Roxanne prepares for the Real World

So here I am now. A college graduate. Out seeking for that job. I spent two hours at Disney today applying for a tech services job. The people at the front desk didn't understand what I meant. They kept grouping me with kids who were there to work in the park as ride operators and food services. It was rather annoying.

So after spending a lot of time working on a resume, I decided I need to create a personal webpage. I have one that links to this blog and my little Tech Theater website on geocities.com, but I'd like to actually own my own URL. It's just the tech geek in me. I'm gonna spend my free time messing with Dreamweaver and Flash for a while, hopefully I'll get better and have another skill to add to the resume.

This is my resume, not the actual one, just a compilation of the items on it. (Some additional jobs that did not fit on it). I'm posting this just for my own benefit, but if you have any experience in a template that works, please let me know.

Roxanne Rosas

teksalot@yahoo.com

Professional Experience

The Bus Stop Journals 6/05
Light Designer
Production Manager: B Morse

Knott's Berry Farm 8/04 - 12/04
Seasonal electrician
Supervisor: T Nelson

Fullerton College - Theatre Arts 7/98 - Present
Board Op, Stage Hand, Followspot
Supervisor: S Pliska

Fullerton College - Fine Arts 3/99 - Present
Maintenance (Facility and Equipment), Board Op, Followspot, Stage Hand, House Manager,
Concessions
Supervisor: Ed Huber

OCPAC - Founders Hall 98/99
Set-up and Strike crew for the black box theater
Supervisor: C Fisher

Handless Man Theatrics - 98/99
Basic Carpentry, Set-up and Strike
Supervisor: Jim Book

Target Fullerton - Hardlines Sales Floor 6/97 - 7/97
Target Tempe - Hardlines Sales Floor and Back-up Cashier 8/97 - 11/97
Handling money, helping customers, organizing products
Supervisor Fullerton: J Gagnon
Supervisor Tempe: S Price

Marymount College - Financial Aid Office Assistant 9/96 - 5/97
Answering Phones, Office/Clerical Work
Supervisor: Les Butler & Ana Saucedo

Educational Experience

Growing Up Johnny & Stosh - Master Electrician
Twelfth Night - Light Designer
Hopscotch - Director (10 Minute Scene)
The Importance of Being Earnest - Master Electrician
The Crucible - Light Board Op
The Laramie Project - Follow Spot
No One Is Alone: A Cabaret (ADDY G Foundation Fundraiser) - Light Designer
Gross Indecency - Co-Light Designer
Tommy - Audio 2
A Midsummer Nights Dream -Co-Sound Designer
Blade to the Heat - Assistant Light Designer
Sly Fox - Light Designer
Much Ado About Nothing - Rehearsal Stage Manager/Head of Backstage Crew
A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley - Sound Board Op
West Side Story - Rehearsal Stage Manager/Light Board Op
Scenes from an Execution - Wardrobe Crew Head
Assassins - Follow Spot
The Crucible - Light Board Op
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - Stagehand

Skills

ETC Obsession II, ETC Expression, Strand Mini-Pallette, Strand 550i, Dove Light Board, Strong Gladiator II Follow Spot, Maintence for ETC Source 4, Strand Leko, Altman Light fixtures, Soundcraft and Mackie Sound Boards

Awards

2005 Outstanding Graduate Cal Poly Pomona
2003 - 2005 Honors all quarters while attending Cal Poly Pomona
2001 Special Achievement in Design and Technical Production - Fullerton College
2002 - 2003 National Dean's List - The Association of Educational Publishers
1996 - Cultural Arts Commission Scholarship - City of Placentia

Education

Cal Poly Pomona 2005 B.A. in Theatre - Tech & Design Emphasis
Fullerton College 2001 A.S. in Computer Information Systems
Fullerton College 2001 A.A. in Theatre
Valencia High School 1996 High School Diploma

Zimbabwe Meets Pomona CA

The senior project for Twelfth Night was completed on schedule, and is still waiting to be graded, in the mean time, I began working on my first professional light design. The Bus Stop Journals written by Bernardo Solano as a community based theater project debuted June 18th at the Downtown Center in Pomona, CA. It was a great success.

The show featured former Cal Poly Pomona Alumni and community members. The play was written by conducting interviews with many bus riders, asked questions that began with "If a man approached you, told you he was from Zimbabwe and asked things like 'How could I contact Oprah?', how would you react?"

The responses were from all sorts of people you meet while either sitting at the bus stop, at the bus depot, or while riding the bus. A man named "Africa 'Thembi'" arrives in America with his band, but when it's time to leave, he stays behind and winds up in Pomona, CA. He thinks he will make it big with his Mbira (An African musical instrument consisting of a hollow gourd or wooden resonator and a number of usually metal strips that vibrate when plucked), but has lost his ability to play it because of his loss of faith in God. When his mother passed away recently, he was unable to say good-bye because he did not see her soul pass on to the next world.

He makes friends with new people, Carl (a teenager who offers him a place to live) and a blind woman named Nancy (she lost her sight 3 years ago from a gun shot to the head). Her insight is stronger than her blindness and she reminds Thembi of his mother with her wisdom. A month goes by, Nancy has become Thembi's friend and Carl has managed to contact one of Oprah's personal assitants. While taking the call Thembi hears the mbira music of his soul, and he sees Nancy dancing toward him to the African rhythm, he knows she has died and he is watching her soul pass on. He takes this as a sign that he must return home to the family he left behind, because he has regained his faith and ability to play the music he loves.



