Measure Twice, Cut Once

Two posts in a week, or even a month is almost unheard of for me so try not to get used to it, okay?

Anyway, I spent about thirty minutes today at the local high school. They are getting ready for their annual musical that they use to fund anything but the next musical. This year their main backer backed out (no pun intended) and they had to select a large show that would make them a lot of money and they chose "Dreamworks Shrek: The Musical".




I was asked by the Electronics teacher to come over and look at the sets, lines and mics. As much as I hate the place that made my life a nightmare I willingly walked in and started looking around. Sure I noticed that they had those stupid hanging mics and one of them was a foot higher then the rest and even though they were pointed, one of them was pointed at one of the giant dangerous sets that the director is so disturbingly obsessed with.

As I was going through, the director brought in a fabric she special ordered to look like dragon scales for the giant dragon that they had built. She ordered 16 yards of fabric but they only had 9 so she took what they had. It was then that I realized that she had not measured the dragon ahead of time to know how much fabric she really needed. Which is Dumb. Very Dumb.


I have been working for my family's cabinet shop for over a year now and one of the things that my grandfather always preached was "Measure twice, cut once. That way you don't have to measure, cut, measure, cut and get a new board. It annoyed me to the very depths of my primal brain that this so called director was spending money uselessly and recklessly especially with no backer.

I have been watching this choreographer turned director for four years now. "Fiddler on the Roof" "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" "Little Women" and now "Shrek". Every show gets bigger and more elaborate, but on that little, teeny half stage with those older and older sets and castors and lights that never get cleaned I just see accident after accident happening. I do hope in the bottom of my heart that the school will shut down the program or hire someone who knows what they are doing before someone gets really hurt, but I know that they won't.

The musical is a town tradition that in four nights makes around two to four thousand dollars not including sponsorships. That is enough money to keep it going but not to make it better and that is what the school does best. They are masters of trickery, putting their best readers in classes with the illiterate to throw the curve and make the numbers look good and get money. Put special needs kids on sports teams to get money. Specialized training for dumb students to get money.

They are just in it for the money they get from the government and not in it for the students that would get good things from the project. Seriously screwed up.

bye,
Sarah K