Here's the story.
Several months ago, Pompous Chad approached Nathan and begged him to be Technical Director for this "little" student show of his. Pompous Chad decided he would take on all of the major designer and director aspects for the show: he would design the lights, set, I don't know about the costumes, etc. It would be Nathan's job to do the dirty work; in essence, Pompous Chad would tell Nathan what he wanted, Nathan would do it.
I told Nathan at the time this was a seriously bad idea. Knowing the little I do about PC, I knew there would be tantrums, I knew there would be changes, I knew there would be specifications so specific your eyes would spin in your head they were so pointless. Nathan didn't like PC all that much in the first place because he's a pompous asshole, but he, of course, went ahead anyway.
I warned him.
The show has been teetering on the edge of their budget for the last few months, and Nathan has come home and cried, cried, several times because the demands on him from this show alone are more than those expected of him for his main stage production, two jobs and coursework combined.
Part of the problem is that PC cannot hear the word "no". As soon as anyone tells him something is too expensive (which is the major hurdle) PC's response is that he will pay for it himself, or rather, his loaded Daddy will pay for it. (To which I say, why didn't your Daddy foot the bills for the whole shebang and you could've been in it like you really want to be too? Make it a Pompous Chad Showcase.) There are plenty of problems.
Nathan and I went to Chicago (which was a mixed bag in itself) for the weekend, during which Nathan got three different phone calls from the Stage Manager with requests to change something that PC didn't particuarly like. I kept telling Nathan to tell Stage Manager to tell PC to fuck himself, but Nathan doesn't listen.
Also while we were gone, PC was scheduled to paint the floor. He did it. He did it with rotten paint.
Anyone ever smell moldy paint? Paint that's gone bad? It smells like horse glue. Ever smell horse glue? It smells like death warmed over. The entire 125 seat black box smelled like death warmed over on Monday morning.
PC's original story was that, yes, it smelled kinda funny, but they figured it was just the paint they bought and went ahead anyway. I'm sorry, but if you open up a brand new can of paint, and it smells like ASS, that's maybe your first clue there's a problem.
Last night they put two coats of sealant on the floor to try to kill the smell. They've also used a couple air mold killers and filled the place with charcoal and coffee. It's getting better: now it smells like chemicals and death.
However, the sealant gave at least two people allergic reactions and PC has been warned (and is pouting because) no one is to touch the floor with any bare skin until they can do a proper two or three clean mops on the floor. Apparently actors getting it on their feet and being unable to act is not important to PC.
On top of this, the sealant left sort of a cloudy sheen on the wood-grained paint job, which PC doesn't like. No, not one bit, that wasn't his vision. PC wants to REPAINT the entire floor. Which they don't have the money to do, because they spent the rest of the budget buying the sealant. His argument? You guessed it, he'll pay for it.
Nathan feels like shit about this because he feels that somehow it's his fault. He's the TD, he's in charge of the space, he's supposed to know what's going on in there.
Friend Nick, who is the president of the Student Theatre Organisation told me tonight that PC is in the midst of changing his story. Now he says that it didn't smell when they opened the paint.
I know better. I have painted with garbage paint- that's when you mix a little bit of moldy paint with regular paint because you're not all that concerned about it. It's generally used for a primer coat and the smell goes away, but the moldy paint, it smells like that from the moment you open the bucket.
Luckily, Friend Nick and Designer Mark also know better. When Friend Nick and the staff went to investigate the damage, Designer Mark walked into the space and knew what paint it was. Sure enough, Designer Mark and Friend Nick found the very paint bucket it came out of, clean. The paint Designer Mark knew was moldy.
PC stole it out of the department's paint room, used as much of it as he could, and then dumped the rest of it. There was more than enough paint there to coat the entire floor twice, and they didn't need all of the floor painted. The boys who helped paint admit to Friend Nick that this happened, but PC refuses that he did anything he shouldn't have.
Maybe I'm being petty, but I assume Nathan's going to come home and cry again, and you know what, I don't like people who make the boy cry. I especially dislike people who repeatedly lie about the things they've done (this isn't the first show in which he's done something reprehensible and refused to take responsibility). On top of all this, set strike for this show is on Sunday, which happens to be my birthday. This will be the second birthday in a row that Nathan will be at a strike.
PC needs something like 180 people (at this point) to come to the show before it breaks even. This means (since they decided to pre-sell this show) that he will come around the BO and ask me about ticket sales all day like he did today. If he gets anywhere near me with a question like that, I am either going to chew him out, punch him in the nose, or kill him. I could really go for the latter but I don't really want to spend the rest of my life in jail over his lying, pompous, ass.
I am not supporting this show in any monetary fashion. I am helping Miss Annie (who was roped in as Assistant Stage Manager when the original ASM quit) do the pre-show set up from six to seven, but that's to keep her from killing anyone, and I am going to do my best to keep Nathan from killing himself.