Thembi (Nehemia Chivandikwa) meets Donald (Michael Sartain), a drunk who attends Mt. SAC. The ladder is from the set designer (Bill Morse who also plays the bus driver) still hanging a map during the last dress rehearsal.


Thembi meets (Oz), a goth who hangs out on 2nd street and tries to convince Thembi to seek politicial asylum to stay in the U.S. legally


Nancy enters the stage and Thembi is shy about talking to her at first


Thembi has forgotten the phone call temporarily and dances to the music as Nancy (Sandra Fogler) passes on to the next world. Images of Thembi's home flash on the back drop as he remembers what he has left behind to come to the U.S.


This summer, several of the cast and production crew will travel to Zimbabwe to tell the second part of the story. An American student (Courtney Rowan), enters the exchange program, but when she arrives, she is left stranded alone in a part of Africa and we see how she views their culture. The play will be constructed in much the same way as it was done here. Several Cal Poly Students were interviewed as to how they would react to being in that situation.

I wish I could go, but alas, I have graduated from Cal Poly and this was my last venture with them. I have to enter the real world now (damn!) and get a real job (double damn!). So traveling to another country to do a project for free (plus pay my own way there) is just not possible at this time. But it sure was nice to be involved on this side of the project.

backdrop pic

research paragraph... incomplete

In order to begin my research, I needed to create a list of things I would need. Because I already had a good idea on the colors I would use, I decided to focus on the time of day each scene would take place in. Any time I would feel lost or uncertain about where to go next, I would always return to the script. The play, for me, was the one constant among all the changing circumstances and provided the clues I needed to start researching. Historical research did not seem to be of much use to me. But curiosity drove me to research the meaning of the play’s title.

Twelfth Night refers to the end of winter festivities that begins on All Hallows Eve. A common theme during the celebrations is reversal. Shakespeare wrote the play Twelfth Night or What You Will to be performed on the twelfth night using mistaken identity and gender role reversal as part of the story. The play’s title mimicking the date of celebrated misrule only compounded the importance of the main character’s reason for adopting a masculine appearance.

I searched the plays words carefully looking for ideas on what time of day each scene would take place, and then I tried to construct a timeline for the entire play so the transitions would make sense. Unfortunately, this idea was ditched as I began to receive rehearsal reports from the stage manager explicitly stating that the director wished certain scenes to take place at morning or sunset. I decided to follow the director’s wishes rather than dissect the script any further.

Rehearsal reports also clued me in to a new obstacle. The director had rearranged the script’s opening sequence which made my primary resource into a variable instead of a constant. I began re-reading the play for a fifth time trying to imagine the storm that begins the story, but is not scripted out in detail. We only learn about the storm through exposition and now I had to work with the sound designer to actually create it.

It was also at this time I began to question how to deal with the director. I interviewed several members of the department and asked how previous encounters had gone with her. The majority of answers led me to believe that designing this show would be easy, until the last few weeks, which was correct. I’ll address those issues later.

I turned to the High End AF1000 strobes for lightening. I had just seen them in the previous show’s main stage as a lightening effect for The Foreigner and loved the color temperature and wash they created. I considered using PAR lamps to hit the high points of the scenery, but I really wanted to use an instrument I had never used before. I also wanted the chance to try to learn some DMX technology.

I continued searching the script for clues and began scribbling notes in the margins about how each scene should look. My analysis of each scene had already told me the mood, but my final decisions were all based on keywords by characters or the ends of scenes into the next ones.

My first actual encounter with a text clue to the time of day was in act I, scene 3, when Maria says: “By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights.” I figured it was after sunset by then, if Sir Toby is being scolded for returning home so late. I learned from some of Christina Russo’s research on the Caribbean that the streets were developed in an array of mazes to confuse attacking pirates at night. Sir Toby’s late hours would put him in danger if he were out and about in the dark. The idea of the corridors was scrapped later though because the director felt it looked to urban.

I continued in this fashion for the rest of the script, finding keywords and deciding on the time of day for each scene. When I was done, I was better prepared to being color testing. I started with my cast because of the wide range of color tones. Searches on the internet led me to R54, R05, R35, R51, R62, R60 and R33. I began tracking down cast members and quickly lighting them with the gel book and my trusty Maglite.

As for the rest of the colors, I relied heavily on virtual light lab version 1 and version 3. I own a copy of version 1 which is severely limited in options, but version 3 allowed me color test a jpg file of the cyc sent to me by the set designer. I narrowed my selection to a range of purples, blues, and ambers to the cyc; pinks, blues, lavenders, and ambers were still the main choices for back, down and side washes.

Awards

Last night was the awards party for the end of the year. Seniors are recognized and the Alpha Psi Omega organization on campus awards the "best of" people. I was honored last night to receive best light design for Twelfth Night.

I also received a plaque for being a graduating senior, and to my shock I won outstanding graduate. I so thought Lauren was going to win for all her community work with peer theatre, but she was given a separate award for that and a scholarship. To my advantage though, Bill forgot the Dr. Seuss book that is tradition for the outstanding graduate to read from. Unfortunately, the department will not forget, and I'm sure I will have to read it at some future time.

I'm continuing to work on the research portion of the senior project, I'm focusing on the numbers I went over on color temperatures of lamps and sunsets. I wish I had saved and documented that portion better, but I just glanced over it and scribbled notes on post-its. I'm noticing that Christina's research is a lot more thorough than mine, which is probably why it's so much easier for her to type it out.