At the beginning of a lighting career one often works as an assistant to the lighting designer.  I was working with Jules Fisher on a B’way show.  We were focusing with a full IATSE crew.  My job was to keep track of exactly where the man on the 20’+ ladder was working, know when he had locked off the unit he was focusing and ask for the next dimmer number that would bring up the next light. I had the paperwork, light plot and hookup that gave me that information. In addition to that task, I was recording the location and shutter cuts of each light as it was focused to create the document called the Focus Chart. Sometimes there were several men focusing in different locations around the stage that each needed the next light turned on.

There was always time pressure to get the focusing done.  The Chief of the electrics crew was a very famous and powerful man named Lowell Sherman who always brought with him the same group of skilled associates who could be counted on to be efficient.  As we were working down the 3rd Electric he would scream at me “HURRY UP, HURRY UP! DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A MAN UP ON THE LADDER! QUICK, THE NEXT LIGHT!”  This was annoying and humiliating; I was working as fast as humanly possible, however I did notice that the more he screamed at me, his men felt sorry for me and worked faster and faster.  I thought, “Okay. I get it, I see how this is working, no problem.”