Tuesday, November 06, 2007

We ran the whole show today for the first time. We started at 5 (ish) and ended at about 10 (ish) having lost over half the cast along the way. They had to go home halfway through because it's a school day tomorrow.

4 hours. It felt much longer. We will run it again at least twice tomorrow and we should knock off at least half an hour from the running time just by me alone now knowing which side I'm supposed to be coming on from.

If you have ever been behind stage during an amateur or mixed amateur/pro show like this - especially one with a lot of kids - you will know this, but the entire time the audience are sitting there enjoying the show there is a frantic babble of conversation going on behind the scenes:
"Which bit is this? Which side do I go one next? Christ! When am I on next! Fuck! I'm on the wrong side of the stage! Get out of the way, Get out of the way! Get OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY! Where's my hat?"
All conducted in various degrees of manic whispered shout. Today's hissed whispered babble was louder and more confused than normal. People had costume on for the first time. A few people, me included, had two costumes on, one on top of the other to speed up a dress change. Instead of taking one costume off and putting another one on we just have to take one off. Well, that's the theory.

The lighting has been the big techy problem. Today I spent the morning winching half tonne lighting bars up and down and hanging lights. Later in the day it turns out that some previous user of the hall has managed to trash some vital section of the lighting racks, and the cable that connects the bits that do work to the lighting desk doesn't seem to be doing much either. Kiree, who is driving the lighting desk, is one of the calmest unflappable people I have ever met. Faced with near calamity in the lighting department she raises an eyebrow and mutters " That's interesting!" before doing a few more workings out scribbles in her note book and going off to fix it. Don't know how she does it. I would just want to hide.

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