Production assistants are the hardest working folks in theater, and nearly invisible (except when they don a costume in order to move scenery during the performance. You might not even notice!) So today, we're moving PA Cade Sikora into the spotlight for this installment of Quick Chats.
APT: Is this your first season with APT? How have you enjoyed your time out in the woods?
Cade Sikora: This is my first season with APT. APT has been a blast (a work-induced blast, but a blast nonetheless)! It's a totally new experience to me to live in a community of artists where pretty much everyone around me is tied together through theatre.
APT: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What led you to Spring Green, WI?
CS: I graduated from UW-Eau Claire in December, 2014. In my spare time I research history (with an emphasis on the Titanic), write plays, work on my Lego Clue board game design, and fold origami flowers. Since I graduated, I have been doing freelance work as a carpenter, technical director and scenic designer in the Chippewa Valley. I had heard a lot about APT when I was in high school and college, but could never apply for a position because the season starts earlier than school ends and ends well after school starts. I was excited this year when finally I wasn't in school and had the opportunity to be involved.
APT: Can you briefly explain a day in the life of a Production Assistant?
CS: I don't think there is an average day in the life of a PA. Early in the season a typical day would include a prepping Up the Hill for rehearsal, then going into your shop hours or running company management requests until the evening rehearsal block when you go back Up the Hill to do a changeover into the next show and into Touchstone to changeover that space, too. Then you come back late at night to changeover both spaces again for the next day's rehearsal. Unless the same show is on, and then you breathe a collective sigh of relief that you don't have to do another changeover that night. Once shows start opening up and there are fewer rehearsals, there are also fewer changeovers - but you are also running two or three shows. And then at the end of the night, you changeover into the next day's shows, too. One day you might only work a couple hours and the next day, you're working twelve. It's definitely a crapshoot, but it keeps you on your toes and you learn to check the schedule often pretty quickly.
APT: Any favorite memories or stories while on the job?
CS: I think my favorite memory is probably from when I started in the scene shop. I had been cleaning steel and [I've learned this summer] I have a habit of rubbing my face while I'm working. Well, I went into the paint shop to find Nate Stuber to ask him something and Nate, the painters, and whomever else was around said, in sequence, "Cade, you look like a chimney sweep," "Cade you look like you've been eating charcoal briquettes," "Cade, you look like you were in a fight." And then Nate Stuber laughed and said, "Cade, you look awesome." While I was cleaning the steel I had rubbed or touched my face and forehead so much that I was covered in the black schmutz that comes with the new steel. My first PA nickname (all PAs have at least one nickname) was Schmutz. Also, any time I have carried a wall during changeover with Lea Branyan (a fellow PA) and it almost ended in disaster but we managed to to save it. Those all get lumped together as a favorite memory.
APT: Would you rather be able to run at 100 mph or fly at 10 mph?
CS: Fly at 10 mph. I already run at 100 mph.