Past few months of shows…

We here at Rocktzar have been SWAMPED for months. The garden is full of weeds, the blog has been neglected, and I’m pretty sure that was once a cheese sandwich that I chiseled out of the fridge.

Mary and I worked together on a few shows this summer, mostly as props & sound, respectively (though she got a reprieve and joined the pit orchestra at one point, when they learned that she is capable of sight-reading on piano, on the fly). It was lucky we were on the same shows, or we wouldn’t have seen each other for two months.

Unfortunately, much of the summer was also overtaken by a flood that took out a huge chunk of our recording studio, Echostation. We came back from running a photoshoot to find that an errant washing machine had flooded upstairs, which meant the studio ceiling was collapsing on top of the piano, guitar racks, mics…everything. From a gear standpoint, we were EXTREMELY lucky, as only my primary guitar suffered damage, and that was only in the finish. (That guitar has 10 years of touring rigor on it, and I took care of it in that time as best as I could. Living home in the studio now, and wham, big crack in the finish.) Everything else of value has been repaired. But the cleanup resulted in a bare room, stripped of ceiling, flooring, and insulation. Insurance has been taking care of it all, but it’s been a long road back. The results and upgrades are beautiful, though. Photos to come!

Ironically, the day after the flood we went ahead and allowed a film crew to shoot interiors for a movie, taking over the house, yard, and street. We couldn’t let down the producer, our dear friend Miriam Naggar. So we all pitched in and made it happen. To her credit, she was appeared completely un-phased and took it all in stride.

We just wrapped up on a production of A Chorus Line at the University of New Haven, helping out our esteemed friend Brandon, who was having surgery and therefore unable to finish the set build. Suddenly Mary was filling the role I had worked in a couple of years ago, and I went in to help and visit with some of my former students. Falling on the heels of my season at NVCC, it meant I had been in tech for 30 days, solid! It feels good to sleep again…

This week marks not only Thanksgiving, but the start of tech for A Christmas Carol, for New Arts in Bethel, CT. Attentive readers will recall that I worked on this show last year as Master Electrician. This season, Mary is Prop Master, and I am stepping in for Qlab programming, adapting the show from its initial run at the McCarter Theatre at Princeton. That’s all I am able to do, as I have to design lighting for three shows in the town of Fairfield and help manage technical production for a different run of A Christmas Carol in Stamford.

Hope you have a great holiday!
-brian