Charing Cross Theatre

I was offered a day of shadowing the behind the scenes crew at the Charing Cross Theatre, the production that was on at the time was La Boheme. Unfortunately the person in charge of sound and lighting for this show was ill on the day that I went but the technician and stage manager took me around and I was able to shadow them.

I arrived there and the sound and lighting technician took me on a tour around the stage. He shown me all the lights, named them all and explained to me what sort of beam of light the various lights would emit. He then showed me the ‘intelligent lighting’ which you could program the intensity and colour during a performance whereas the other lights had to be done manually before the performance. He then moved onto showing me what happens behind the curtains and explained that, for a bigger show and on a bigger stage, there would be people behind the curtains, raised on a platform and they would be there pulling on various ropes to change the direction of certain things or to lower objects into the audiences view.

 

We then moved to the sound and lighting desk which was situated at the back of the auditorium. He explained that in a large theatre the sound and lighting desk would be in a separate room overlooking the stage but as the Charing Cross Theatre was only small the sound and lighting desk was on display at the back. The sound desk was very similar to the sound desk in the TV studio at university and I realised that the skills I learnt there could be transferred to this sound desk. I had seen a similar lighting desk at university but the one at university was touch screen, this lighting desk had more buttons on it and the screen was just a normal monitor. The technician explained that you programme all the lighting before the performance, type into the computer: when the light should come on, what intensity it should be at, how long it should stay on for, how it should turn off (fade or cut). The sound desk, I had realised, wasn’t needed in this performance as much as other performances. As this was an opera and with it being such a small theatre the actors voices would travel with very few or with no mics needing to be on.

 

To see all the backstage and behind the scenes was very interesting and I have been invited back to shadow the behind the stage crew again at some point in the future. I saw what it was like for a team to loose a vital person on the day where there were two performances. The technician and stage manager used the notes of the person that was away and they were able to put on the performances. If they didn’t do this then the performances would have had to be cancelled. I was able to see teamwork at its best, how everyone pulled together to make both performances happen. I was able to learn more about lighting on the stage and intelligent lighting and how to programme the intelligent lighting on the computer.

2012

12/21

CATEGORY

Professional Experience

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