Volume 124 Issue 104
kansan.com
Friday, February 24, 2012
ENTERTAINMENT
--anything from making phone calls and staffing a show to pulling drop boxes (a big power strip) from the ceiling to store until needed again on a daily basis.
Behind the Scenes at the Lied Center: IT'S NEVER THE "SAME OLD THING."
Student workers at the Lied Center disable, unite and store electrical equipment from battens before the next show comes through.
// RACHEL SCHULTZ
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Shouts echo throughout the 2,000-person Lied Center theater, but are not coming from the audience or performers. The Lied's blue velvet curtain lifts to an array of students and employees of the Lied Center preparing for the next few shows to come across its historic stage. But while the stage will be set to perfection from the audience's point of view come show night, it's a much more complicated production backstage, especially the weeks leading up to a show. First, the stage crew must clear everything from the stage so that a touring show's road crew can come in and prepare for a one-nightonly performance.
First the battens, metal poles hung 70 feet from the ground to suspend with lights and scenery, must be cleared of all electric equipment to make room for the touring production's set. A few friendly exchanges between the crew, and suddenly one of about 50 battens flies from the ceiling, slowing just in time to avoid crashing to the floor.
Erika Eden, assistant technical director of the Lied Center, has worked at the theater for almost eight years, but still recognizes that all of the preparation that happens behind the curtains is a novelty that sometimes even the most seasoned of stage crew take for granted. She embraces the slightly chaotic and ever-changing aspect of working in theater. She's doing
"All the events coming through are so different from the next," Eden says. "One day we were doing the Chamber Ensemble, and then next day we were doing a children's puppet show. It's a 180-degree difference. It doesn't ever feel like the same old thing."
The crew takes advantage of every set of hands on stage to help prepare for the road crews coming in. Even I'm not safe from lending a hand, as student crew worker Taryn Eby shows me how to transfer a curtain from one batten to another by pulling the two metal rods close to one another, then tediously untying a bow from one rod to retie it to the other rod and repeating that approximately 80 times for each tie. Eby was involved in her high school theater but hadn't had experience working in a place like the Lied where shows frequently tour.
"I really like that the crew feels like a family," says Eby, a pre-nursing sophomore from Topeka. "You get to meet a lot of people all over the country who have been touring all over the world. It's interesting to hear their stories."
In addition to Eden, Ann and Andy Hause, technical director and associate technical director of the Lied Center.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Lied Center opened in 1993 after Hoch Auditoria (Budig Hall) was struck by lightening and destroyed by fire in 1991.
- The first performance on the Lied Center stage was the Secret Garden
- The Lied Center is named after Ernst F. Lied, an active and honored student at KU in the 20s. He transferred to the University of Nebraska Lincoln in 1925, where another Lied Center for Performing Arts was opened in 1990.
- There's a basketball goal on the stage that holds stage crew tournaments regularly.
- In 2011, the Lied Center Pavilion opened, serving as another performance space and holding 200 people.
- The crew names almost every piece of equipment at the theater. For example, the pianos—Lucy and Ethel.
make up the family that Eby refers to. Ann does the business work with the road crews, looking over contracts and making sure the shows don't need anything the Lied Center can't provide. Andy refers to himself as the mechanic, wearing many different hats on any given day. When a show is in the Lied Center, he makes sure the crew gets all of the electricity and sound they need.
"When people come in they expect everything to fail," Andy says of show days. "If it all works and they're happy then it's a really good day for everybody."
The Lied Center employs about 50 students per year of all majors and backgrounds to help out backstage, even without previous theater experience.
In the fall, orientation is held to teach the student workers about everything that happens from set up to tear down of a show. Eden says that the variety of people makes it fun, and it's a great opportunity to fulfill the teaching aspect of the job of the university-owned theater.
"The students are the biggest tools we havewithout them wed be sunk.The gear is good, the house is good and the crew is great. It's a total win-win," Andy says.
