Unlike any other show I have previously been involved in, we had a 3 hour tech slot prior to the show day. Bond states that the tech day is the ‘point where everything that has been worked out on paper comes to fruition in practice’ (Bond, 1991, 71). This is why I knew it was key to be prepared. As the show relies heavily on the technical elements, I knew that the more prepared we were the more productive the day would be. This is why for the days leading up to the tech I worked with Charlotte and Nick to make sure that both lights and Sound and AV were ready for the day. This meant not only deciding on lighting but creating the QLAB file for our show. Because of the lack of dialogue and the reliance on video and audio the QLAB file became quite extensive. This meant that instead of using midi to put our lighting into the file so all cues could fire of one mac I decided on using the ION as well.

Colour Coded QLAB file. (Cartwright, 2016)

However even without lighting cues, the QLAB file was still extensive, so much so that myself and Nick came up with a colour coding system that al if I lost my place during the show.

It wasn’t until the tech day that I decided that although having 2 operators was crucial it helped to take the strain off of me considering that the showed anyone operation the show to see what cues were to be fired and which fired themselves. The QLAB file was split into 3 colours: Green for cues an operator was to fire, Red for cues that were visible and not in a group cue but fired themselves and Purple for AV cues. This allowed me to keep track of cues during a run and stopped me from panicking was so tech heavy. So it was decided that Georgia would op lighting and I would op sound and AV. Because of prior organisation the tech day ran smoothly with little complications, the only issues we faced was that some of the transitions in the QLAB file’s timings were wrong but these were later tweaked for the show day.

Another problem we faced was that the LED side lighting we wanted wasn’t working properly as there was a problem with DMX and putting them into the lighting desk so we decide instead of wasting time we would add them on the show day.

Because of the nature of the show I decided instead of doing a cue to cue we would just do a full run and I would note down any technical issues. This is because it would have been difficult to hear any transitional issues without running the whole QLAB and a lot of the transitions relied on certain parts of the songs being played.

Overall the Tech day ran smoothly and the practicality of the set allowed for a quick and easy get in that was only made easier with the fact that we were so prepared.

The projection onto a sheet (Crowe, 2016)

When it came to show day, I produced a schedule for the company, only myself Georgia and Harry were needed before 10:30 for the initial set up. In this time the projection screen was hung and the Mics, LED Quad 7’s and Haze were set up. Once the actors arrived the projector was keystone onto the sheet held by the actors and the LEDs were added to certain lighting cues. Once this was completed we had 2 hours before lunch. In this time we managed to complete a run and go over a few technical notes as this was the first time the actors had performed with the microphones and the new lighting states. The only issue we encountered apart from the changing of some of the audio levels was the fact that the haze machine was not working properly and couldn’t be DMX’d into the desk so we could control it from the box. However this was easily solved, we used one of the in house technicians in the wings and spoke over cans in order to cue him on when haze was necessary.

The dress run then was scheduled to begin at 3 however it didn’t start until 7 minutes past due to some costuming issues and battery changes for the onstage mics. After this though the dress ran without any major issues, we did move the a few lighting cues forward so the audience could see some of the ensemble actors earlier than in prior runs but apart from that no big changes were made. Because of the lack of hiccups it meant that the 2 hours I had scheduled to fix issues didn’t need to used and the cast were free to get food and break until the half hour call.

The show overall ran very smoothly, there were some issues with finding a prop but this was due to the inside of the boxes being too dark, however we held off on a lighting cue which made it less noticeable to the audience. The only major issue came at the end of the show when the final lighting cue didn’t fade to black. Although because the end image of the show is so poignant it didn’t actually effect the show too much. Another issue came with the last cue as I had not put in any house lights, luckily as I know the venue I knew the house lights were recorded on subs so I just brought these up to a suitable level. In future I will make sure there are house lights in the last cue as I will not know all venues as well as I know the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre.

Bond, D. (1991) The Stage Management: A Gentle Art. New York: Routledge.

Crowe, P. (2016) Projection onto the sheet

Cartwright,E (2016) Colour Coded QLAB file

Sam’s Drawings (Smart, 2016)

In the early days after we had come up with the concept of the show myself and Harry created the bare bones of our main character Sam .We knew he was an 8 year old boy and that he loved space and reading but apart from this we left the rest up to our actors. Although our intention was always for Sam to be played by Nick we knew that the ensemble were going to become his imagination so had to know the character just as well as Nick did.

A Good ensemble is ‘an approach to acting that aims for a unified effect achieved by all members of a cast working together on behalf of the play, rather than emphasizing individual performances’ (dictionary, 2016). This is key to the actors because not only are they going to be working together but they are also going to be playing the same characters, so it is important that they work well together, this is why it is important that they are all involved in the creation of Sam. 

This is where the diaries came in. Our first rehearsal we set up a workshop, all of our actors became Sam. After explaining a bit about the character we sent them away with paper and crayons and told them to draw space according to Sam. After they had finished we gathered around and then described their pictures to us. This early rehearsal sparked a lot of inspiration from the final show with phrases actually appearing in the show. In fact the tag line from the show: Space is infinite but definitely possible was written on one of the pictures drawn in the first workshop.

The ensemble and Sam (Crowe,2016)

After this workshop it was clear to us that the actors were Sam’s voice and as the show was devised collaboratively between the cast an us that we needed to embrace this. Also because we had discovered early on that letters were going to be key in the narrative of the story, we decided it would be a good idea to get the cast to start writing their own. We gave each of them identical notebooks which became ‘Sam’s diary’ after a lot of the workshops we would ask them to go away and write a letter that discussed the themes or events that had taken place that day. We then used parts of these letters to create Sam’s letters that would later be used in the show. This devising tool allowed us to  work collaboratively as a group whilst still giving myself and Harry control on where the narrative would lead. However we were giving the people who knew Sam the best the tools to shape his world. Also it was key to us that the ensemble also has a hand in writing the letters because although they were not playing Sam they were the cogs in his imagination and therefore in essence a part of his mind.

Dictionary.com. (2016). the definition of ensemble acting. [online] Available at: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ensemble-acting [Accessed 24 May 2016].

Crowe, P. (2016) Sam and the Ensemble 

Smart, T. (2016) Sam’s Drawings