that we gelled from parents. Finally, one of our wonderful teachers brought several scoops, cables and a board to operate them that her son’s band uses when they travel. CC Conn, the wonderful lighting professor at SFA, helped us focus and cable them today.

My students loved it. Our concept for “Alice,” the Manhattan Theatre version, was that they are children on a playground, creating the show entirely with their imaginations. They felt that it was an exercise in creativity. Ironically, it was the element that brought the fractured show together.

As an actor, it was stressed to in college me to “find the light.” I tell my students the same thing. Step forward until you feel the heat of the light on your face. My district is replacing my lighting system as I speak, and I find myself surrounded by love and light. I hope you have the happiest of One Act Play seasons, and I will see you at Summerfest!