Sonia Fernandez is the Assistant Director for Oedipus el Rey, which means she does…well, I didn’t know what she does, exactly. So I asked Sonia to keep a journal of her 11-hour day yesterday, and she was even kind enough to take pictures for me! Isn’t Sonia the best?
So here you go: A day in the life of an assistant director. Take it away, Sonia!
9:45 am Arrive at the Magic. I see Jake (Sound Designer) driving up as I make my way across the parking lot through the rain.
9:50 am Chat with Cari about doing a blog post of my day. [Ed note: How meta!]
9:55 am A view out the back door of the theater (we may use this door in the show!). It’s a gloomy, rainy day at Fort Mason.
10:00 am Production meeting. Nobody wants their picture taken. Sara [Huddleston, Production Manager] finally agrees but it turns out kinda blurry. Sara is enjoying the breakfast spread before the meeting.
10:10 am Each designer discusses logistical questions or issues (i.e., how are the projections going to work, what do the owl masks look like, how are we going to do the blood at the end).
11:00 am Rehearsal begins, as each rehearsal does, with a pronunciation warm-up. We have a lot of Spanish in the play and we want to make sure everyone’s pronouncing those words the same way. We start with character names like Tiresias (pronounced “Tee resyas”), Creon (“Crey ohn”) and the harder ones like the Aztec Goddess Coatlicue (“Kwat lee kwe”) or her daughter Coyolxauhqui (“Co yo sha kee”).
11:15 am Loretta gives notes on yesterday’s run. Biggest take-away: We may completely change the beginning. I tried to take a picture but it came out really blurry.
1:00 pm Design run. I sat on the right side of the house seats (which are now squared, btw). It looks pretty cool from the sides. Yay thrust stage!
3:00 pm Run is over, actors are on break. Loretta talks to Dave, the fight choreographer. They discuss the last few fight scenes.
3:34 pm Armando (Creon) takes a picture of me running lines with Carlos (Sobador) an Eric (Laius). Everyone else is in the theater playing with blood, fake blood. Unfortunately, I can’t take a picture of that. We can’t ruin the illusion. 
4:00 pm Rehearsal is over.
4:20 pm I get Armando to take a picture of me with my favorite dramaturg, Jane Ann Crum.
4:45 pm Let the light hanging begin! Tirza (in purple) directs a bunch of other cool ladder people.
5:00 pm Just checked email and we got a new scene 12 from Luis [Alfaro, the playwright]! He’ll be back in town bright and early tomorrow.
5:20 pm Sara graciously drives us (Loretta, Jane and I) to Brazen Head. It’s raining and she’s nice.
6:30 pm Working dinner at Brazen Head.
7:00 pm We walk over to Jane’s hotel and continue working.
8:20 pm Going home. It’s not raining anymore!
