Whenever I think about time, I look at my watch. It doesn’t matter whether I’m thinking of minutes, hours, days, months, years, or eons, I look at my watch when I think of time. An old student of mine used to laugh when she’d ask me what the date was and I looked at my watch. She thought I was crazy.

Maybe I am. I glanced at my watch.

“I’ve only had my scripts for a week, and we open in three weeks! This is crazy!” I exclaimed to Carl, the producer.

“That’s the way our summer shows usually are,” he replied with a shrug. This was only half-true, for several reasons.

“Yes,” I said, scowling. “But people only take one class at a time in the summer, and the directors also know which play they’re doing weeks and months in advance. Besides, this isn’t summer, this is almost winter, and I found out a week and a half ago!” He shrugged in a semi-apologetic manner.

“Just going to have to make it work. The show must…,” he trailed off as he turns around and went back to doing whatever it is that producers do when they’re not producing shows.

“The show must go on,” I finished. I sighed in frustration and left to track down James, Kimberly, and Adam.

One of the most difficult things a director does is maintain communications with his designers. This particular show, The Faculty Room, is no exception. For one thing, I had only four weeks to turn this script into a finished production. The biggest problem facing us was that the performance space was currently being used up by the other production opening this weekend, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. I needed to make sure my designs were ready, so we could implement them as soon as Kindergarten struck their set. We were temporarily rehearsing on the main stage.

I quickly tracked down James and Kimberly and received their design plots. We went over them. I made suggestions, they made suggestions, and we compromised. The set and costume designs were ready.

I was down to finding Adam for the sound designs. I walked down to the scene shop, but he wasn’t there and none of the other techies had seen him all day. I asked the secretary in the lobby. She hadn’t seen him either.

Disappointed and distressed, I stepped outside to talk to my cast about finding some extra time during the day to work on their scenes. As I wrapped up negotiations, Adam pulled up in the parking lot and began walking towards the theatre. I intercepted him.

“Hey Adam!” I called. “Did you get my script?”

I like Adam. He and I worked together for my directing debut of 1984. He is a brilliant sound designer, and since this show is sound-heavy, I immediately thought of him for the position of sound designer. I knew that if anyone could pull off the sound effects and recordings on such short notice, it would be Adam.

“No, man,” he replied. “I haven’t gotten it yet.”

“Shit,” I said. “I gave it to the TD to give to you. He didn’t?” Adam shook his head. I spouted off some four-letter words regarding the female anatomy. He shrugged and grinned.

“What do you need?” he said. I explained all of the sound effects that I needed. He shook his head again.

“I can’t help you, man,” he explained. “I’m doing sound for two shows right now, and I just don’t have the time.”

“Shit,” I said again. He suggested that I track down one of the twins. The twins are some of the new kids on the block, both wanting to be techies. One of them does sound, the other lights. I can barely tell the two apart. I wavered, not entirely sure of the the twins’ abilities, but Adam assured me that he could assist if necessary–he just couldn’t do the entire design on his own.

I thanked Adam and headed down to the costume shop. One of the girls there should know where the twins were. As I headed down the steps, I practiced my 30-second pitch. I was gonna need to use all my persuasive ability to convince one of these twins to do the sound design. I decided that if both twins are together when I found them, I’d ask the other to do the lights, too.

I thought I’m getting a headache. I’d have killed for some Tylenol at that point.

This day was going to be a long, long day.