First Day plus the weekend...

Sunday March 21, 2010
Spent 9 hours driving with my Mom we spent the night in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was nice to spend the time with my Mom.

Monday March 22, 2010

Got up early with my Mom and we drove the last 4 hours to East Haddam, Connecticut. We arrived at the paint shop around 2:00 pm and I meet Carla. She briefly introduced me to some of the people who were over hire in the shop. My first impression of the shop is that it is huge and amazing. From first glance I could tell they had an area for washing, mixing, storage, and lots of floor space. All three of us drove over to The Boardman which is where I am to stay while I am at Goodspeed. Then Carla went back to the paint shop while my Mom and I went to lunch.

When we got back from lunch we moved everything up to my room and then went to the near by super market. The super market was very, very tiny I now know I need to find a bigger one because this one was not going to cut it (and it was really expensive). Then my Mom left which was sad because this is literally the first time I have lived further then 30 minutes from her. I am really on my own now.  I then proceeded to move into my room and get settled. I am in room “S” it has a double bed and a closet so I feel really lucky to have some space. My room is also on the third floor in the back of the house so I do have some privacy which is really nice. People started coming home, so around 6:30 pm I went down stairs and made my dinner, hoping to meet some new people.

I met Emily she is a Boston University Graduate and she says she got the job here because her professor Diane used to be the charge artist at Goodspeed for a couple years. Emily is a over hire scenic artist and also lives in New York, New York where she primarily does free lance work. I met Erin who is an electrics apprentice she graduated from a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Eric is also one of my roommates and he actually only has 2 years of college under his belt and started working here because the Technical Director at the time offered him an over hire job and now he is a carpentry apprentice. I watched some TV with all of them and then went to bed.

Tuesday March 23, 2010

My first day as the painting intern was a lot of fun. In the morning all of us hung out in the break room until Carla gave everybody their projects of the moment. Carla and I then went over to the scene shop which is right across the parking lot from the paint shop. I was introduced to Adam who is the technical director, Eric who I had already met, Rob Z (Carla loves to call him ROBZZZZZ), and the props carpenter who’s name I cannot remember right now. Then we went past props storage to the props kitchen where I was introduced to Tony the props master and Tom who is his assistant (Carla calls Tom, Guacamole Tom, why I will find out).  Before we left the building we went up to Adam’s office where I got to meet Charlie, Adam’s dog, he is so cute and very spazzy so we get along really well.

Carla and I walked back over to the paint shop where she gave me the grand tour of the shop. It is bigger and even more fabulous then I thought! There is an area for washing brushes, mixing paint, work tables on wheels, and a soft goods area. The cool part was the storage which was all labeled and you have to sign out stuff when you take it out of storage so Carla knows when to order more. The whole shop is organized and kept clean 24/7, I was stunned. There is also a projection area that is curtained off which was really neat. The way they label their paint is they write each color they mixed in to get the color, and then list them by what color they put the most of in. I thought that was really nice so the next person can mix more if needed. There is a raised floor on the second half of the shop that is called the deck where they paint their soft goods.

After my tour I started working with Krista she actually graduated from Clemson University with an Architecture degree. Then she went on to Florida University and got her MFA in Scenic Design. I got to talk to her a majority of the day about her career. I must say she is a very good teacher. My first project was to cover bare wood on the sides of some scenery because Goodspeed never puts any bare wood on stage, Carla told me this. Then I worked with Krista on cutting out and lining up some craft paper that we are going to later pounce and use to map out a drop. The both of us next went over to the front of the shop and used pounce wheels to perforate the Cowboy graphic on craft paper. Later it will be put on to a drop by tapping a pouch of charcoal on it so that when you remove the craft paper there is a guide to complete the drop. Then we all went into the break room to have lunch. There are not many places to eat around East Haddam. Apparently there is not much of anything unless you drive about a half hour according to Emily which I am sure is true. Needless to say everyone packed there lunch today.

After lunch Krista and I helped Patti and Phyllis recover the deck with paper because it got to messy. Apparently the deck gets fresh paper after every show but the projects this time are just really messy. Then the four of us measured out a drop and I learned what “burning a foot” means, when you are measuring a drop you start at one foot and then measure from there because you cannot count on the bottom of a tape measurer to be perfect so they just start measuring at a foot.

The rest of the day Krista and I spent working on the proscenium pieces for the show. We flipped the front most piece to the back and stapled it back to the deck. Then we “back painted” it which means at least 80% of all of the scenery has to be painted on the back because of fire hazards. Apparently the fire marshal is a stickler for the rules so we follow them to a tee here at Goodspeed. Also, the piece needed to be painted on the back for lighting purposes so no light would come through the back. The last part of my day was getting a demo from Krista on how clean the brushes need to be and cutting scalloped edges on the other proscenium pieces.

I was introduced to two new people today. Alison is a painter who graduated from Boston University she is also a student of Diane’s. Julia is one of my roommates and she worked on a sample for the sky drop today. It looked amazing and I am pretty sure from her sample that she will paint the drop with an air brush technique.

Julia, Emily, Alison, and I went to the Adam’s fresh food market after work and the selection is a little better there but still expensive. Julia told me if I really want to go grocery shopping I should go to the grocery in Old Saybrook called the Super Stop & Shop. She says it’s a lot nicer and cheaper. We all came home, had dinner and watched Jeopardy. Now I am going to fill out paper work so that I can get a paycheck at the end of the week.

It has rained everyday since I got here. :(