Fear of Heights?

So tonight I went to my first "Technical Theater" class. It seems fun. Basically we're going to learn about all that vital backstage stuff that goes on while you're performing your wonderful solos and not thinking a bit about how you're lit up and looking as fabulous as can be when you're really thinking eh, what comes next? The teacher is really into lighting, and I think that will be a major component of the course. He is a dancer, but also fell into stage managing and lighting design. There is a theater on campus that rarely sees much theater because we cut the theater program five years ago. People still put on the occasional show there, but it seems like we'll have full reign of the place and all its goodies. Our main task of the semester will be to help put on the senior dance thesis concerts in April.

Anyway, tonight we were going over some basic concepts like what a stage manager and producer and blah blah blah is. Basic basic. Stuff I need to know. We even briefly covered the topic of what downstage and upstage are. Remember back in October when the guy was like, Can you move your drum downstage a bit, and I was like, huh? Well for you folks who don't know, back in the old days, the stage was built at an angle so that the people upstage (ie, at the back of the stage) were actually higher than the people downstage (ie, at the front of the stage, closer to the audience) so that the audience could see the performers better. If you learn nothing else from this blog, learn that--upstage and downstage. Boy did I feel dumb. Hopefully this course will teach me the basic-basic things that will prevent feeling of dumbidity.

So, one of the introductory things we learned was how to focus a light. We weren't in the actual theater tonight--it was more of a rehearsal space--with lights. I did OK, but I did have to climb up a rather rickety wooden ladder. And while I'm not particularly scared of heights, I am scared of uncertainty, and a ladder that rocks back and forth is a little uncertain. I was a little nervous(even though the ceiling was probably not even 10 feet high) and am a little scared of what the actual theater will be like. But hey--I can get over my fear of heights, right? I'm almost over stage fright. Almost. I'll have to work on that. Just more hurdles coming my way.

Oh, but did I mention there were only 2 other people in the class? I don't know how many people it will take to fill a class, but I'm not so sure about a college allowing a class of 3 to continue. I mean, we are a small liberal arts college for women, but 3 people?? We'll have to see. And I can't be sure if the other 2 will actually continue with the class. I can just imagine that one or maybe even two of them will drop out and it will be just me and teacher guy lighting up all the senior thesis shows. Sounds familiar though, right, taiko people? One person taking over and doing monumental things to get a show off the ground? I had hoped for 10 people. But hey, we'll just have to see. Another scary thing to overcome. And those ladders. Scary. We'll see.