Work with a little play

Monday, September 15th: When I got back to work on Monday afternoon, two more of the technicians for the show had arrived: Eric Behnke, the Lighting Director, and Jill Tarr, the Costume/Props Supervisor. Eric and I have been working all prepping for the show. There is a lot of paperwork that we are sending to each venue. I have to take our show and make it fit into each venue, which means crunching and stretching our set to match the venue. It’s a tough process and very time consuming.

Tuesday, September 16th: Eric and I took a walk around Georgetown, which is a 10 minute walk or so from where we are staying. We walked down the main street, with dozens of restaurants and shops, then up around the University, which is gorgeous. We passed the French Embassy and came back down Wisconsin Street, which also has a bunch of restaurants and shops. Finally we passed the Embassy of Qatar and headed back to the apartments.

Wednesday, September 17th: Eric and I went to the Washington Nationals Game. It was a really nice night and they were giving away green Washington National’s hats for a Half-Way to St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. After coming in, we walked all the way around the ballpark, which is really nice. My boss here is a big Nationals Fan and he had suggested we go to the game that night. So when we got back to the main gate I tried to get him a green hat. I walked back into the area where they were handing out the green hats and pretended I was looking for a friend. I got right up to where they were handing them out and was caught by a security guard who came up and said “He already got one!” I was so close too! The Nationals ended up losing to the New York Mets 9-7 and it was only a mediocre game, but it was really nice to get out and do something.

Friday, September 19th: Eric, Jill and I had to go get physicals so we’d be approved by the Department of Transportation to drive our 26’ truck. We got to work around 7:30am so we could get the place early enough. After this, I went with David Paige to pick up one of our two 15 passenger vans. I took the van and went out to TSA which is the shop doing some of the refurb on our set. I got to TSA and found them working on one of our pieces which was suppose to get rigged to fly. The guys working on it didn’t know what I was talking about. When Mike, the manager/owner, came around he said they didn’t have time and we probably didn’t have the money. Then he took me though a bunch of stuff detailing how one of the set pieces goes together and works. This was great because the drawing that I had were completely different from how the pieces were actually built. Mike sent me away with a bunch of drawings from the original production and much better idea of what the set actually looks like. It was a good thing too cause we load in the set next Friday!

Saturday, September 20th: Eric and I walked all the way down to the National Mall and back. I got pictures of The White House, the Washington Monument, The Capitol Building, Most of the Cabinet Department Buildings, The National Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. I’ll post a slide show of this later. It was pretty awesome and a lot of walking. We’re making plans to get a tour of the Capitol Building and see the Supreme Court Building as well.

Hope all is well!

Brian