Dear dearest blog readers:
Hello from the other side of tech! I’m writing you from the New York City Center Stage I and II lobby where we’ve just finished our invited dress rehearsal, mere hours before the first preview. How about that for 21st century on-the-spot reporting?
The dress rehearsal was a hit - even if it happened a little later than expected. Our dress rehearsal yesterday was tough; we ran into some oh-so-common technical problems with the automated stage, and we had to delay our dress rehearsal until this afternoon. But, all is well and we are off to a strong start!
So next time you see a show - whether it is FROM UP HERE or something else - and a piece of furniture glides onstage magically with no one pushing or pulling it, please remember: behind that effortless-seeming gliding is a motor, and behind that motor is a computer, and behind that computer is someone programming it and behind them are hours – HOURS, MY FRIENDS! – of exacting work, programming, discussions, and trouble-shooting.
Machines are great, baby, but they don’t necessarily simplify our lives (Thanks Ray Bradbury!).
But the FROM UP HERE team rallied with the technology and we made it! And the show is beautiful. Add to the set, the fact that the actors brought it like the rock stars that they truly are. I am just thrilled.
And to share my thrill, I’m attaching here some fun candid shots from the past few days. Not only is the experience of working on FROM UP HERE exhilarating and suspenseful, but it is also filled with good-looking people - click
here to see my fantastic colleagues. A team with a lot of sex appeal is the first step to success.
(I learned that from watching The Apprentice.)