Daily Archives: July 29, 2004

Baptism of Fire

I had a good time last night, working in the Bridewell Theatre off Fleet Street. I was called in as a last minute Lighting Operator (well, called on Monday for a Wednesday performance is pretty last minute, but not as short notice as Upbeat music was a few weeks ago!). The role of LX Operator also included being the Sound Operator. Oh, and Stage Manager too. And if I’d been more girly, I’d have been doing the actress’ hair during the interval too, but thankfully I was spared that.

The play for which I was one-man-teching was Brimstone and Treacle, put on by 1066 Productions. It’s the first time that I’ve worked for a professional theatre company, and I’m glad to say that none of them twigged that I was an amateur techie until I enlightened them in the bar afterwards! Obviously I’m a well trained DramSoc techie ;-) . It’s a great play, but if you go and see it, it’ll both lighten your wallet (hey, this isn’t a DramSoc production) and leave you feeling slightly disturbed.

Most importantly, I managed to be a “parachute techie”, and I didn’t screw it up. Nice.

Magnificent Tunes

I spent quite a few years feeling a bit uneasy about music and computers, aware (yet not really caring) that my huge music collection was, ummm, yeah. But I was so irritated by the music industry with their bogus “copy protected” CDs and their insane drivel about how much piracy was costing them (as if I would ever have been able to afford a 4000-song music collection by paying 15 quid for a CD when I’m only wanting one track from it) and all that kind of nonsense, so I was on the lookout for another option. Slightly over a year ago, I discovered an unusual music website, called Magnatune. It’s got a few great features, which are great for a variety of reasons. Continue reading