Dutchman

It was Monday, the 19th of May, 2008. I was working the day watch out of Lucie Stern Theatre, working on Project Dutchman. My partner is Chris Tani, My name is Bob.

West Bay Opera is doing a production of Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman).

West Bay last performed this opera in 1988. I am the only longterm member of the technical staff who was around for that production. Our stage manager (Linda Apperson), and one of our crew members (John Amos) were also around for the 1988 production, but I am the only one who has been around for every production since 1984.

West Bay is the second oldest opera company in California, currently in our 52nd season, and I have been with the company for about 26 years. I am the Master Electrician, and have been in this position since 1984.

This opera has a bit of everything. A turntable, an elevator, scenic projection,,
wind, and musicians scattered into 3 locations in the theatre. There is also a ghost chorus singing from the lobby.

The orchestra pit at this theatre is small, as is the theatre (425 seats), so we place the brass section in the basement, and the percussion section in the scenery storage area behind the stage, and pipe them back into the theatre via microphones and speakers.

I'm not involved in the sound department, except as a consultant.

We are using 3 video projectors, with one projecting on a downstage scrim, and two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. All three projectors are controlled from a single PC running a program called Isodora which allows us to manipulate digital video. The cueing is controlled from the lighting console using DMX512 and a box called a Keystroke, which outputs a key (or key sequence) when a DMX value is received.

We had to pull two of the houselights in order to rig a pipe over the house to mount the projector for the downstage scrim.