The performers agree with his sentiment. Erin Robinson, a Lawrence senior majoring in finance, has performed at the Lied Center since she was three years old, having her dance recitals there. She performed there throughout high school and worked closely with the crew last year through Rock Chalk Revue. She praises the stage managers for having an extremely "can-do" attitude, and making the atmosphere backstage a fun, friendly one.
"Performing at the Lied Center is truly a unique and special experience," Robinson says. "It's a state-of-the-art theater with a skilled technical team. A performer could not ask for a better space."
Before the next Broadway show is set to perform, there's a piano concert scheduled over the weekend, so once the lights are taken off of the battens and curtains are transferred,the crew must move the orchestra shell back to the exact spots it was moved from in preparation for the piano concert.
"I'm always moving," Andy says. "I get to solve problems and deal with challenges as they come, sometimes they're easy fixes and sometimes we don't know what to do."
LUKE RANKER/KANSAN
From the left to the right: Sam Kovzan, sophomore from Leawood and Tansey Schoonover, a freshman from Roswell, Georgia, work on speeches for their communication class while Emily Pfeifer, a freshman from Hays, studies biology. Kovzan said they had been camping for about 30 minutes when several basketball players came out for a press conference.
students descend on the north concourse of Allen Fieldhouse to ensure their camping group keeps its spot in line for the Missouri game. With this contest set to be the last tilt in the foreseeable future of a rivalry that predates the advent of collegiate athletics, students are desperate to secure their seat and witness history.
"I think it's pretty crazy," Colin Vipond, a freshman from Omaha, said. "Being from Nebraska, it's all about football. Now it's all about basketball. I was in shock when I even first heard about camping."
Normally, the camping is not as intense. But for Missouri, everyone is trying to get the best seats possible.
Haley got to split a Pizza Hut cheese pizza, delivered to him by junior guard Elijah Johnson, with another camper. But pizza time is not the only time the campers can catch a glimpse of the players.
"It was good," Kyle Haley, a junior from Hays, said about interacting with the players. "It's different I guess, knowing they're my age. It's kind of unique that they're as popular as they are."
"I just know usually within the first few days people drop like flies, but only one group has dropped out ahead of us so far," Vipond said.
pushed junior forward Thomas Robinson around in a laundry hamper as the players delivered pizza.
"I'm looking at the gods of our school," Tansey Schoonover, a freshman from Roswell, Ga, said as students gathered to watch the men's basketball team walk to practice.
Worse than waking up early is the fear that a camper might oversleep his or her shift. In her freshman year, Maggie Hirschi, a senior from St. Louis, Mo., woke up at 5:55 a.m. for her 6 a.m. camping shift at the Fieldhouse before a game against Texas. She rushed over from her Oliver Hall dorm room but arrived too late, and her group lost its number three camping spot.
surf the Internet. Sometimes I sleep, if you have an early shift, but it's really hard on this floor."
Students try to maintain sanity during hours of camping. Vipond's group pitched in together to purchase an air mattress that
The north concourse will continue to bustle with student activity until numbers are handed out three hours before tip-off on Saturday.
The men's and women's bas-
"Mizzou ones just are always fun because you see the dedication students have to come to these games," Hirschi said.
**Index**
CLASSIFIEDS 2B CRYPTOQUIPS 4A SPORTS 18
CROSSWORD 4A OPINION 5A SUDOKU 14
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Both teams will continue winning basketball games. Missouri might even win a championship in the SEC. But left in the wake of Saturday's game will be a tremendous void that a hundred games against West Virginia or South Carolina could never fill.
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Kansas without Missouri is like Batman without The Joker or the Hatfields without the McCoys. Would anyone really care about one without the other? Thanks to a need for attention from one side and a stubbornness from the other, we are about to find out.
When the game ends, win or lose, take one last mental picture of the aftermath. Because if the powerholders get their way, that memory is all your children and grandchildren may ever know of one of the greatest rivalries ever played.
contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
Don't forget
Today's Weather
Edited by Taylor Lewis
Get your ticket for the Campus Movie Series at the Kansas Union. Tonight's featured film is "The Muppets."
Strong winds, mostly cloudy.
Gone with the wind.