Taking on the role as the assistant lighting designer under her friend and former student Devin Cameron, Bear River’s Theatre Manager and Theatre Tech Teacher Erin Beatie traveled to Brooklyn, New York the week of September 17 to assist in the transformation of the social media pop-up, the Dream Machine, to the October special, the Nightmare Machine.
Despite being featured on the Today show on August 14, many Bruins wouldn’t know what the Dream Machine is due to it being situated on the East Coast. Mrs. Beatie explained the production.
“Dream Machine is an interactive experience designed to be tactile and shareable,” she said. “It is 10 rooms of dreamy surprises made as a 45 minute escape from reality into a fun and playful environment for all your social media picture taking pleasure … The founder and producer, Paige, thought it would be great to provide a darker experience for the closing month by transforming the space into what it is today, Nightmare Machine.”
Mrs. Beatie does receive “opportunities to design shows and events locally all the time,” but to be offered an opportunity centered in New York is certainly something to be proud of. Senior Zane Beaton commented what he thought of Mrs. Beatie’s great opportunity.
“I think she’s doing lighting design and soundboard,” he said. “She works at a high school … [and] any chance to go to New York and work on a big stage is a great opportunity.”
Mrs. Beatie further explained what this opportunity meant for both herself and her career.
“I take on projects like this in order to maintain an up-to-date education in this very fast-paced and forever changing industry,” she said. “This opportunity certainly helped with me obtaining more knowledge and experiences that, in turn, my Technical Theatre students at Bear River High School will be able to benefit greatly from.”
According to Mrs. Beatie, she isn’t offered many opportunities in which she travels out of the state, though, when she does, she travels to a variety of places to work. She traveled to places such as China and Canada when she was in partnership with the Sacramento Choral Society. Mrs. Beatie gave her thoughts on her opportunity.
“I am certainly excited about the opportunity, working in New York has always been high on my wish list,” she said. “It always makes me a little nervous to walk into a space blind (meaning without hands-on knowledge of how things are hooked up and where specific items and tools are located).”
As Mrs. Beatie commented, she took the opportunity to not only learn more and experience more in her field, but she also took it to bring back what she learned and pass it on to her students. Noah Mann, a sophomore, commented on what he enjoys most about Mrs. Beatie’s tech theatre class.
“She teaches us a lot about how to work as a technician, and a lot about how to act and how to prepare,” he said. “She’s funny, for one, which is a good quality. It gets a lot of people to like you. … She’s serious about safety and doing her job, but in a fun way.”
Freshman Molly Barley said that she agreed with Mann.
“I’ve always been really interested in Theatre Tech,” she said. “So far, we’ve been learning a lot of really good skills. … If I choose to pursue a career in Theatre Tech, the skills that we’ve learned in this class will be really helpful.”
Arriving back in California approximately two weeks ago, Mrs. Beatie reminisced back on her experience.
“It is definitely amazing to be surrounded at all times with so many amazingly talented people who are all working very hard to make something incredible together!” she said.
