All the footwork that can be done has been. I brought my portfolio, I had the interview - I feel like I conducted myself well, and regardless of the outcome, I know I did my best.
That said, CalArt is one amazing place. The position would incorporate much of the work I'm already doing, with the added bonus of having a regular schedule. I have put things in motion at home to be able to move within 2 weeks of my return. I have been househunting while I am here, and have 2 possibilities.
I have done all that I can, now I must wait - and have faith, that if it is meant to happen, it will...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Readying the Next Step
I leave in 4 days for Los Angeles, to interview to be the next Assistant Technical Director for the Department of Dance at CalArts (www.calarts.edu). This is a school that was founded by Walt Disney, with the vision of a place for students to learn in a very individualized environment, with all the arts under one building. The result is a small, dedicated group of people, with a lot of cross-departmental work.
I'm very excited about this opportunity - not only would it let me grow in ways I cannot possibly see now, but it would mean getting out of the snow climate!!
There is so much to consider - do I want my own place, which would be expensive but my own, or do I want to share? If I share, for how long? Do I put my stuff in storage, sell it, or pay to move it? Would it be cheaper to replace things down the road rather than store it?
I'll know a lot more after Monday - I'm doing preliminary house hunting on Sunday, interviewing on Monday, and should know if I got the job on Wednesday or Thursday.
It feels right - I can really see myself out there, working in this environment. They seem excited about me.
Here's hoping... :)
I'm very excited about this opportunity - not only would it let me grow in ways I cannot possibly see now, but it would mean getting out of the snow climate!!
There is so much to consider - do I want my own place, which would be expensive but my own, or do I want to share? If I share, for how long? Do I put my stuff in storage, sell it, or pay to move it? Would it be cheaper to replace things down the road rather than store it?
I'll know a lot more after Monday - I'm doing preliminary house hunting on Sunday, interviewing on Monday, and should know if I got the job on Wednesday or Thursday.
It feels right - I can really see myself out there, working in this environment. They seem excited about me.
Here's hoping... :)
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Sometimes it is all about letting go...
Change is in the air. Everyone seems to be feeling it in some way. I ran into my PostalPerson today, who actually said "Change is good!" when she told me that due to health problems, she is no longer allowed a regular "carry" route.
I can feel the winds of change stirring about my feet. I know it is coming, I know I will be moving, shifting, embracing something new, and my spidey sense says it will be sooner rather than later.
I have no idea what it will be, but I am excited about the next phase. I realized today that although I love where I am and what I have been doing very much, in many ways I have hit the limit of what I can actually do here. At the Fine Arts Center, I am at the top of the pay scale as a freelancer, and although there is still groom to grow as a Lighting Designer with the 5-College Dance Program, there really isn't a whole lot else for me here as an artist. So I let go, release, and ask for the next step.
They say that you do not grow when you are comfortable - it's true - you really are only willing to change when you are not happy or uncomfortable, for most change is usually more about running away from pain rather than growth itself.
Letting go in and of itself is an interesting proposition. I really want to let go, live minimally, and be able to pick up and go as soon as they say "Yes, come here!" But the actual doing is something else. As much as I really want to clear the physical clutter in my life, it is hard to overcome the ovewhelm to actually do it. Getting ready for the tag sale I had earlier today, I ended up spending a good portion of the day yesterday on the computer, because I was so overwhelmed. I know I will get there, but sometimes I am only capable of baby steps.
A wise friend once said to me "You cannot judge your insides by other people's outsides" - good advice. You don't always know the chaos that others' tidy homes may hide... All I know in this moment, is that I feel good for all the things I released today, happy about the extra $70+ in my pocket, and more energized to have a much larger moving sale next weekend - it may be baby steps, but I think I will be a lot closer to being able to pick up and go when the time comes!
I can feel the winds of change stirring about my feet. I know it is coming, I know I will be moving, shifting, embracing something new, and my spidey sense says it will be sooner rather than later.
