Author Topic: Pavlovian Response ?  (Read 8204 times)

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Lizzie

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Pavlovian Response ?
« on: Dec 03, 2011, 12:57 pm »
Amazing how stressful bits of shows get ingrained in your subsconscious - my choice of music listening at home is generally classical, and I often tune into Classic FM (UK commercial radio-station playing the lighter end of the classical repertoire). Today whilst doing some chores I found myself feeling distinctly edgy, as if there was something vitally important I should be doing right then and there.

Only after a few moments of wondering if I'd missed an appointment or someone's birthday did I realise that playing on the radio was a waltz which had been used in play I worked on a couple of years ago, and during the track we had about 1m30s to get 5 actors round from the USR exit, across the foyer to the auditorium L entrance, and quick-change them into balldresses with hoop skirts, gloves and jewellery.

Quite a relief when I realised it was just a reaction to the music !

Lizzie

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #1 on: Dec 03, 2011, 02:24 pm »
For a couple days after closing this one show, at around 7pm (our half-hour call) I'd get super edgy, my adrenaline would kick in, and I'd have to walk around in circles until my body/mind was satisfied that I'd spent the appropriate amount of nervous energy for that time of night.

Oddly enough, it was only ever that one show. Never happened since.

missliz

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #2 on: Dec 03, 2011, 04:06 pm »
I worked on a bad show that had a complicated cue sequence that went off a text message alert. Of course, it's the standard iphone text sound. It took a while to not have a momentary panic when someone else's phone went off.
I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least. -Ionesco

LizzG

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #3 on: Dec 03, 2011, 04:21 pm »
Similar to missliz, my show has the standard Iphone phone ring in it, and it also happens with the first big automation and video cue of the show.  After doing 400+ shows with the sound effect, it still gets me anxious when I hear that same sound in real life when someone's phone rings.

Sidenote- our head LX STILL continues to use that particular ringtone for his phone.  I don't know how he does it.

catalinacisne

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #4 on: Dec 03, 2011, 10:29 pm »
I worked on a show that used The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." When the song gets to the "Eee-Oh-Oh" refrains towards the end, an actress was staged to enter screaming and crying, cutting the song out on a 0-count. Three and a half years later, when I hear the song get to that refrain and then continue, I get extremely nervous because the actress must have missed her entrance.

In a less intense Pavlovian response, the theatre I currently work at did Xanadu this past winter. There was a specific mystical chime that played immediately before each of Kira's entrance, which was usually followed by a "Sonny Maloooonnnnne" in an Australian accent. This fall we did Cabaret, and what did the musical director choose to use as the mystical chimes that play when Fraulein Schneider opens the bag and sees the pineapple? At every Cabaret performance at least one crew or cast member showed off their best Australian accent when the pineapple was revealed.

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #5 on: Dec 04, 2011, 12:26 am »
Going WAY back to the 90's - in college I was on wardrobe crew for A Lie of the Mind. There was a fair amount of preshow music, but the final song that got us into the show was the Phil Collins song "In the Air Tonight". That song has a specific drumming section that took us into a bump blackout and the music stopped. To this day, if I hear the song, I'm transported back into our black box theater, peering in from a crack in the side door, admiring how my friend Libby called the cue. Still gives me chills.

BalletPSM

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #6 on: Dec 11, 2011, 02:36 pm »
Even though it's been three years since I've done the GRB nutcracker, I STILL remember all the cueing sequences and whenever I'm in a store at Christmas i have a hard time not calling the cues when the music comes on over the PA. 

I'm doing a different nutcracker this year and it's been tricky getting the old cueing sequences out of my brain!
Stage managing is getting to do everything your mom told you not to do - read in the dark, sit too close to the TV, and play with the light switches!

JMagill

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Re: Pavlovian Response ?
« Reply #7 on: Dec 11, 2011, 11:34 pm »
Like BalletPSm mine is Nutcracker inspired

at my theater we do two holiday favorites every year A Christmas Story (yes the one with "you'll shoot your eye out," the leg lamp, and the pink bunny suit... the whole nine yards) and The Nutcracker. 

Well during A Christmas Story there is a section where the Old Man and Mother go back and forth unplugging and plugging in the leg lamp. It just so happens that the sequence is underscored by the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.  So then when I start tech for Nutcracker the following week (we play these shows back to back)  I still have the sequence ingrained in my brain and try to call those light cues in the middle of the number except there aren't any cues there in our Nutcracker.