Have you ever met someone and your first thought was "oh god, how are you even alive?"
The most recent person on my "Holy crap, you are an IDIOT" list is my run crew for this show I'm ASMing. This boy is a sophomore in college, grew up around the area that I did, and seems like a pretty nice and decent kid. Until you realize, he legit has no fucking brain.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love actors. I was an actor for a long time and still dabble from time to time. But an actor who has never done anything backstage is an idiot. And an actor who is a drama queen and has never done anything backstage or tech related can kiss my ass, but I digress. This dim witted half brain who is my run crew is an actor, and is studying acting at a college that is not known for their theater program (good choice there dude.) And I honestly don't know how he can even be an actor because this kid is SO DUMB. He can't remember anything, he is the klutziest person i've ever met, and that's saying something cause that means he beats me (and i tripped up the stairs not even three days ago). I taught this kid how to dry mop a stage, which isn't that hard, I picked it up within 10 minutes of being taught. If you don't know how to dry mop, basically you get a mop wet and then you squeeze all of the water out of it. And then when you think you can't squeeze any more, you give it another wring. And then you mop, and the floor is dry by the time you're done mopping and then actors don't have to play on a wet stage and stuff.
I showed him how to wring out the mop, and he seemed to get that okay, but this kid takes like 30 minutes to sweep the stage. It's probably maybe a 40 foot stage, including the backstage area. And he's got a big push broom. It would take me like 10 minutes tops, and that's if I was carrying on an in-depth conversation while sweeping. But so I show him how to mop, not bad he's got the motions down, but it takes him another 20 minutes... really? This shouldn't be this hard.
I came late the other day cause I got stuck in traffic and womp womp stuff like that, I'm half an hour late right, and this kid has had two weeks to perfect this sweeping and mopping thing. And once we sweep and mop, we set up stage and put out props, not too tough sounding right? Like if you had two people you could knock it out in about 30 minutes, especially after two weeks of the same thing? I get there 30 minutes late and he's like "Oh, hi! So I got everything done except the props." This kid had the light op (THE LIGHT OP!) help him sweep and mop and then to set the stage, he put out a stool. Like a three legged, maybe two foot tall, stool. YAY! It took you and the board op 30 minutes to sweep, mop, and put out a STOOL. I'M SO PROUD.
But because I can't just speak my mind like that, I say "cool" and proceed to prepare all the props for the show. Easiest thing in the world. You literally take each thing out of the milk crate and put it on the table. The actors know what they need and they check them before hand and put them where they want them, easiest job in the whole line up, it took me all of maybe two minutes tops, and I think that was with a potty break.
So the show goes up without a hitch, scenery is transitioned pretty okay, props are all in order, actors are fantastic and make me not mind that they get all the credit for my injuries and low pay. And we're standing backstage waiting for one scene to end so we can transition out of it and into the next. The wings are pretty big for what i'm used to, I mean, we fit like ten million pieces of furniture behind the set, and there's at least 4 feet on either side of it, which is covered up by curtains. I'm standing directly behind a leg, fidgeting with my feet, but making no noise, cause I'm in ASM mode. This kid is standing behind me, near the wall that has a run light on it. We don't use the run light during this set of shows cause we don't need it, the cord gets in the way and all that, but it's a run light, it's kinda big, shiny metal, hooked onto a pipe that's on the wall, not that hard to miss. The kid has his hands on his head, elbows out, and is spinning his upper body back and forth. I guess it's fidgeting? I honestly don't know. But half wit somehow manages to almost knock the run light off of the pipe, because he's swinging his big stupid boy elbows all over the place.
Seriously, how do you do that? All of the actors backstage looked at him like "what the fuck are you doing bro?" cause they're just standing backstage, occasionally stretching, but doing their own little quiet get into character thing, and this boy, who's barely bigger than me comes backstage, elbows blazing, and knocks them out of focus. I looked at him and whispered "shhh, be aware of your surroundings!" and went back to listening to the scene.
I wish this was the first and last thing he'd done. He ripped a hole in the projection screens that we have for walls, he dropped a fucking SEE SAW on me and couldn't figure out that if you push down on one side, the other side goes up, he made me look like a fool, walking back on from offstage on the wrong side of the stage because he couldn't figure out that when you come running on stage you should grab the chairs that are supposed to be transitioned out, he almost took out three audience members because he forgot how we were supposed to carry the see saw on and off the stage, he knocked juice all over my prompt book and the floor. And today he walked into me, straight up walked into me. He was behind me, watching me roll a log off the stage and then I turned around to page a curtain down and he walked into the side of me. How do you even do that? So he's messed up 7 times that I've accounted for here and above. We've had 8 shows. Three of those count as tech days.
I just don't get it. And I can't figure out how he turned out this way. I mean, like actors can do some silly things, but if it was stupid they apologize and they don't do it again. This kid doesn't even do that. I yelled at him once, I didn't raise my voice (well, cause we were backstage) but I used a harsh tone, and that is very rare for me to do. I'm usually just sassy or snippy. But I was harsh, and mean. And he still continuously messes up SOMETHING. Maybe he got dropped on his head? I tried feeling sorry for him, because he obviously must have run out of his medication or something, but I just can't. I have thought about asking my boss to fire him, but that would mean I'd have to carry a couch and a see saw and a bed all by myself. And that would just look sad.
Thank you so much, internet thing, for listening to my rant. I feel so much better now. Hopefully I don't smack him after tomorrow's show.. only six more shows left. Five more days. I hope I make it.
