The Marquee

I can’t quite decide which of these ridiculous (and completely anonymous) people were my least favorite this weekend, so I’m gonna go ahead, make a list, and let you pick one for yourself.

1. A gentleman (haha, gentleman. I use that word loosely, apparently) furiously yells at Claire about the volume of the music in our theater. “IT’S TOO LOUD!!” Claire goes backstage and has the sound people turn the music down (see, we are here to serve you). He then proceeds to leave and place an angry voicemail on our administrative assistant’s phone. He also decides we must not have gotten his point and sends a vicious email to my boss, Esty. My absolute favorite part of this story? He was wearing earplugs.

2. During Les Yeux Noirs (Gypsy/Klezmer), a man complains to our supervisor that someone behind him is talking during the performance. (I love this one. There’s approximately 1100 people in this theater, dancing, clapping, laughing, generally enjoying themselves–at this very free, very fun music festival, and this dude is upset that some person behind him is talking. Wait. It gets better). This dude then says, “You know, there was a Nazi rally here a couple of weeks ago. This would be the kind of event that they’d like to break up.” Uh, hold the phone. If someone is bothering you during a performance, it is totally cool for you to come and get one of us. We will absolutely deal with it. However, first of all, this doesn’t seem like the kind of event where you should be complaining about audience members talking. Second of all, when the heck was it decided that talking during a Hebrew band makes you a NAZI??

3. The Whirling Dervishes drew in more people than the theater could hold, transforming us door staff into a new category of superiority that I will dub “The Enforcers.” During the performance, I went upstairs and tried to clear people that were sitting in the aisles (fire code and all). As I’m clearing people, some random woman has the balls to motion fervently at me to sit down. In a small moment of victory against my timid, Cow Town mentality, I put one hand on my hip and use the other to wave my badge at her. Yeah. Respect my authority.

4. Same show. In fact, most of these people were at Whirling Dervishes…Fellow WUT staffer Blaire clears the aisle on the main floor. A woman sitting on the stairs flashes her all access MWMF badge at Blaire and then says, “I’m writing an article on this performance. I have to be able to see.” That’s really special. Do you see the 1,300 seats in this theater? Funny thing about them–they all give you a view of the stage! Magic!! (Blaire is like my hero, actually. During this fiasco, she was talking about how much she enjoys taking food away from people and was the first to volunteer to not let people in once we had reached capacity).

5. Between shows, we (attempt to) clear out all of the patrons from the theater so that we may get a better count of audience members in order to make sure we don’t go over capacity (that darn fire code again!). Admittance back into the theater is only available through the front lobby (let me just take the time to say that this situation was a pain in the butt for WUT staffers as well as patrons). Unless you are this one woman: I am guarding the side doors as the theater empties, ushering patrons to enter in the front door so that we may count them. “Excuse me, miss, but could you please enter through the front? We’re not permitting people to enter through these doors,” says me, POLITELY. “I’m sorry,” says exceptionally rude chick and breezes past me into the theater.

6. Another Whirling Dervishes lady, who I have innocently dubbed “Balcony Expletive that starts with B” (we all know how much I love to alliterate). Prior to the WDs, there was another event going on upstairs on the theater deck; therefore, the balcony was roped off until the main floor filled, so the event upstairs had fair warning. Enter BB. “Excuse me, why isn’t the balcony open?” she asks. Blaire and I offer explanation. “”Who can open the balcony?” she asks. Insert explanation here again. “No, you don’t understand. Who has the decision-making power to open the balcony??” she says. Uh, yeah. We do, and you’re not getting in there until we let you (only phrased more diplomatically).  “That’s really, really rude. We have been waiting specifically so we could go up into the balcony. This theater is going to fill. There’s a line. Open the balcony.”

7. Really, this is a continuation of 6. Several of the MWMF coordinators approach us and say that they’ve received multiple complaints that the balcony isn’t open yet. Random MWMF volunteer opens the balcony, not knowing the situation. People storm up there. Shana, supervisor, runs upstairs, and Blaire and I hear her scream, “THE BALCONY IS NOT OPEN UNTIL I SAY IT IS OPEN!” and people file, defeated, back down the stairs. Patience is a virtue, people.

Moral of the story? Don’t be a dick. I won’t yell at you, but Blaire or Shana will!

Me? I’ll just blog about it!

Hey, reader! Did you enjoy Madison World Music Festival? What a great event that is! It’s really special that we at WUT and all of our fabulous co-sponsors created a place where we can expose you to different cultures to help foster an environment of understanding. Woo.

 Fantastic. Now that that’s over, let me tell you what Madison World Music Festival was like for me…

Let me start by saying that I’m really not confrontational. In fact, I am the exact opposite of confrontational. If you ask me to do something, I’ll probably do it. If you verbally abuse me, I will stand there and cry. If the construction on my apartment was supposed to last one week and instead lasts three, so my roommate and I are forced to sleep on the living room couch admist all of the stuff that we cannot put in our unfinished bedrooms, I will not call the tenant resource center and file a complaint. Blame it on growing up in Cow Town, USA.

That’s why on Thursday when I came to work 4-6 and was asked to pull inserts out of the Isthmus for two straight hours, and then was asked to stick around until midnight because MWMF was moved from the terrace to the theater because of crappy weather, and we had no door staff, I said yes. No fuss, no fighting. (If you saw my creit card bill this month, you’d know that I need the money. And that really cute pair of shoes. Ooh).

