I've given my best while they screamed for my blood

Work has been trying as of late. Something happened to the board - we're not sure what, and it's a relatively new board (2004), but it started freaking out, the LEDs on every channel (including ones that weren't hooked up) and our speakers were lighting up simultaneously, causing some popping and distortion. For a couple days we've run the board at about 80 percent, minimizing the distortion as much as possible while still being able to hear. Tuesday, someone from the audio place in Asheville where we bought the board came in and was mystified by what was going on, but knew it was either with the board itself or the power supply. We arranged for him to bring in a loaner board yesterday afternoon (earliest we could really get it and install it, seeing as we had worship that night and keynote this morning.) Yesterday morning, we sat down to do the keynote sound check, and the mics were working, but I was getting nothing on any of the channels. At all. The board had stopped. Heather, one of our co-directors, being awesome, managed to switch the board in the booth with the board in Upper Anderson (which has 16 channels where our normal board has 40, but we were fine as far as mics go). We had to set new levels for the band, which is a detailed process, and it's quite frankly a miracle we had sound at all. When we turned up the keynoter's mic, she let out a sigh of relief.

(Pictures are the sound board that failed up against the wall awaiting removal, and Russ and I sitting at the board from Upper. Compare the sizes.)

Of course, later in the service, we had some massive feedback caused by the monitors reacting with the mics, so what most people know is not the miraculous fact that we had sound at all, but the crappy moment of feedback. Argh. I must keep this in mind when I witness accidents like that. I must make an aside and say that the planning team has been PHENOMENAL about all of this. Never for a moment have I felt any animosity from the planning team in these sound crises... never I heard any complaining about any of the problems. Complaining doesn't help, but it is a natural outlet. Instead, I've felt pure support from every planning team member I've met - they trust that we are working urgently to get them the best sound we possibly can. This outlook is beautifully useful and encouraging. The man who is calling the show, Matthew (tells us when to turn on what mic, etc. - generally a stage manager's job, but of course no conference actually has a stage manager, though I think some could REALLY use one) has been wonderful to us and when we apologized for the feedback, he immediately took the blame, saying it was his fault for not calling for the mics to be turned off. (I was particularly impressed by this because that's a very stage manager thing to do. As the stage manager, it's your job to keep things running as smoothly as possible. I remember that being a big deal when I first stage managed - it was a decent sized show in a large space so we had a lot of people working on things. During the shows, when things went wrong that were clearly not my fault, I would immediately shoulder the blame - because in that immediate moment, people want someone to blame and will be distracted and things will not go smoothly. Later, I could figure out whose fault it actually was and make sure it didn't happen again, but the blame game just wastes time and energy.) The planning team has been so patient and co-operative and positive throughout all of this, and that has been such a relief. (At the end of the program yesterday, he apologized again for not calling the mics going off, and then we joked that at least we had sound to be able to have feedback, and shared a good laugh over feedback sometimes being a sign of good things.)

To add to the craziness of yesterday morning - Tuesday night/Wednesday early morning was the midnight release of the sixth Harry Potter book, and of COURSE the majority of summer staff went. And all four of us working keynote in the morning went. When we work keynote, we have to be there at 6:45am. We got back to Montreat at 4am, and as such decided to camp out. Two people slept outside in their hammocks (a significant number of people here have hammocks), and Russ and I slept in the booth. Luckily and surprisingly, there were no bats in the booth. (We get bats in the booth a LOT. Just flying around. When I came in for keynote on Monday there were at least three.) So, yes, we didn't get a lot of sleep, but I've done a lot more on a lot less sleep (after last semester, I know my limits pretty well), and having been well-rested for the rest of the summer, I felt fine. (Also, when we mentioned yesterday that we were going and then camping out, Matthew thought it was awesome and said he'd bring us breakfast. AND HE DID. I really do love this planning team.)

Harry Potter was awesome. It took significant liberties with the book, which were particularly obvious to me having just re-read it. Its sense of humor was wonderful. Very, very dry, and I cracked up more than I've ever cracked up in a Harry Potter film before. The film was much mroe tightly centered around Harry, Ron, Hermione, their various love interests, Draco, and Dumbledore, and characters such as Hagrid had more cameos than anything, but it worked as far as furthering this portion of the series. They gave just enough information to set everything in motion for the final book.

I watched Sweeney Todd (the movie version) yesterday when I was too wired to sleep but needed rest. This was largely inspired by seeing Harry Potter last night. One of the scenes was basically a Sweeney Todd reunion scene, with Helena Bonham Carter (Lovett in Sweeney, Bellatrix in Harry Potter), Alan Rickman (Judge Turpin/Snape) and Timothy Spall (The Beadle/Wormtail). Harry Potter also revitalized my love for/unashamed attraction to Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman is an actor that combines style and honestly with absolute brilliance. In Harry Potter, there were two particular moments of SPOT ON comedic timing on Alan Rickman's part that sent me howling with laughter. He also wove such brilliantly subtle torment in much of the movie that hit me harder because I just read the last book.

Similarly, in Sweeney Todd, his performance as Judge Turpin is the perfect blend of imposing terror and heartbreaking humanity. I'm probably the biggest Judge Turpin fan you'll ever find, because, yes, I do believe that underneath it all, he has good intentions. I'll spare you the in-depth analysis of his "Johanna" (particularly as compared with a monologue of his in Christopher Bond's play), but I believe that the heart of his character is that he DOES love Johanna. Honestly, I think that makes the audience a lot more uncomfortable than if he didn't, than if they could write him off as a "mustache twirling villain" (which Sondheim has lately expressed in interviews, he is not). I understand why the cut the Judge's "Johanna" from the movie, but I would've LOVED to see Rickman do that song. There are very few performances that I've seen and thought, "Yes, that is IT!" (IT being precisely how I feel about the character)... but Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin pretty much hits it.

Also, his voice. Just his speaking voice is so deep and resonant and velvet, and he uses it SO WELL. We all know I'm a sucker for that.

We have another talent show tonight, and therefore another AV/Aud Olympics. We're also officially having a Summer Staff talent show on August 1st. I'm actually quite excited for that - quite excited, even, to perform in that. I'm planning on either singing "Surabaya Santa" from Songs for a New World, a parody of songs like "Surabaya Johnny" (slightly vampy songs songs sung by fed up women who've been taken by men who are jerks to them), or "I Was Here" from The Glorious Ones, about why we make theatre ("This is my key to the portal/How I can leave something immortal/Something that time cannot make disappear/Something to say I was here!"). My friend Sam sang "I Was Here" as his final song at his senior show in high school. (I was working backstage for this performance, clearly sobbing because it's that kind of emotional song and I was like, "I'm going to miss Sam so much!" Funnily enough, he went to NYU for theatre, but went to the musical theatre studio. When he came to MY senior show, he said, "Hey, guess what? I'm switching to PHTS!" and we ended up in school together for another two years. Awesome.) Both songs have their advantages, and both are, I feel, easily accesible for people who are not into musical theatre. I chuckle as I'm excited about performing. I think performance is something I like to do, but not often, and usually under specific circumstances. In theatre school, it tends to be too much, but here? Fun. Also, I haven't acted in any musical theatre since high school. I like performing in musicals better than pretty much any other kind of performance, probably because I understand the music in a way that clears up most of my acting woes, and because it's a style I'm familiar and comfortable with. Should be fun, and a great opportunity to show people what we do in theatre school.

Also, I had my first bear sighting on the way back from Harry Potter. Fun times.