Dark of the Moon

Dark of the Moon took place during a part of my life that I do not remember very well. Sure, I remember the factual stuff, like what I did and who I worked with, but most of my life memories are bonded to thoughts and feelings. April of 2003 is just the facts.

The play is about a witch boy, named John and played by Rajeev Rajendran, who falls in love with Barbara Allen (played by Erica Tempesta). The witch boy tries to become a real boy, but he fails and the play ends sadly. I don't remember exactly, but I think somebody dies.

I was a stagehand. If Brandon Gentry had neglected his duties a bit more, I might have been the rigging chief, but as it was he pulled through and managed to do a great job.

There was tension among the crew in this play. Everyone was a little on edge, and this may have contributed to my hiding in dark corners away from fighting techies. You see, although there is frequently friction between the techies and the actors, friction between techies is nearly unheard of. The main gripe was against those techies who seemed only to be working on the play to log in their required number of hours (thirty per semester). These techies were reluctant to do any work, seemed to be absent when they were most needed, and talked a lot during rehearsals. I will admit that I was annoyed, although I never voiced my opinion. After a few meetings, we started working as a team again, and the problems cleared up in time for the performance.

I did spend a great deal of my free time completely alone with my thoughts. As I said, I don't remember what I thought about, but it didn't make me happy. My perception of the play is overwhelmingly negative, but I don't know whether this was because I was sad the whole time or because the play was actually bad. I think it may have been a little of both. While well-acted, the script didn't stand up to the other plays in the 2002-2003 lineup and the play was a flop.

One interesting technical note: this was the only play during my time at CHHS which called for flying people. In this case, the people were witches, and they flew in on special harnesses in certain scenes. The tricky thing about flying people is that they are what is called a variable load. When you hang a person from the rigging and add weight to the counterweight arbor to balance them, they can fly through the air just like a piece of scenery or lighting equipment. However, when they reach the ground and their weight is transferred from the rigging to the floor beneath their feet, the counterweight arbor is suddenly about, say, 150 pounds out of balance. This creates a dangerous situation, because in a counterweight fly system, every object loaded must be counterbalanced by iron bricks called pigs. The solution in this case was the use of phantom weight, which substituted for the weight of Ben Jones once he was disconnected from the rigging. This kept the lineset in balance and allowed it to be safely flown out.