Today the props and set for the Pittsburgh Ring left the Lyceum of St. Mary's and boarded a tractor-trailer bound for the loading dock of the Byham Theatre. One might think that the items could have been loaded into a U-Haul or two, and carried into the theatre by the long suffering supernumeraries, but this cannot be. The Byham is a union house, and union rules apply. So although the supers can load the truck at St. Mary's, it is the union movers at the Byham who have to unload it. And since there are probably rules about the number of truckloads and overtime pay, there was a single ginormous truck that backed into parking lot, ready to accept everything for the trip downtown.

When I arrived at the Lyceum, I thought that I would watch them load that truck. It turns out that it was late in arriving, so what I saw instead was the fascinating tableau of the arrayed props waiting in the noonday sun. A stack of spears, parts of Valhalla, and ranks of giants, men, and dwarves stood at parade rest, adding yet another category to the list formerly occupied by only mad dogs and Englishmen.

Inside the Lyceum, the set had been demolished for transport, and the dropcloth which had formerly delineated the sight lines and boundaries of the Byham stage was rolled up and stowed. The frozen explosion was split in two, one half still hanging from the balcony, the other waiting outside. The dragon was in pieces on the floor, and the odd skull littered the hallway. It was as if I was viewing an apartment which had been recently vacated, because, well... that's almost what it was. The company had practically lived here for almost two months, and they were moving on.

I keep citing movies because they give most of us our only backstage view of the theatrical world. Few of us as are lucky as I am, to be able to watch the process unfold in real-time. So I am here to tell you that most of the time, the movies get it wrong. In Being Julia, we are treated to weeks and weeks of rehearsals on the theatre stage. Likewise for Noises Off, Phantom, etc. But here's a question for you: if the company is rehearsing, how does the theatre make money? It doesn't!

So in a theatre like the Byham, productions of plays, movies, and musical happenings are going on almost all the time – and rehearsals are held elsewhere. Opera Theatre Pittsburgh rehearsed in the Lyceum and in the Stephen Foster Center in Lawrenceville, and only moved to the actual theatre when they were ready to "get serious" (and getting serious means upping the ante and paying rent on the big bad Byham to "just practice", with ticket income only being realized two weeks hence when performances start). Pittsburgh Opera has permanent rehearsal spaces in the downstairs of their Penn Avenue building, and only move into the cavernous Benedum Center in the final stages of rehearsal. And when The Pretenders or Tony Bennett come to town, they are probably going to move in and out of the house on the same day (the ever-present roadies take care of that). When you have to rent a hall, it's just financial good sense to minimize the number of non-performance days you spend in the theatre.

A similar metric applies to a company that owns its own space. Look at the schedule for Pittsburgh's own City Theatre. Only a week or two goes by between each performance in a season, and during that minimal hiatus, the seating is often rearranged, sets are built and installed, lighting is set, and the actors rehearse on-stage. Theatre downtime is lost income, so even a theatre company that owns its own stage tries to minimize downtime. The next time you see a movie about the theatre, no matter how entertaining it may be, ask yourself how real it is. At least Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge got it right. They performed almost every night on stage, but there was a separate practice space for rehearsing new acts.

So today, the Ring made the big jump from practice space into the theatre. The clock is ticking, and the stage has not yet (literally, at least) been set. But figuratively, it has. The alchemical ingredients are all prepared and are being rallied. The cauldron is about to be stirred, and the ancient magical powers of story, myth, and music are gathering. A bare stage is going to be transformed into a landscape. Cat-gut, insect varnish, cork, brass and wood are coruscating and congealing into orchestral harmonies, and T-shirted singers will soon transform themselves into the living, breathing embodiment of millenia-old legends. Soon... it's showtime!