Lighting up Spring Break

Carmichael, CA
Hello Friends,

So lets begin the great catch up from the Internet black out of '11. A month ago I spent my spring break in quaint Newman, CA. I first came to Newman in the fall of '04 with Kepler and Jungle Book to the West Side Theatre in Newman. There I met Dave and Ferris Larsen who have tirelessly and admirably resorted the beautiful old movie house into a gem of a local theatre. Used mainly for local bands and community theatre productions, the West Side Theatre is now a highlight for MCT tours and that goes strongly in part to the generosity and hospitality of Dave and Ferris.

So with myself stranded in Central California for my break I decided to take them up on their standing offer to stay with them if the need ever arose. Little did I know the adventure I was in for.

I arrived on Sunday and knew that I would be helping them with tech work to mount a production for the coming weekend. The play was the one man show Looking Over the President's Shoulder. It follows the life story of real life White House Butler Alonzo Fields and his 21 years serving four Presidents and their families (Hoover, FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower). The show had been produced before at another theatre and since the actor (Dwight Mahabir) had already memorized 70 pages of lines, he was anxious to perform the script again and hopefully sell his production to other theatres.

I was warmly greeted by Dave and Ferris and later that evening met Dwight. Over the next five days we would decorate the set, focus lights, run the show, design cues, you know all the good stuff it takes to put on a show in a week (where have I heard that before?)

My main job was to design the light cues and run the light board during the show (I even got to do a little whistling for one of the sound cues). Have been trained to perform these tasks from my college days (thanks Linfield!) I took to it with gusto and earnest. It was nice to stay active and creative over the break and be one of the guys behind the scenes for a change.

The show had a very limited three day run and was woefully attended by around 100 people total. Small the audience was, they were very receptive and in awe. Dwight did a great job with the material and having watched the show about 8 times that week I never grow bored of it, it was like watching the History Channel only live.

The following Sunday morning I drove to San Fransisco International for the third time in as many weeks to pick up Shawna from her holiday, ran lights one more time, bid a fond farewell to my dear friends at the West Side. Thankfully Shawna and I will return in three weeks for a residency week! From there we headed to Modesto to begin our final 11 weeks straight of tour.


While some tour actors went home or partied with friends for their Spring Break, I couldn't have asked for a better one myself.

The Adventure Continues - ML