Something New

Monday and Tuesday I taught a class for IA Local #22 in Washington DC. We got to have the class at the Kennedy Center on one of the small theatre stages. Everyone was really cool, and I think it went fairly well.

This is the sort of thing I have been thinking I ought to be doing for quite a while now. To date I really haven't parlayed my ETCP Rigging certification or my ETCP Recognized Rigging Trainer status into very much - although I would guess it had something to do with the tenure decision. Anyway, since being certified and recognized the opportunity has been there to break into the independent training business. This gig was first supposed to happen in January but for two things: first, my mom passed, and second, they canceled the class. Before they canceled it they'd got Bill Sapsis to replace me, which I thought was pretty cool. So, this was my first foray into what could be a big part of the next chapter for me careerwise.

Or it could be a gig and that's all.

This really was an alpha and omega experience for me. Class was on Monday. The previous class I appeared in front of was Friday morning, and it was high school juniors. Monday's class was all professional stagehands, some with more years than I have. It took a little bit of a re-calibration.

The point of the class was to prep the group for the ETCP Theatre Rigging exam. So, in addition to my "regular" material I put together a sort of "Complete history of the ETCP - abridged" explaining how the program and the certification came to be and what material is on the test. I'm in a fairly unique position to speak to that having been on the ESTA CPC, in the CP RSWG, and having been an ETCP Rigging Subject Matter expert. I think it was a good place to start as although the pocess was fairly transparent many people don't know how the thing came about. Most of the material I needed was in the candidate handbook, so it wasn't too hard to do.

The first day I did the intro and then went through Hemp Systems, Counterweight Systems, Double Purchase & Mechanical Advantage, and Powered Systems. In one day that's most of the first half of my old rigging class. Mrs. TANBI and I had spent some time frantically converting my class notes into powerpoints just before I left. I'd actually just completed Monday's content Sunday night at the hotel and was fairly panicked that I wouldn't be able to fill the time.

I've noticed that doing material from an outline on the board and then converting it to do with powerpoint and a projector that it's likely that the time it takes to get though compresses substantively. The completed presentations were all in the 12-18 slide range, and even though I knew for certain that each of the lessons could easily fill 80 minutes I could also see how I could be standing there at the end of the file after less than 20 minutes.

As it turned out, none of the files went by any faster than about 50 minutes. Still not all the time I thought it would take, but enough. With the ETCP "Intro" and then finishing up with a presentation from homework and test questions I think I did wind up haing enough material for the full two day workshop.

The second day's material covered Fire Curtains, Soft Goods rigging, Line & Hardware, and Design Principles. We finished out the day with sample test questions. In the end I think I left out some things. I could use some more about geometry and trig. I completely blew off reading drawings, measuring units, and general theatrical terms. I need something to cover the arena content that verges over into the theatre content, things like bridling and shock loading. I don't think any of this stuff is disastrous from a test standpoint. It's probably stuff they know cold or its stuff that couldn't possibly be more than one test question.

Still, if I do it again I think I really would need to patch those gaps.

We had a very spirited conversation about whether the pins in the pinrail absolutely need to be loose. For the record, neither I nor anyone I could get hold of could come up with a reason. We also got into it a little on the "stab-and-jab" practice and how the certification can't test you on something the manufacturer of the equipment would tell you is using it wrong. Overall it was a good group with lots of questions and input. I hope they had as good a time as I did.