I’ll be back in Boston a week from today, barring any major disasters.  WE aren’t leaving until Monday morning, and we start out with a marathon 14 hour drive from Santa Fe to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, where we’ll stay with Stephanie’s grandmother.

In more exciting news, Sunday night we’re going to Albuquerque after strike to go to an Isotopes game.  The Isotopes are a baseball farm team for the Florida Marlins.  It sounds like it’s going to be loads of fun, and the whole staff is super excited.  I am too, because I was bummed I wouldn’t be able to go because I didn’t have a night off.

I’ll be home soon!

I also realized that I think I feel so comfortable in Santa Fe because it’s about the same urbanization as Conway.  It’s not super cityish, but it has suburbs and a strip- here it’s Cerillos Road.

Anyway, A3 week 2 went incredibly well, and now we’re down to a Georgia O’Keefe walk tomorrow, then strike calls for the rest of the week, and on Sunday, a barbeque.  Since some of the electricians have to be at school on Monday morning, I don’t think that everyone is staying for all of the barbeque.

I can’t believe it’s almost time to come home!!!

I can’t believe it’s almost over.  But I can’t be sad, because I have to get some sleep before tomorrow.

head here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/juliestreeter

Wednesday, we weren’t called until 4 pm, so we decided to go hike around Bandolier National Monument.  It’s about an hour drive away, and it’s a site where the Pueblo Indians built their houses into the cliff face.  There’s also the ruins of a big circular group of houses.  We hiked the main loop trail, which has some ladders that take you into the caves the the cliff that used to be the back rooms of houses.  We then hiked up to the ceremonial cave, a 150 ascent up ladders and stone stairs.  We were complimented on our ability to quickly go up and down ladders.  We then started down the trail that led to the Rio Grande, and made it about halfway down before we had to turn around.  Bandolier is easily one of the top five most beautiful places I’ve been in my life.  I was pretty tired at the end of the day though- we hiked about five and a half miles on top of our normal changeover and focus running.

I went and worked on props for A3 scenes today- I built 5 ficus trees for Don Giovanni, and tomorrow Zach and I are going to rehearsals to see all of the scenes he’s designing.

Pictures soon.  I promise.

Last night was our last opening.  Jim, the designer, got us gifts- a book by Lewis Black.  I can’t wai to read it.  We’re down to just running shows, and tomorrow, we start at 8:30 instead of 9, so we even get out earlier.

So a word about Apprentice Scenes, or A3′s.  (I have no idea where the 3 comes from, it’s only two weekends of shows.)  The idea behind A3′s are to show off the apprentice artists.  The singers all audition for parts, and it’s a chance for technicians to work in another department of the Opera, or step into  supervisory position in their own department.  All of the apprentices get fairly excited about it as a chance to show off what they’re capable of.

As a lighting department, we split each night into two halves, so there are four designers.  I chose to apply for Lighting Supervisor, which at school would essentially be assistant lighting designer.  I got the job for the first weekend, as the lead supervisor for the second half of the evening, which my friend Zach is designing, and with my friend Charlie as the supervisor for the first half.  I’m also on props build crew whenever I can get to the shop, and lead followspot for the second weekend, with a kid from stage crew and a kid from AV as my followspot team.  I’m really excited for it- it’s a chance to see what our staff does in the design office and get a better understanding in general of the Santa Fe Opera.

I have the day off today, which I plan to spend doing laundry and cleaning my apartment, as I feel bad for my roomate because I’ve been neglecting such things.  Later, we might drive out into the mountains to watch the sunset (and by we, I mean about half of the electrics department) because sunsets here are phenomenal.

Now that most of our shows are open, there isn’t much to do in the shop as far as projects, and last night we attacked the fix-it pile and reduced it to the things that might need to be sent away to be fixed. So instead of spending our days building practicals, then fixing them, and wiring set pieces, the shop has switched over to seminar mode. Our schedule for a while will be coming in a couple of hours early and essentially having a class on a particular subject- for example, yesterday we talked about dimmable fluorescents. We disscussed different types of ballasts, how to troubleshoot them if they aren’t working, how to make them dim more smoothly, and source power requirements. It was really interesting, and even after playing with fluorescents for the past week and a half I still learned a lot of things. Last night Caroline put up a list of seminars the staff had come up with, and asked us to check off our interests. Some of those include being a design assistant, building something cool that lights up, making circuit or DMX testers, and welding.

In other exciting news, Rick Fisher, our designer for Billy Budd and Radamisto, invited us all to New York in December to sit in on tech while he designs Billy Eliot on Broadway. Three or four of us are thinking of taking him up on that offer. Rick is such an amazing guy- he’s very down to earth and excited to try to help us further our careers as designers. He was really fun to work with, and it’s never bad to be friends with a Tony award winner.

Apparently another electrics tradition is dodgeball and kick the can after the last couple of orchestra dresses. Last week we didn’t play because we had too much to do the next day, but this Thursday, after dress rehearsal and then making sure the roof in clear, there will be some intense dodgeball. Also, Sunday is our second day off of the season. Terribly exciting.

http://theoperacritic.com/company.php?company=sfe

Secondly, someone got hurt at the Opera the other day, which is always a scary time. Technicians are always slapped in the face with reality when something like this happens, and reminded that we all work in a really dangerous business. Anyway, one of our stage supervisors was connecting air hoses over the open trap for Billy Budd, slipped, and fell into the traproom headfirst. Luckily, she hit a ladder on her way down, which slowed her down and prevented her from landing on her head on solid concrete. Amazingly, she didn’t break any bones and only has a minor concussion. I think every department got a reminder to be safe that day.

On a happier note, tonight is opening night for Billy Budd, our third show of the season. It’s going to be a long day- Radamisto run through this morning, and for that we all sit in the house to start learning our spot cues, then changeover to Billy Budd, then a late night running the show and a party at the Cantina. Tomorrow we have tech for Adriana Mater, the last show of the season. It’s getting down to it.

The set however, is by far the coolest part of the show.  The opening set is the deck of a ship, complete with a mast and rigging.  The opera has hired acrobats to climb around and enter and exit from the rigging, making Vince’s life difficult- he has to strike and replace lights every time we do Billy Budd so the mast and actors can fit in the roof.  Later in the show, the cabin walls slide through slits in the side deck walls, sectioning off the deck to create the captain’s quarters.  Later in the show, almost half of the entire deck lifts up to a 45 degree angle, revealing the below-deck quarters.  It’s a complicated system of counterweights and a hydraulic lift, and when it lifts up it reveals all of the people underneath it as well.

So this week, Billy Budd has been rehearsing in the morning with a different show at night, so stage crew has had to do double changeovers- one at night to go into Billy Budd for the morning, and one midafternoon to prepare for the show or tech that night.  This week has been pretty crazy for them, and we’ve just been trying to work around them and stay out of the way as much as we can.