I have no idea what it will be, but I am excited about the next phase. I realized today that although I love where I am and what I have been doing very much, in many ways I have hit the limit of what I can actually do here. At the Fine Arts Center, I am at the top of the pay scale as a freelancer, and although there is still groom to grow as a Lighting Designer with the 5-College Dance Program, there really isn't a whole lot else for me here as an artist. So I let go, release, and ask for the next step.
They say that you do not grow when you are comfortable - it's true - you really are only willing to change when you are not happy or uncomfortable, for most change is usually more about running away from pain rather than growth itself.
Letting go in and of itself is an interesting proposition. I really want to let go, live minimally, and be able to pick up and go as soon as they say "Yes, come here!" But the actual doing is something else. As much as I really want to clear the physical clutter in my life, it is hard to overcome the ovewhelm to actually do it. Getting ready for the tag sale I had earlier today, I ended up spending a good portion of the day yesterday on the computer, because I was so overwhelmed. I know I will get there, but sometimes I am only capable of baby steps.
A wise friend once said to me "You cannot judge your insides by other people's outsides" - good advice. You don't always know the chaos that others' tidy homes may hide... All I know in this moment, is that I feel good for all the things I released today, happy about the extra $70+ in my pocket, and more energized to have a much larger moving sale next weekend - it may be baby steps, but I think I will be a lot closer to being able to pick up and go when the time comes!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
famine to feast
Tour to Rochester was interesting, and a good example of meeting people in person if you can, before you take a job sight unseen...
The job was somewhat good on paper - okay money, housing provided, diversity of work. However, the reality was a theater that was essentially paid community theater, folks who aren't allowed to do the job they are hired for (their job plus 6 others added as you go along), a micro-managing director who can be abusive and bi-polar, and no resources to really do what you want to accomplish and no future. A good learning position for someone right out of college, but not for an established professional.
The show itself was wonderful "Cooking with the Calamari Sister" - funny, entertaining, and wonderful. I can't wait to see the next installment!
Arriving home finally from 9 weeks on the road was interesting. It took a couple days before anything really felt familiar. The cats are glad I am home, and so am I. The first couple days back were all about nesting - cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, and napping, catching up on much-needed rest.
Then the question of "next step" - where do I go from here? While on the Rochester tour, I spent a couple hours on trade websites, sending out my resume. Some came back and wanted more information, and 3 have interviewed me this week: ART in Boston, Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown CT, and CalArts in Valencia CA. I also have the option of interviewing with a house in Delaware in mid-October, for a position beginning January 1st.
I had an in-person interview with Oddfellows, and fell in love with the theater. It is a sweet dedicated space, with a lot of potential to grow and learn - I even told them that if I don't work with them as Production Manager, I want to come back as a designer.
The position at CalArt is amazing. When I talked to them today, I realized it is a dream job - production management, technical direction, working with students, getting to explore and grow as an artist/designer, and I'd get to TEACH a course in production management every semester. Oh, joy - oh rapture!!!
Keeping everything I can think of crossed, in hopes this comes through...
The job was somewhat good on paper - okay money, housing provided, diversity of work. However, the reality was a theater that was essentially paid community theater, folks who aren't allowed to do the job they are hired for (their job plus 6 others added as you go along), a micro-managing director who can be abusive and bi-polar, and no resources to really do what you want to accomplish and no future. A good learning position for someone right out of college, but not for an established professional.
The show itself was wonderful "Cooking with the Calamari Sister" - funny, entertaining, and wonderful. I can't wait to see the next installment!
Arriving home finally from 9 weeks on the road was interesting. It took a couple days before anything really felt familiar. The cats are glad I am home, and so am I. The first couple days back were all about nesting - cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, and napping, catching up on much-needed rest.
Then the question of "next step" - where do I go from here? While on the Rochester tour, I spent a couple hours on trade websites, sending out my resume. Some came back and wanted more information, and 3 have interviewed me this week: ART in Boston, Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown CT, and CalArts in Valencia CA. I also have the option of interviewing with a house in Delaware in mid-October, for a position beginning January 1st.
