For this project I was told that I was going to have to run my own show, due to me doing acting I was studying Macbeth at the same time so the chosen show was Macbeth as there was 3 groups performing blue, pink and black so I chose to do the blue group which was the group that my colleague Michael was in. At first I was kind of panicking but I managed to do it with the help of my class mate Adam. I started to go to the group rehearsals for the blue group and watched what they did, me and Adam asked them what they wanted to do for their show, the lighting that they wanted and the sound as well so that we could have an idea of what they wanted the lighting cues for the show to be, not to mention the costumes and props that they wanted to have had to be noted down in advance. In addition, as well as managing the blue group’s production also helped the black and my group at the same time by coming up with ideas and attending all the rehearsals.
On the day of the technical rehearsal we went over the script and asked the acting director for the blue group Daniella wanted. We went over the script a few times, firstly to create the cues and then to just make sure it looked good and presentable. For example, for the beginning of the play Macbeth the blue group wanted a scary type of mood so we decided to have a dim light using only the side lights in the theatre and to add to it we had the sound of thunder and had the lights flashing as if to symbolise lightning. As well as the blue group I had my own group to work with my group and the black group as some of the technical things such as lighting and sound were sort of the same.
On the day of the blue groups performance I was told to be in charge of the sound, I had my production arts team with me as well, Maddy as stage management and Adam on lighting. I was so nervous as I was afraid of things going wrong and especially when there were a huge amount of technical problems such as the sound wouldn't turn on and some of the lights weren't turning on and it was very stressful but we still managed to get everything to run correctly and make sure that the group had no problems. When actually working the sound it was very frustrating, this was because the tech team works off a script where we have all the cues and the entrances and exits but we messed up with some of those as the actors performing would miss a few lines that would tell us our cues or a huge chunk of the script which would confuse us on which are of the script we were in. In addition as a member of the technical team you have to overcome obstacles like these as actors do things like that all the time. We managed to complete the show without a huge disaster which was a relief and the sound of the audience in the end showed that they didn't notice the mistakes that had happened which was a result. I believe that for my first time running a show, it went better than expected even if I came across problems and obstacles because after I could learn from my mistakes, focus on developing them and change them.
In the black group's rehearsal I was running the show and my role this time was stage manager which from my opinion was very stressful. The actors were always giving my grief and were very annoying as they wanted a lot of things such as projections of settings in the background which we couldn't do at the time due to technical issues. The show I believed to have been different to the first time as actors didn't miss as much lines as the other group which made my role as stage manager easier as I have to guide the production arts team with the cues, entrances and exits for the script.
In my opinion I thought that everything went well, there was definitely room for improvement as the actors could have been nicer and made my job less stressful, I thought it was harder for me because as a stage manager one of the skills you have to have is be bossy and be a leader because the production team and the actors look to you for help and support.
Over time I also helped out other shows for example I was asked if I could help with the musical theatre show Rocky horror show. My role in this was to be back stage helping with little things such as make sure that all the props and costumes were sorted out and if they had everything like they wanted. My first job that I was given was to fix up one of the props, the weights that were being used had the number three on them which didn't really make the character of rocky seem strong as that's what the director of the musical theatre show wanted. To fix it I got some black tape and covered the number that way the audience wouldn't have known that it was only 3 instead of something much heavier.
On the actual time of the show I made only one mistake which was forgetting to close the curtains for the beginning of the show however that problem was fixed by one of the actors who went over and closed them for me, I found that to be very stressful because I thought it could have ruined the scene but gladly it didn't which was a massive relief. Taking on the role of helping backstage is actually harder than it looks, I remember that I had help half of the actors with the costume change in order for them to be ready for their cue on stage. Another example for when the stage was in violation of a health and safety hazard, this was because it had a hole and it could make one of the actors hurt them selves on stage so it was my job to patch it and make sure it was safe to walk on. Although it was hard work I really enjoyed it a lot because it gives me experience with helping out backstage and having the idea of the role of being in a production arts team.
To evaluate my role as a part of the production arts team, I believe that I did well for my first time doing any show and if i had to make some improvements it would be note down all the mistakes and get feedback so then I could learn to develop those mistakes and problems and make sure that any show that I'm helping out with run smoothly.
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