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It Ain't Easy Bein’ Blue
Justice C. Bigler:
Last night I worked my final show with the Blue Man Group North American Tour.
The journey that started for me over three years ago and included 304 shows, many dozens of rehearsals, spanned most of the United States and a brief run to Mexico, covered thousands of miles on a bus or airplane, hundreds of nights in a hotel, four show tech revisions and weathered more than two years of a global pandemic that nearly destroyed my career along with the entire performing arts industry; ended with a solid show in Indianapolis after I spent a week training my replacement. The new A1 will do a great job and I made sure that he is better prepared than any of the other department head changes we have seen since the tour began in August of 2019.
I’ve made lots of new friends, worked with people I’ve met as a house tech while they were on the road, worked with others that I worked with 15 years ago in summer stock, have had four different head carpenters, three different stage managers and three A2s. All told there have been 38 crew members that have worked on this tour at different times (so far). I was the only crew member to return after the restart this past February, and am the last of the original crew to leave. I built this show from the ground up and have had my hands on every cable bundle, every rack, every XLR connector, and applied most of the labels to everything, and programmed large sections of the audio system. Like raising a child, it has been both the most difficult and the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had.
But it’s time to move on.
Later today I head home for a few days. And then on Sunday I fly to East Rutherford, New Jersey to join the shop build already in progress and start my new tour. (More on that later).
Yes I’m moving on for better pay and a much better schedule.
And though this is the end of the road for me and this Blue Man Group Tour, I suspect that it won’t be the end of me and Blue Man Group. Just a brief intermission.
dave briar:
--- Quote from: Justice C. Bigler on September 15, 2022, 03:22:59 AM ---Last night I worked my final show with the Blue Man Group North American Tour.
The journey that started for me over three years ago and included 304 shows, many dozens of rehearsals, spanned most of the United States and a brief run to Mexico, covered thousands of miles on a bus or airplane, hundreds of nights in a hotel, four show tech revisions and weathered more than two years of a global pandemic that nearly destroyed my career along with the entire performing arts industry; ended with a solid show in Indianapolis after I spent a week training my replacement. The new A1 will do a great job and I made sure that he is better prepared than any of the other department head changes we have seen since the tour began in August of 2019.
I’ve made lots of new friends, worked with people I’ve met as a house tech while they were on the road, worked with others that I worked with 15 years ago in summer stock, have had four different head carpenters, three different stage managers and three A2s. All told there have been 38 crew members that have worked on this tour at different times (so far). I was the only crew member to return after the restart this past February, and am the last of the original crew to leave. I built this show from the ground up and have had my hands on every cable bundle, every rack, every XLR connector, and applied most of the labels to everything, and programmed large sections of the audio system. Like raising a child, it has been both the most difficult and the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had.
But it’s time to move on.
Later today I head home for a few days. And then on Sunday I fly to East Rutherford, New Jersey to join the shop build already in progress and start my new tour. (More on that later).
Yes I’m moving on for better pay and a much better schedule.
And though this is the end of the road for me and this Blue Man Group Tour, I suspect that it won’t be the end of me and Blue Man Group. Just a brief intermission.
--- End quote ---
Wishing you the very best of luck sir! Will be anticipating updates on your new adventures.
Scott Holtzman:
--- Quote from: Justice C. Bigler on September 15, 2022, 03:22:59 AM ---Last night I worked my final show with the Blue Man Group North American Tour.
The journey that started for me over three years ago and included 304 shows, many dozens of rehearsals, spanned most of the United States and a brief run to Mexico, covered thousands of miles on a bus or airplane, hundreds of nights in a hotel, four show tech revisions and weathered more than two years of a global pandemic that nearly destroyed my career along with the entire performing arts industry; ended with a solid show in Indianapolis after I spent a week training my replacement. The new A1 will do a great job and I made sure that he is better prepared than any of the other department head changes we have seen since the tour began in August of 2019.
I’ve made lots of new friends, worked with people I’ve met as a house tech while they were on the road, worked with others that I worked with 15 years ago in summer stock, have had four different head carpenters, three different stage managers and three A2s. All told there have been 38 crew members that have worked on this tour at different times (so far). I was the only crew member to return after the restart this past February, and am the last of the original crew to leave. I built this show from the ground up and have had my hands on every cable bundle, every rack, every XLR connector, and applied most of the labels to everything, and programmed large sections of the audio system. Like raising a child, it has been both the most difficult and the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had.
But it’s time to move on.
Later today I head home for a few days. And then on Sunday I fly to East Rutherford, New Jersey to join the shop build already in progress and start my new tour. (More on that later).
Yes I’m moving on for better pay and a much better schedule.
And though this is the end of the road for me and this Blue Man Group Tour, I suspect that it won’t be the end of me and Blue Man Group. Just a brief intermission.
--- End quote ---
All the best for your new vocation Justice.
Sent from my LM-V405 using Tapatalk
Brian Jojade:
I helped with load in and load out of Blue Man at the Grand in Wausau, WI earlier this year. An AMAZING amount of gear stuffed into that tiny stage! But with all of that, it was relatively organized chaos for as much as was moving around. Couldn't imagine doing that on a daily basis at a different venue every time.
Justice C. Bigler:
Today I started shop prep for my new job as the Head Audio/A1 for the North American tour of Jesus Christ Superstar.
My team came in last week to get things started while I wrapped up Blue Man Group.
We're at Masque Sound in East Rutherford, New Jersey; reconfiguring and scaling down the show from the previous tour which ended over the summer
We're running a Digico SD10T, the same as BMG, it's a Meyer PA with Leopards and 1100-LFCs for left and right and UPQs and 900-LFCs on the truss for balcony and down fill, all Sennheiser wireless with DPA elements and Aviom monitoring for the band--pretty standard stuff for theatre these days.
I'd post some pictures, but the picture function of the forum sucks, so I'm not going to bother.
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