I had an in-person interview with Oddfellows, and fell in love with the theater. It is a sweet dedicated space, with a lot of potential to grow and learn - I even told them that if I don't work with them as Production Manager, I want to come back as a designer.
The position at CalArt is amazing. When I talked to them today, I realized it is a dream job - production management, technical direction, working with students, getting to explore and grow as an artist/designer, and I'd get to TEACH a course in production management every semester. Oh, joy - oh rapture!!!
Keeping everything I can think of crossed, in hopes this comes through...
Saturday, August 7, 2010
...and the tours continue...
I am now in Sugar Loaf, NY, touring as Production Manager for "Cooking with the Calamari Sisters/Mangia Italiano". I went to Rochester, NY, to learn the show, and it has a 4-show run here, about an hour outside NYC.
It is a semi-outdoor venue, very cool design. The walls are screening around the audience, and some kind of plexiglass around the stage - very clever.
The show itself is amazing and funny. It's about 2 Italian sisters who host a cable access cooking show, with dreams of going to the Food Network. However, one sister has the opportunity to tour her own variety show, and is splitting up the act. I don't want to say much more, except that chaos, cannollies, and charm ensue.
It's nice in that this tour is not in bunkhouses, but in a hotel. :) It's almost strange to have a full size bed to myself!
I head back to Rochester after the show on Sunday to load back into the theater and run 2 more shows before one of the performers goes in for surgery. Then I run a short run of "6 Guitars", a one-man show of a fellow who takes on the persona of 6 different famous guitar players. He won several awards at the Orlando Fringe, and it should be a good show.
The big question these days is: what is the next step? I stand in the place of faith, believing that the next right thing will manifest as it is meant to, but it is still a little scary to be facing bills, without knowing where I may have income. I'm putting out a lot of feelers, responding to trade postings.
It will be interesting to see where the next few weeks take me...
It is a semi-outdoor venue, very cool design. The walls are screening around the audience, and some kind of plexiglass around the stage - very clever.
The show itself is amazing and funny. It's about 2 Italian sisters who host a cable access cooking show, with dreams of going to the Food Network. However, one sister has the opportunity to tour her own variety show, and is splitting up the act. I don't want to say much more, except that chaos, cannollies, and charm ensue.
It's nice in that this tour is not in bunkhouses, but in a hotel. :) It's almost strange to have a full size bed to myself!
I head back to Rochester after the show on Sunday to load back into the theater and run 2 more shows before one of the performers goes in for surgery. Then I run a short run of "6 Guitars", a one-man show of a fellow who takes on the persona of 6 different famous guitar players. He won several awards at the Orlando Fringe, and it should be a good show.
The big question these days is: what is the next step? I stand in the place of faith, believing that the next right thing will manifest as it is meant to, but it is still a little scary to be facing bills, without knowing where I may have income. I'm putting out a lot of feelers, responding to trade postings.
It will be interesting to see where the next few weeks take me...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
endings and beginnings
This is one of the last posts to this part of my life journey that will be posted (I'm expecting at least one more re the circus, but may still keep blogging anyway, if there is any interest).
I had a perfect morning yesterday - I woke up on my own about 7am, put some "staff only" signs up around the lot, talked to a couple early-rising staff members, then started to walk. It was a perfect weather day, cool, not humid, sunny. I did an hour of yoga in the Heritage Gardens (which felt great!), then went for a walk. I walked the labyrinth, walked the Shawme Lake view walk, got lost, found the Carousel and rode it, and then got a call from my boss, asking if I was on the lot.
