Pardon me, everyone, while I have one of those big ole gigantic bragging-about-my-baby-girl fests.
A little background: Thea loves theater tech. LOVES it. A year or so ago, Curt was sitting in the theater while one of our lighting designers was hanging lights. Thea was up in the booth and the light designer said, "Pumpkin, take everything out and run up circuit 12 for me." So the stage when dark and a single light came on. Curt looked up, shocked, and said, "She knows how to do that?!?!" What can I say. She takes after her mommy.
We are currently in production with Neil Simond's Broadway Bound. I am running the tech booth (the light and sound boards) for most of the performances. Thea was in the booth with me last Sunday and ran the last 10 light cues of the show. Now, both systems are fully programmable, so the Stage Manager calls the cue over the headset and the operator literally presses a "go" button that executes what's been pre-programmed. It's not like the old 2 channel pre-set boards when you had to run up each circuit on the X or Y channel and then run a cross-fade to the new setting......(that probably makes no sense to any non-technical-theater person...sorry) BUT, there are a ton of visual cues in the show. Everyone is constantly flipping light switches on and off which, as you'd expect, turns the light in the "room" on and off. So the stage manager calls a warning for the "visual" cue and relies on the operator to execute the cue when the actor turns the light on or off.
Tonight, I gave Thea a headset and she ran light board for the ENTIRE show. She made two tiny errors that no one but us noticed. Of course my little perfectionist beat the hell out of herself and was very upset that a bedroom light went out early - but she truly did an AMAZING job. I was right with her the whole time running sound and ready to snap into action if there was a major error. Silly me! There was no need for that!
I am one proud as a peacock mama tonight! :)
