THE OFF-GRID OPERA: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BC HYDRO POWER CONKS OUT on OPENING NIGHT... written by someone who knows. File this under: The show must go on and Why you should hire really good Production Managers So its opening night of a world premier of an opera By Margaret Atwood and Tobin Stokes Its 4:30pm and the technicians are messing around with the house lights. Except they arent. Most of the lights are off in the building, but not all, are those emergency lights that are on? Oh. We have a problem. Call the theatre consultant who designed the backup systems for the theatre Ya you have a problem, Im near by, Ill come see You have no power, Hydro is out in your neighbourhood, about 400 homes apparently. Do we cancel this world premier? No we do not. Call an associate who knows about generators in the movie world, generators big enough to power a 400 seat theatre. Hes in Toronto. But his buddy is in Burnaby. But he doesnt have a generator large enough. But he does have keys to the yard of another company that has the really big generators. OK we have a generator and its on its way from Burnaby. All the emergency lighting batteries have now run out of power and people are starting to arrive at the theatre. Hold people outside, fortunately the weather is nice, while lights and cable are run throughout the building to light all the public spaces from the generator powering the lighting board and dimmers Generator arrives, pull massive cables up 3 flights of stairs to the dimmer racks Wire it all in Turn it on Open the theatre at 8:45pm for a show that was supposed to start at 8pm. 11:30pm Standing ovation for the opening of Pauline the new City Opera Vancouver Production playing at the York Theatre until May 31. Borja Brown did all of this with the help of, Graham Ockley,, Scott, Jason, Jen, Heather, The Cultch staff and a host of other people who happened to be in just the right place at the just the right time. Amazing. Truly Amazing. Thank you.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 15:59:41 +0000