I reported to her RV, thinking that I was going to get grief for forgetting to put up the "next show" clock sign before I left for yoga. I was informed that apparently several Board members who attended the show in Waltham last weekend didn't feel I treated them specially enough, they felt "herded" into their seats, and that I was "Gestapo-esque" in my attitude toward trying to get everyone seated and safe. They decided I was damaging the "down home, friendly" reputation of Smirkus, and that I had to go. I was given about an hour to pack my things, taken to Boston's South Station to take a bus to Montpelier, VT, driven back to base camp at Greensboro, and drove home.
I left Sandwich at 12:30, arrived at Greensboro at 8pm, and finally home at 3:30am, due to exhaustion causing me to stop and sleep at pretty much all but one rest stop on the way home.
My house is unfamiliar to me. When I was on the road, the majority of my "homesick" was to be with and missing the boyfriend who no longer exists. I have no idea what to do with myself.
I am a Production Manager, and a damned good one. I am not a Front of House Manager - I told them that going in, and that it isn't my favorite of jobs. I did the best I could, with the limited resources I had. They kept expecting me to know everything and everyone and be the person they've had for the past 6 years, without giving me the benefit of time to get to know processes and people. I am used to a highly structured environment, and told them it would take time to adjust to the more free-flowing environ of Smirkus. Personally, when I'm trying to fit 700+ people into the bleachers, get them to move over for late comers, ask people to turn off the flash on their cameras, how am I supposed to personally greet every one of them?
They say they'll give me a good recommendation based on my Production Management skills - which they saw really are my strength.
And I do believe that everything really does happen for a reason. This morning I received a call from the theater in Rochester I have been talking with, and it looks like this weekend I will be going to Sugarloaf, NY, to see a production of "Cooking with the Calamari Sisters" - one of the few opportunities left to see this amazing production. It will be an in-person interview, and will hopefully lead to another in-person interview in Rochester at the "home base".
Onward and upward! :)
I had a perfect morning yesterday - I woke up on my own about 7am, put some "staff only" signs up around the lot, talked to a couple early-rising staff members, then started to walk. It was a perfect weather day, cool, not humid, sunny. I did an hour of yoga in the Heritage Gardens (which felt great!), then went for a walk. I walked the labyrinth, walked the Shawme Lake view walk, got lost, found the Carousel and rode it, and then got a call from my boss, asking if I was on the lot.
I reported to her RV, thinking that I was going to get grief for forgetting to put up the "next show" clock sign before I left for yoga. I was informed that apparently several Board members who attended the show in Waltham last weekend didn't feel I treated them specially enough, they felt "herded" into their seats, and that I was "Gestapo-esque" in my attitude toward trying to get everyone seated and safe. They decided I was damaging the "down home, friendly" reputation of Smirkus, and that I had to go. I was given about an hour to pack my things, taken to Boston's South Station to take a bus to Montpelier, VT, driven back to base camp at Greensboro, and drove home.
I left Sandwich at 12:30, arrived at Greensboro at 8pm, and finally home at 3:30am, due to exhaustion causing me to stop and sleep at pretty much all but one rest stop on the way home.
My house is unfamiliar to me. When I was on the road, the majority of my "homesick" was to be with and missing the boyfriend who no longer exists. I have no idea what to do with myself.
I am a Production Manager, and a damned good one. I am not a Front of House Manager - I told them that going in, and that it isn't my favorite of jobs. I did the best I could, with the limited resources I had. They kept expecting me to know everything and everyone and be the person they've had for the past 6 years, without giving me the benefit of time to get to know processes and people. I am used to a highly structured environment, and told them it would take time to adjust to the more free-flowing environ of Smirkus. Personally, when I'm trying to fit 700+ people into the bleachers, get them to move over for late comers, ask people to turn off the flash on their cameras, how am I supposed to personally greet every one of them?
They say they'll give me a good recommendation based on my Production Management skills - which they saw really are my strength.
And I do believe that everything really does happen for a reason. This morning I received a call from the theater in Rochester I have been talking with, and it looks like this weekend I will be going to Sugarloaf, NY, to see a production of "Cooking with the Calamari Sisters" - one of the few opportunities left to see this amazing production. It will be an in-person interview, and will hopefully lead to another in-person interview in Rochester at the "home base".
