I Techies
Continued from Page 10
assigned the most general of all the
positions, scene shop technical
assistant. His job is silently consid
ered the grunt job of the graduate
assists ntships compared to the more
specific work involved with props
or lighting.
Tm the new kid here so that
may be true, but they have more
responsibility than I have,” Goetz
said. “1 do need the practice.”
Matthews, who has had the
pleasure of working Goetz’s cur
rent position previously, describes
his present job as ‘‘the building and
finding and re-vamping of props."
Props are defined generally as
— -—
I think theater’s sup
posed to be fun. If it’s
not fun, I don’t want to
piay. , ^
Goetz
UNL student
--—99 -
anything brought on or offstage
by an actor.
The exact title of his position is
somewhat of a mystery to Mat
thews.
“Officially it’s listed in the pro
grams as props master and I have
no idea of the history of that term,”
he said. “It sounds Shakespearean
to me.”
The final position that works
primarily out of the scene shop is
the master electrician. This assis
lantship was granted to third year
master’s candidate, Lori Bush, the
only woman among the graduate
technical assistants pGTAs).
“I am responsible for the light
hangs, telling people where to hang
the lights, now to plug them in,
where to write the stuff down on
the light plot, just to be in charge,”
she said.
while each ol the o l As is theo
retically required to work 20 hours
a week in the shop, their actual
burdens often far exceed that.
“We usually end up putting in a
little more than 20 hours,” Mat
thews said. “It teaches graduate
students the responsibility of being
in charge and meeting deadlines
and being answerable to certain
situations. It’s not all parties as
theater is often portrayed."
I he stress of their jobs is com
pounded by their roles as students
who are still taking 12 hours of
advanced course work in technical
theatre. Most of their homework is
done in the building’s classrooms
so the Temple becomes their home
away from home.
“For a while — every once in
a while — I get pissed, like just a
few seconds ago, I wanted to have
a tribal scream in my office," Bush
saici. “Sometimes, you have those
bad days."
After years of this kind ol stress,
Mahlman is glad to be near gradu
ation.
“I have my finger on the door
out of the theatre department,” he
said. “I’m just anxious to get on
with my life.”
To cope with this stress, the
(>’I As have to find extra fun within
their jobs. They all admit to a spe
cial c amaraderie that eases the strains
of their grueling work.
"You gotta go out and have a
little bit of fun once in a while,"
Bush said. "Otherwise, you might
as well forget life.”
Last year, some of this fun took
the form of a Nintendo video game
system in the scene shop office.
After a while, it became a major dis
traction and formed the basis of
what has come to be known as
“The Scene Shop/Nintendo Scan
dal.”
“Well, by some quirk of fate or
nature, a Nintendo system was set
up in the last part of a recent school
year to be unnamed," Mahlman
said. “And I guess it just diverted
attention from the task at hand.”
“The probiern was it was here
and it’s just one of those things you
can’t get away from sometimes,"
said Bush, who contendsshe didn’t
play it much
Mahlman also professes inno
cence in the scandal, claiming he
wasn’t good enough at it to be
distracted.
"I wasn’t that interested in it
because I don’t have the hand-eye
coordination necessary to really
become proficient at Mario Broth
ers," he said.
Goetz is the only one who can
truly claim innocence in the scan
dal.
“This is my first semester here so
I wasn’t a part of that black spot on
the department,” Goetz said.
With all kidding about make
believe scandals aside, the GTAs
all admit to needing some diver
sion from the often non-stop work
their positions demand.
“I think theater’s supposed to be
fun. If it s not fun, I don’t want to
play,” he said.
Kiley Timperley/Daily Nebraskan
Graduate students Chip Mahlman (front), Lori Bush Gnd Mike
Matthews (back) and Rick Goetz work in different areas of
production in the Temple Building to help productions run smoothly.
Tales
Continued from Page 7
haven’t worked at all for a week.
Sure. As long as the weather stays
like this.”
Mary spoke, trying to face Karen
and me at the same time, even
though we sat on opposite sides of
her.
“We’re thinking about trying to
reach each other in an hour, to see
if three of us can get together
mentally. Once we ail get home.
We need something for a trigger,
something that will bring us to
gether.”
“How about the bar?” I ven
tured.
“Notspecific enough. Maybe the
door on the left?”
Yeah, she thinks like us, all right.
But I still think the bar would have
worked.
Peterson is a senior psychol
ogy and philosophy major and a Daily
Nebraskan reporter and columnist. This
is the ninth in a continuing series.
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