I was ready, and it was time to go to go west. I had never been to Washington State before, let alone Seattle. As I got off the plane, I was greeted by a wonderfully characteristic (and now quite endearing) light grey sky. I took a taxi up the hill on Queen Anne where I had rented a room in someone’s house, and two short days later began the walk down the hill for my first day at the Rep. As I walked down the hill, I saw the rooftop of the Rep, the building that would become my home, far sooner than I ever expected.
I was greeted by my wonderful supervisor, the Design Associate for the Rep, L.B. Morse. I was given a tour of the building.The Rep has facilities for everything I could imagine; I had never been in a theater so large with so many resources. I was shown my desk in the production office overlooking the shop floor and was quickly given my first job: sorting and inventorying the lighting template stock from last season.
Three days later I was in my first focus call for “Three Tall Women,” with the designer Allen Hahn and L.B. Morse assisting. The next day, tech started and I was there for every moment of it. We usually had nine a.m. work calls, tech that ran from noon to midnight (on our 10/12 days), and production meetings that ran until 12:30 a.m. or later. I was at the Rep more than I was at home, and I couldn’t have been happier.
Getting to see this beautiful show come together, helping to run worknotes, doing lighting paperwork updates, communicating with the union crew, and talking with the designer through the whole tech made me a big part of this process. When the show finally opened two and a half weeks later, I was ecstatic.
Immediately we began prepping our next show, “Dancing at Lughnasa,” and a week and a half later, I was in another tech, this time in the Bagley Wright Theatre, tracking follow spot cues and helping the designer (and my supervisor) L.B. Morse in any way I could. Another gorgeous show went up, and finally, with both shows open, I returned to working normal office hours and am currently in the storyboarding stage for a design project based on Connor McPherson’s play “The Seafarer.”
I feel so lucky to be able to be a part of this wonderful theatre and its community. The staff and volunteer organization, the SRO, has been incredibly giving and supportive of the interns. Additionally, getting to see the Rep’s beautiful productions come together and being a part of the design process has been one of the best experiences of my life as a designer. And I can’t wait for January to roll around so I can jump in to tech as the lighting assistant for “K of D!” Thanks for reading, and hopefully, see you at the Rep!
-MIKE FABA, lighting design intern
