Thoroughly Modern Millie: Last Rehearsals

It was the performance week (on the 23rd of November) and the time started running quickly. Problems were solved and created at the same time. One that affected me the most was the fact that the sound technician was not in the country. So I had to take over the sound effects and control the microphones. The sound effects gave me a little bit of difficulty at first but I got used to it quickly, as I knew the script thoroughly.

What was more complicated was controlling the sound with the sound-board. Genki Unno helped me with the technical part but it was mostly practice. I also wanted the songs to blend in smoothly with the dialogue, so I constantly changed the volume of the microphones. However I felt more at ease when I was responsible for everything (regarding sound). There was one time during rehearsal that the actor came on with the microphone muted and there was nothing I could do about it. So Genki and I fixed this problem by turning them on and taping the switch button so no one touches it.

Here are some things I've learned about the sound board



These are the sliders that adjust volume for the microphones.



These are the sliders that adjust the master volume (for the speakers).



The top row is what adjusts the "GAIN." The gain is how much sound is picked up.
There must be a balance between the gain and the volume. If the volume is too loud, then feedback will be picked up and there will be a "howl." If there is too much gain, then unwanted sound (in other words, noise) will be picked up. This balance greatly for each voice.


Other than my adventure with sound, the set was also finished. I helped painting some parts and putting up the wallpaper.
Here are some pictures:

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6


Figure 7



Sara did most of the design (such as the sincere trust insurance company billboard (figure 1) along with the billy ball and the bees-knees poster (figure 1), the speakeasy hidden door (figure 6)), but I helped with painting the bricks on the walls (figure 1 and 4). On Figure 4, we thought that it might look weird if the speakeasy wall just started from there, so I decided to blend it in with the hotel by painting some bricks on the grey area.
The crew and I also painted the flats grey before they went up. However Sara wasnt there on that day. We thought that she would paint over the whole thing (we were just priming it), so we were not really worried about having the same tone of grey for every flat. Then we decided to have the wallpaper only go up mid-way. However it did not look so bad since it gave the effect of a "cheap hotel."

Figure 2 and 3 are pictures of the hotel. The couch was lent by Maria's mom.
The counter in picture 3 was built by Mr. Meiklejohn, but Sara and I painted it. We tried to mix chinese and american 1920's designs. We thought that it would reflect what Mrs. Meers was, but also (since at that time, mixing different cultures was not so common) we thought it would show Mrs. Meers' lack of knowledge.

Figure 5 shows the whole backdrop and Figure 6 shows the whole set.

Overall, this set was amazing (seeing that we only had a limited time in doing this, and it was our first time in building such a big set). However, it could have been much better if we had started early. Especially with the painting. We only finished the set completely on the performing night.