Education vs. Efficiency

Design! Design! Design!
Read! Read! Read!
Prepare! Prepare! Prepare!
Draw! Draw! Draw!
Apply! Apply! Apply!
Blog! Blog! Blog!

I feel like there is a constant harping on all the things I have to do right now, including trying, trying, trying to keep up with writing. I apologize for not, really, but I feel like I might drop dead at any given moment. Which means, you guessed it, I'm about to head into tech. Sunday, in fact, will be Day #1 of Pericles tech... and we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get ready. Today was both rewarding and infuriating. Rewarding because we started planking the main rake of the floor (which, without pictures, probably doesn't mean much to you, but soon). Infuriating because Education and Efficiency went head to head, and I'm not sure who won.

As an educational institution, theoretically we are supposed to be worried about educating the students who are serving Practicum hours in the shop. Thus, we (grad students, undergrad assistants, staff, faculty) are primarily supposed to oversee their work, offer guidance, and not just shove them out of the way to stand looking at us stupidly rather than wielding the tools themselves. So today we started planking the floor at approximately 2:30pm with two teams of undergraduate practicum students running the show (well, I was running it, but they were operating the tools and what-not). By 4:45pm, only about 1/3 of the rake was done and it had to be done by 6pm. It was a nightmare. I had the Technical Director, staff, and various other higher-ups breathing down my neck, but I was specifically instructed to be the Artistic Eye and not the labor. BUT! We were not making progress. We managed to get it done, finding a rhythm in what felt like the eleventh hour (and then our amazing Master Carpenter jumping in with his mad stapling skills) and finished by 6:15... but, as I said, it was infuriating.

At a certain point I felt like all I was doing was cracking the whip rather than paying attention to how the boards were being laid out in regards to color and staggering the seams. Though I feel like no major problems occurred, per se, I am left wondering why we allow this broken system to prevail.

In a carpenter's shop (where they are making actual things like furniture or what have you rather than useless things like scenic elements), young, unskilled workers spend time as merely hands cleaning up or holding tools (and observing). Why can't we do that in the educational theatre setting? Why isn't that considered a valid way to learn? Is it perhaps because many of our poor, unskilled slaves undergrads are forced into our scene (and costume) shops because of requirements, not interest? Thus, we must entice them to want to be there by giving them tools and letting them slow us down and screw things up (oh, you cannot imagine how many times I just had to let go of having a perfectly spaced out deck today...). This is a problem. It is a disservice, not just to the show (and design/designer) but to the students who are being entrusted with the responsibility to build things that they cannot. They get yelled at or they at least can tell when whomever they are disappointing is, in fact, disappointed. (I had one young man apologize profusely for his team's slow pace today, but really, who am I to get angry? They were doing the best that they knew how.)

It is irksome, and, as I may have said, we're behind. I feel stressed in a way that is unproductive. I can't do anything about where we're at and I know that someone higher up is going to complain, going into tech, about shit not being complete. And because I'm not someone who passes the buck or points fingers, I'm going to feel incredibly guilty and like I failed my own design. Urg.

Let's hope that by February 18th, when Pericles opens, it will all have been worth it.