Conquering Mount Tetris

I changed schools this year, and in so doing, left the shop that I spent the last 5 years cleaning, organizing,  and updating.  Year one, basic tools.  Year two, a fresh coat of paint.  Year three, order.  Year four, new storage spaces.  Year five, more organization.  This year, I stepped into a shop and theatre that is much younger, much smaller, and also in a sad, sad state.  Four years of a technical theatre program run by students and a few parent volunteers left the shop with vice grips that won't grip, a table saw covered in paint, and a teetering mountain of platforms and flats.  It loomed over the stage left wing, daring anyone to climb its craggy sides, taunting me with it's poorly constructed stairs and over-built platforms.  Its creators dubbed it Mount Tetris.

In the months since I took this job, I had successfully pushed the mound of lumber and screws out of my mind.  Until last week, I could work around it, but with the fall show looming on the horizon, I knew that Mount Tetris had to come down.

It took 25 students 3 days to go from top to bottom.  We saved what we could reuse and threw away the rest.  The pile has now dwindled to a few flats and a seemingly endless pile of 2x8s.

With the demise of Mount Tetris comes a new era: The Flat Storage Space.