Close Quarters

One thing I don't normally do is complain about rehearsal spaces. I've been fairly lucky in my career to have at least adequate spaces. Don't get me wrong. I have had my share of 'at-least be-happy-you-have-a-place-to-rehearse' spaces.

There was the vacant supermarket which was spacious beyond belief, but where there was no heat. It took me not being able to take blocking because my hands were numb for someone to supply a couple of space heaters.

There was the vacant coffee shop - only big enough to fit most of the set taped out, but not enough room for the tech table...or to put a purse down against the wall without encroaching on the set itself. In the end, this didn't matter as a water pipe burst in the ceiling, flooding the space, sending us back to the vacant supermarket to start all over.

There was the church basement that either flooded during rehearsals or was taken over by the BoyScouts on a regular basis. We would roll up our taped floor (cleverly taped out of several large slabs of carpet and be on our merry way.)

There was the church recreation hall that for some reason we could never get clean. Each morning before rehearsals and each evening after we would mop the floors only to leave covered in a white dusty film... Of course, every Tuesday after rehearsal we had to strike everything of ours and set up the bingo tables and chairs for the church fundraiser. This was also the place where one night someone on the church staff thought that our tape on the floor looked messy, so they pulled it all up. How does one yell at a nun?

There was the dance studio which was great except that the dance department liked to use the studio as a cross over and had no problem with sauntering across our stage space whenever they needed to use the copy machine, or get some coffee, or use the bathroom, or get a snack, or take a smoke break, or use the payphone, or send a fax, or leave for lunch, or come back from lunch...see where I'm going with this?

Where am I going with this?

The opera I'm rehearsing right now gets shuttled back and forth between two rooms. One of which, for the most is large enough and warm enough, but right before we get to use the space it's used for band practice...the brass band. Does anyone know what brass players do when their valves fill with moisture (spit)? That's right. They blow it onto the floor. Just in time for the opera department to come in and rehearse.

Then there is the microscopic classroom that we shuttle to for the 2nd half of our rehearsal day. See above. Try rehearsing an opera in a room smaller than your temporary classroom trailer back in the day when your high school was expanding and you had to take Algebra 2 in a double wide.

Did I say that I don't complain about rehearsal spaces?

At least my Starbucks fits on the desk. Let's be thankful here.