SoundGirls.org: My last mixing FOH for a real audience was January 8, 2020. For some reason I feel a necessity to write down a year as well, being afraid that if this stand-still stays longer than we all hope I’ll still be able to track down to my last real show. I only wish we won’t get in the scenario of those memes where there’s a senior person being led by a young kid saying “my 2020 gigs were rescheduled again” and the youngster answers “let it go granny, it’s 2063 already”.
7 comments:
I feel the exact same way, and from a few conversations with other people who have put certain activities on halt due to the pandemic, it appears to be a common emotion. The last time I called a show was sometime in November 2019. The shutdown happened a week before our tech, I did not even start fully working on my book yet, I was wrapping up the rehearsal notes when it all happened. Now it has even made me question if I want to do management anymore, but I’m just trying to chalk it up to not doing my job for way over a year at this point. “Do I know how to do it anymore? Do I even like it?” are questions that I’m trying to make a sense of to no avail. Much like how the author expressed, I’m also holding onto hope as I heard more news about vaccines being distributed.
Yeah, I mean when is the last time things were normal. It's been quite a year. Happy one year since CMU announced it was going online! (03/11/2021) Times are hard, especially for our industry and it seems like every day we are all just waiting for things to "open back up" but who even knows what that means. I have found myself rethinking my studies and why I am at CMU because I think I can say that we collectively have had to think "why am I paying so much for an education where the industry is currently closed (at least for the most part)" I mean the world is still turning, it's still moving but at least in the theater world things are locked up. I've taken this past year to explore some new skills (not far from the theater but fairly different) and I guess what a big takeaway is that you have to invest in what you think will turn out well. Like a stock, you have sat through the lows and highs (if you couldn't tell I've spent a little too much time in Tepper) Every industry and investments take hits, just keep pushing through them
My area of study in Stage and Production Management is not as concerned with hard skills as it is with soft skills, I think, speaking from my fairly limited experience. Yes, there are physical things we have to be able to do and make, but I think a lot more of it has to do with being organized and flexible and keeping your shit together especially under stress and bombardment. Which is what scares me. I was never good at socializing, my resting face would probably make a child cry if it stared long enough, my patience and attention span are at an all time low thanks to the pandemic and online school. I well and truly don't know if I'll have the grit to take it when we're back in full swing and people are telling me to do this and do that by this deadline and that deadline and I have to stay composed and polite and and and. Who's to say, really.
I try not to read or comment on disheartening covid based articles, but this one made some ok points. However, I think there will have to be a collective re-learning when the industry kicks back into full gear again. Most everyone will have been out of their primary work for quite a while, so I think it's going to take patience and grace and understanding (something our industry doesn't seem to be great at, honestly) in order to ease ourselves back into the swing of things. A lot of the skills that the author mentioned she was afraid of losing over time- running cable paths, managing crew, fast paced problem solving- I've found to come back more or less like riding a bike. It takes a bit to jog the muscle memories and that comes with a bit of friction, but after that it's smooth sailing and the tasks come easy.
Although there may be a learning curve when we all go back to live theatre again, I think this learning curve will be extremely short as most of the skills that we have acquired have been stored in our long term memory which means that these skills are still there. Of course there will still be some glitches and mishaps during our first few shows and rehearsals but these will quickly fade after one to two shows. I am not sure about this specific author, but I know that I have not forgotten how I have done specific tasks for shows or stopped using my problem solving skills. I am sure once this specific person gets back into the swing of things, she will not have a problem with being successful with her job! I know I am very confident in my ability to remember the skills that I had before the pandemic. If I have forgotten any, I know that I will be able to quickly relearn them.
I have been honestly thinking about the exact same thing ever since we have been starting to work within the space again. I noticed it when I had to do little things like have the strength to hang a light or remember exactly what to do when. I of course eventually remembered and was able to do the task but I was not able to do it at the efficiency I wanted to. I think when things get fully back to normal then it will definitely be a learning curve as everyone will have to relearn and remember their previous skills. I also think people will have to get used to working together again and get into the groove of things, which will also take a while to happen. I personally have noticed that not only do I have to remember what I am doing but I also have to remember why I am doing it. I think a lot of people within the industry can understand this struggle but I personally have had to remind myself of my love of theatre and why I chose this career in the first place. I think being away from the art form has definitely made me forget what I loved but it also reminded me not to take these things for granted.
I think this article hit pretty close to home for me. Especially coming into college this year– after only a few months without theater– I’ve thought about it a lot. Will I still be able to do what I need to do in any role I might have in future productions? Retaining that information seems much harder now; and honestly, retaining information from classes without putting it to use also seems to me to be a much more daunting task than it would be if we were actively using it. Zoom calls and powerpoints only do so much when it comes to really being able to do something like focusing a light for the first time. As soon as I was actually able to do it myself, I noticed how much more sense it made. Like others have commented, I think it will come back within a short period of time once we are in a new normal (whatever our lives look like after COVID) and I just have to trust that it will be a bit of a refresher learning curve for a lot of us before we are back in a more normal flow of things.
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