Adventures at Caldwell HIgh

We received a call for help from the Caldwell High Drama teacher a few weeks ago. The man in charge of all the lights was a glorified janitor who didn't know what he was doing and completely blew the system. They had no power to them whatsoever. We couldn't let those kids perform with flash lights so we and a few of our co workers volunteered 3 days of our time to help give these kids a good experience. When kids have a good experience in high school, it leads them to enjoy stagecraft in college. That keeps arts in the schools and a wider appreciation of stagecraft and theatre in general for the rest of their lives.


Our experience was one of a kind. This janitor tried to tell us we didn't know what we were doing and he knew better than the 3 men in the room with Masters degrees in Lighting and Technical Theatre. His lights haven't been cleaned in at least ten years and one of the lights that sat above the audiences heads had a bulb that was shattered.
SCARY!!

This is the same man who had the schools follow spots (spot lights) bagged up with a sign that said out of order, so the kids wouldn't touch them. How do they learn that way??

To make the story even more humorous he had the various parts of the theatre named after different areas of the ship in
Star Trek.

This was the door leading to the loading dock... I mean
Shuttle Bay

This was on the wall leading to the dimmer room which is essentially a control room of sorts. It is where all the power is for all the lights. But weapons control...
really?

This one made me sad. The "Bridge" was where the light and sound boards as well as the follow spots were. The drama teacher honestly thought that was its official name. It wasn't until we told her differently the other day that she knew better.

It was a good experience all around. They are doing a musical in the spring and were so appreciative that we fully intend on helping with that one as well.