Onward and upward! :)
Monday, July 26, 2010
7 more stops
Wow - I can't believe how fast the time is starting to go, now that we've passed the halfway point. The time blends, one day into another - same thing, same people, different place.
The "I can't believe how many different ways people can suck" list keeps getting longer and more interesting. Things like:
** They are part of a group, and therefore think the entire row is reserved for them, not just their seat.
** Pitching fits because you tell their kid they can't sit on the floor where the riggers will walk over them, because they'll get hurt.
** Pitching a fit because you ask them to take a seat because they are either blocking the stairs or the entryway.
** Leave dirty diapers where the performers can walk on them.
** Throw trash all over the table in the entryway.
** Let their kids use the stairway handrail as a jungle gym.
** Pitch a fit because they arrive 20 minutes after the start of show and there aren't seats saved for them front row center.
** Are surprised when they arrive at 7:05 and the show started without them.
** Leave ridiculous amounts of trash in the house when they leave.
Do no mothers teach manners anymore???
One of the best ones yet, though, was the 2 girls sitting in the mast area that I had to ask to move. There was no more room on the floor for them, so I told them they needed to sit with their mom - and they proceeded to dive under the chain to cross the back of the stage to their mom on the other side of the ring! I stopped them and took them out and around to the other entrance where their mom met us - I heard her tell them they can't walk across the stage - then when they got back inside, tried to sit in every area that is marked off to not sit in! Sheesh!
Clown nose (near) catastrophe: Our Sasquatch clown bumped his nose just as he came offstage from his last bit, and his nose came off. He tacked it back on for curtain calls, but it fell off - and bounced off his hand when he tried to catch it. We thought an audience member took it home for a souvenier, but fortunately, it was found under the bleachers - while using a spotlight as a flashlight...
We are now in Sandwich, MA, on Cape Cod. I have a timeshare not far from here in Falmouth, so I think of the Cape as my "happy place". Not surprisingly, as I drove closer to the Cape, my stress levels just kept dropping.... :)
The "I can't believe how many different ways people can suck" list keeps getting longer and more interesting. Things like:
** They are part of a group, and therefore think the entire row is reserved for them, not just their seat.
** Pitching fits because you tell their kid they can't sit on the floor where the riggers will walk over them, because they'll get hurt.
** Pitching a fit because you ask them to take a seat because they are either blocking the stairs or the entryway.
** Leave dirty diapers where the performers can walk on them.
** Throw trash all over the table in the entryway.
** Let their kids use the stairway handrail as a jungle gym.
** Pitch a fit because they arrive 20 minutes after the start of show and there aren't seats saved for them front row center.
** Are surprised when they arrive at 7:05 and the show started without them.
** Leave ridiculous amounts of trash in the house when they leave.
Do no mothers teach manners anymore???
One of the best ones yet, though, was the 2 girls sitting in the mast area that I had to ask to move. There was no more room on the floor for them, so I told them they needed to sit with their mom - and they proceeded to dive under the chain to cross the back of the stage to their mom on the other side of the ring! I stopped them and took them out and around to the other entrance where their mom met us - I heard her tell them they can't walk across the stage - then when they got back inside, tried to sit in every area that is marked off to not sit in! Sheesh!
Clown nose (near) catastrophe: Our Sasquatch clown bumped his nose just as he came offstage from his last bit, and his nose came off. He tacked it back on for curtain calls, but it fell off - and bounced off his hand when he tried to catch it. We thought an audience member took it home for a souvenier, but fortunately, it was found under the bleachers - while using a spotlight as a flashlight...
We are now in Sandwich, MA, on Cape Cod. I have a timeshare not far from here in Falmouth, so I think of the Cape as my "happy place". Not surprisingly, as I drove closer to the Cape, my stress levels just kept dropping.... :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
