2014

Tue, May 27

<13:10 EEST> Finding myself in the midst of a few empty days, it is a good time to note down something from the past couple of months before the next wave of theatre and music business.

A lot of the spring's excitement and planning was centred about the SYTY theatre festival that took place just a month ago, but looking back, it was just one of the many blips in the radar. This must be partly because it was a very busy, long weekend -- full days from Thursday to Sunday, with very little sleep during the actual weekend. With three theatrical showings (two of the same play) and two DJ gigs, I scored a nice total for a single festival. On the downside, I had little time to see any performances myself, not to mention general social fun. With other projects going on before and after, there was little time to reflect on the epicity of the weekend.

So there was already another play going on besides the SYTY activities. I got onboard Titanic due to a special sound effect request, and I did not actually do that much more, they having live music for starters. Nevertheless, another fun experiece with mostly new JYT members, with that special feeling of being the older guy who knows how these projects work out.

This year's SYTY specialty turned out the most important and touching production for me in a long while. "Irrallaan" was a full play where each member theatre had prepared one scene, based on a common script that had also been written as a collective endeavour. For me as a tech guy, preparations included a light & sound course in two weekends over the spring. In practice, these were more about networking and planning, as we were mostly quite experienced with the tech. I had the honour of showing the other techies around Jyväskylä, and we had a nice geeky kind of time, but the real impact of this ensemble production only hit me when everyone including actors etc. came by on the Thursday just prior to the festival. It was a miracle of theatre how well all the different scenes locked together, after mostly independent work. At the end of that long day I genuinely felt in love with theatre.

Then there were also my DJ and sound guy duties -- mostly great fun, and the latter in particular provided a nice feeling of challenge. I had signed up to be responsible for the sound system and mixing in the smaller lounge, something I had never quite done on my own, but my prior knowledge went a long way. The only tricky bit was miking an acoustic ukulele, which was not planned for, but overall it turned out pretty succesful.

The DJing part was great fun, and as I got paid with plenty of free drinks, I guess you can count them as professional gigs ;) I just feel weird being paid as a "performer", as the sound tech part was much more demanding -- there were other equally hard-pressed techies working purely on a volunteer basis. At least something to know for future events :-P

To top this up with current events, last summer's Olviretki is being rebooted for a short run starting this Saturday. Having sworn I would "never" do outdoor theatre again, after so much work for so little personal gain, I felt a replay would be much less work, and it does feel good so far, with only one big rehearsal left before the opening night.

In addition, I recently found myself playing in a band that writes original songs, so there is enough artistry to do even if I quit doing theatre altogether. Then there is of course math -- I had to give up a pretty major course, as I felt I was falling behind due to too many theatre-related absences, but at least I managed to complete Complex Analysis, with a clean row of top grades in university math so far.