ABSTRACT
If you have made it this far, the only thing left to talk about is running the show and loading it out. The challenge to running a show is management. You have to manage your time and plan battery orders and workcalls. You also need to maintain a good relationship with the shop to take care of gear as it breaks. Hopefully your show will run for years and if it does, you will have to deal with monotony and complacency. You will have to find a way to keep the show fresh and not drift from the designer’s vision. Occasionally the designer will stop by and watch your show and note it, but the designer really hopes not to hear from you for a long time. The designer just wants a smooth-running show with no problems. And that is a challenge as the actors get bored and start nitpicking one department after another. Eventually all involved get their turn in the barrel. You also have to find and train a sub, which is an even bigger challenge. When I learned my first Broadway mix, the mixer told me, “I need you to be good at this because I am going on vacation with my family.”
