Whenever I am faced with a difficult or challenging situation in the theater, I am reminded of a particular venue in Morocco that we were playing for two weeks.

This was the first time this venue was presenting a large live theatrical performance.

As we unloaded the 5^th (of 14) truck of gear the venue and several official agencies became very concerned about why we needed so much equipment and proceeded to chain lock the fences around the perimeter of the venue.  So here we are, halfway into unloading our trucks, with hundreds of road cases on the street, the entire crew just hanging out for a few hours before the air could be cleared and the chains unlocked to allow us to continue our load in.

Upon getting settled in this venue and figuring out where/what the dressing rooms would be (which were old locker rooms) on our tour of the venue we find that all of the bathrooms have squat toilets and in some of the locker rooms these squat toilets are nice versions of troughs with out any stalls.  It was also apparent that they had been used, recently and not just for liquid waste.

The cleaners that were hired to clean this several hundred square foot venue were no where to be found…

This venue taught me patience, humility and how to suck it up and get the job done to prepare for the artists/cast to come in the next day.