Ah, Heath, yes....
So, I ended up speaking with Casting Director this evening and she told me that I am NOT under an Experimental Contract, but actually under a Lort D for this workshop. I discussed the day in question with her, and she believes the reasoning was probably looking at when the theater was available. Another show has a performance that day at 2pm, and my tech the day before is only 3 hours, so she assumed that they wanted to make sure I got a full 4 hours of tech before opening.
This season, all workshops are rehearsing at the school that shares the parking lot with the theater, so that really isn't a super-big deal. It's just a walk across the parking lot. (And another show is in the theater's rehearsal hall.) For other Lort theaters I've worked for, if an actor is rehearsing one show and performing a different show in the same day for the same company, the travel time has been part of their meal break - so those actors tend to vote for a 2 hour break before half hour. I know it seems sucky, but sometimes it's the only way to get them for 5 hours of rehearsal and still honor the 12 hour turn around.
Since we haven't started rehearsal yet, we have no idea of the run time, but we assume no more than 2.5 hours. Though it still doesn't excuse the over 5 hours of rehearsal the PM scheduled on a performance day, even if he thinks he can call it at 10/12, which I just don't think is possible on a performance day, period.
No, this it the first time I've come across this kind of wacky schedule - though I am seeing some odder ones for another show in the Festival. Some of these schedules just don't make any sense to me, but I'll leave that to that show's SM to figure out.
Thankfully, the Casting Director will speak to said PM and get this sorted out tomorrow. Basically, I'll just lose additional tech time, which means cramming as much dangerous stuff (if there is any - we do have stairs and doors this time) as we can into the 3 hours of tech we will have, and maybe I'll just pop in and try to tech alone with the LD on the break before the show.
At least it's good to know that I'm not crazy and that this schedule does worry others as much as it worried me. Sometimes I feel I get a bit rusty on my Lort rules working at the ballet so much.
Thanks guys!