Now, dearest reader and potential theater patron, please understand that every member of WUT staff has sacraficed our dinner to make your theater experience more enjoyable. Please understand that we, to please you, our darling, have skipped the 5 hours we had planned to spend at the library preparing for our Italian composition, and, thus will probably receive a lower grade. Please, love, understand that we are canceling yet another date with our boyfriends that we have not seen all week so that we can be here to serve you. Please understand that we have spent 10 hours every day of this weekend dedicated to you. Please, honey, understand that we are spending 8 hours on our feet, breakless, hungry, dirty with 217 layers of newspaper ink on our fingers, to make the events that we scheduled and planned for but have no time to actually see run smoothly. Got it? Okay, great. Now, please understand that if you, sweetheart, decide to yell at us or be rude to us in any way, we reserve the right to make a snap decision to set you or this venue on fire.*

* Disclaimer: If, by some freak coincidence, this theater (or you, I suppose), is set on fire any time in the future, I promise I didn’t do it. This whole setting things on fire line was a joke and not an admittance to harboring intense feelings of resentment towards this theater (or you, I suppose) or even a hidden tendency toward pyromania. I don’t even own a lighter.

This past week I have had the duty—no, the privilege of sitting at three (THREE) information tables for the Wisconsin Union Theater. Believe me, I could give my little fifteen second speech in my sleep (and probably did at the MU Bash; an info table from
9 PM until midnight?? Whose idea was that anyway? Alas, I’m not as young as I used to be).

Well, since I’ve captivated you already, loveliest reader o’mine, without having to give you a free food coupon (it was my bait at the info tables…and what a sweet, sweet bait it was), let me give you the rundown on the WUT committee. Consider it payment for the hours and hours of entertainment I have given you for free!

Who we are: a group of seriously dedicated students that love this “comfortably funky” (thank you, Susan Kepecs from the Isthmus) theater and firmly believe in what WUT offers the students and community alike

What we do: help program the season events, sell CDs at the shows, set up info tables (freaking obviously), promote the spectacular performances here

What’s new with us: STREET TEAM! It is my delightful duty to lead our latest WUT wonder, the street team. We’re a subcommittee that’s in charge of your basic flyering and chalking marketing techniques, plus substantially cooler shiz, like setting up outside events to promote awareness of shows. Not sure what that means? Think this summer’s showing of “The Life Aquatic”  on the terrace plus ticket giveaway before Seu Jorge.

How often we meet: once a week, with occasional extra volunteering

What you get out of the deal: resumé building (ha ha), free food, tickets to shows, opportunities to score free CDs, possibly meeting the artists and the chance to hang out with really cool kids

How to join: Come to our kick-off! September 19^th, 6:30 PM, Frederic March Play Circle. Get free cookies and milk, and, a major bonus, a free ticket to that night’s Natacha Atlas performance (Arabic/African electronic dance hybrid worthy of Bond. James Bond). Email lbkatzman@wisc.edu to get signed up, or just come and check us out!

If you are a new student, you’re probably wondering how the heck to navigate the Humanities building (I’m a senior, and that bastard building still confuses me), why you have to spend $540 a semester on books that you will most likely never open (I can’t help you there. I still call home and complain every time I buy books), and how, on a campus of this size, you’re ever going to find your niche. ‘T’won’t be easy, my dear child; you’ll probably have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your princely place here. Truth be told, I didn’t find my niche until halfway through junior year! But, to be completely trite and quote that book that every last one of us got for high school graduation, “Oh! The places you’ll go!”

It’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve taken a tour of good ole UW, but I still remember the suspiciously friendly tour guides attempting to ease our fears of being friendless, alone and spiritually lost in a new place. In their efforts to lull us high schoolers into submission (okay, maybe that’s paranoia; perhaps it was more like trying to instill a calm and trusting dependence in us so the University would later be able to raise our tuition over and over and OVER, and our learned compliance would tell us to just shut up and write the check already), these guides told us of the plethora of student organizations that we could join in order to fit into the campus community (and build a resumé. Prepare to instinctively recite that phrase whenever anyone asks you why you’re doing something you hate. “Oh, you know, it’s great for building my resumé”).  

Anyway, enough whining about the bureaucratic process that is college. On that fateful campus tour day, our courageous leaders told us that we would never have to worry about finding a group of students with similar interests, that our campus had so many diverse RSOs (that’s registered student organizations for the frosh out there), there was even a pineapple appreciation group. The cynical senior in me realizes that this silly RSO is probably just a Chadbourne interest group with 3 members, but at the time, my parents and I thought this was a remarkably novel and reassuring idea. Surely if a pineapple appreciation group existed, a small town girl like myself would have no problems adjusting to this 933 acre campus and, subsequently, the new life journey on which I was about to embark. (Pineapples are the universal symbol of hospitality, after all).  “With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky!”

Well, kids, it’s four years later, and I can tell you that it’s a load of crap. Mostly. You are going to stumble. You’re going to hate some of your classes, wonder why the professor thinks he has the right to regulate your attendance, and, after the 217^th time of her staying up until
4 AM to chat on AIM, seriously consider punching your roommate squarely in the face. And you’re probably going to realize that the pineapple appreciate group isn’t your cup of tea…er, juice. “I’m sorry to say so, but, sadly, it’s true, and hang-ups can happen to you.”

But between all the struggling, and, often because of it, you’re going to learn and grow and explore here, and, ultimately, find out more about yourself than you ever realized existed. Maybe you don’t ever join an RSO, or you’ll wait until junior year to pick a major, or perhaps you even drop out and try your hand at a completely different path. Such is life. Embrace it.  

Oh, and one more thing. “Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way!”