Bastard Prompt

I received the following comment to my Musical Spectacular Post.

“At first I had concerns that the musicians may have drowned out the singers

Now that’s close! Love the Witches song”.

It occurs to me it is worthy of further explanation because it is not something you always anticipate on an expensive trip to the Theatre. I went to see the Musical South Pacific in London many years ago and was sitting in the front row towards the right. However, all of the Brass instruments were directly in front of us, giving a somewhat unnatural boost to the mix and rather swamping the strings & woodwind. Theatre sound people often get round this by entombing the musicians in the Pit (or sometimes putting them somewhere else entirely) and having a lot of small fill-in speakers along the proscenium edge to counteract the effect of the sound coming from the side.

Now in the days before technology, it was common to put the Stage Manager in the Stage Right corner rather than the normal Stage Left corner for this very reason- so that the act could be heard rather than the Brass. (Possibly there was the need for the Stage Manager to say something to the Musical Director in the event of something going wrong, the standard response was for the MD to say “Shipwreck Chorus Lads” and they would play a holding tune until further notice.) In Theatres, Stage (Actor’s) Left Wing is always known as Prompt Side and Stage Right Opposite Prompt, even if the Prompt Corner is in the Opposite Prompt Corner. Many theatres have P.S. and O.P. directional signs backstage, although the less traditional ones have S.L. and S.R.

Now what do you call a Prompt Side that is on Opposite Prompt? Bastard Prompt. I wonder who made that up? Probably a very confused architect. (Some theatres have Bastard Prompts for architectural reasons rather than historic variety house reasons, the usual one being sod all room offstage downstage left).

A memory of a real shipwreck chorus just sprang into my head, from a 18+ Easter Holiday at Caister talent show many years ago when I was acting as Stage Manager. An appalling “Comedy” act was dying on his feet and was insulting the audience in between momentary flashes of potentially getting it together. Eventually the crowd had had enough and so had I. I said Shipwreck Chorus Lads to the Band and closed the Curtains. They knew exactly what I meant and played him off with… The Winker’s song (Misprint) by Ivor Biggun. An excellent and inspired choice!

colourless food

I recently bought some ice pops at ASDA, two boxes of twenty for £2. In the UK, an ice pop is a tube of flavoured ice sealed into a plastic (originally waxed paper) tube. It is not a Popsicle, we call them ice lollies if it has a stick. (My favourite childhood one was the Jubbly, now available again).

The odd thing about these ice pops (or freeze pops, as some makers call them) was that they were not only sugar free, they were totally colour free as well. They tasted normal (they certainly were not flavour free) but they took a bit of getting used to.

This took me back to when I was about Fifteen and took part in the Newcastle University Theatre Young People’s Festival. I was on a 10 day sabbattical from school to attend the theatre as part of the technical team. Every morning there was a show called “Betty in Bodgerland” which featured a large pedestrian operated milk float as the Bodgermobile. (Bodgerland was a pun on the then Artistic Director, Michael Bogdanov (who courts controversy on occasions). During the run, I got to operate the lighting desk for most of the shows, a Strand Electric Three Preset SP80 similar to this one. Whilst it was a manually operated desk, the cues had been created in such a way that it could be done using the six master faders in combination without needing to reset any individual faders.

What has all this got to do with colourless ice pops, I hear you ask? Well, before every Betty show, a performance artist blew up a number of interestingly shaped inflatables on the nearby lawn for the kids to have fun with. (Having fun extended to the little horrors trying to push one over railings onto a crowd of other children at a lower level, it took all of us to pull it back from the brink). This performance artist was also interested in doing unusual Banquets as art installations. Using food colourings, he would dye the eggs purple, the mash green, the bread orange and the chicken blue. He’d then let the Public loose who would tentatively nibble then eventually eat with gusto once they overcame the strangeness. I never saw one but read about it.

Strange, the odd things that float around in the recesses of the mind waiting to be unearthed.

One other thing I recall about the Theatre Festival- there was this huge green soft toy snake that must have been 20′ long and 15″ diameter. It kept appearing in unusual places- in the Auditorium Bar behind the counter, inside the Director’s Office, hanging outside the Theatre suspended from the roof. The guilty party consisted of Laurence Southon (Technical Manager, who had all the keys)… and everyone else!

In the soup

Every picture tells a story. This is a Polaroid snapshot of the special effects crew underneath the stage risers at the back of the Albert Hall for some long forgotten show. Linc (with the specs) runs the business and the other two were crew (as well as myself). It was for an 1812 Overture performance and three of us were in the three sections of stage which opened out into the two Bull Runs, the sloping performance entrances at platform level.

We were armed with Dry ice machines, Gauntlets and wearing Headsets (with boom Mics) so that we could communicate. We were using Pea Soupers which are the industry standard dry ice fog machine.The Pea Souper is a large box which contains boiling water and a chip basket affair worked from a side handle. You plug it in (but not into the BBC sockets, there is such a thing at the Albert Hall) and load up the basket with dry ice chips. You fix the lid back down, then lower the handle on cue. This makes clouds of low hanging beautiful white fog which pours out of the front, along tubes (if fitted) to where you want it. For this show, we had two cues, requiring a re-stocking of dry ice after the first plunge. (there are two soothing pieces of music in the 1812 before the big fight starts). The first cue went fine and Linc commented that the stage coverage was beautifully smooth. We always have a bit of banter at these events and we had been named numbers 1, 2 and 3 (Stage Right, Centre and Stage Left as per his view to the sides up in the Balcony BBC box). I was number three and was pleased that my contribution wouldn’t be referred to as number two! As soon as we were told to raise our handles at the end of the first cue, I unscrewed my lid and tipped my second pile of freezing cold chips in, getting a cloud of residual steam and fogging up my specs in the process. Undeterred, I got the lid screwed on (not without a little bit of effort, as the residual pressure was fighting against me) and was ready for the next cue. Linc called it, then questioned why number 2 hose wasn’t giving out fog. “The f***ing lid’s come off!” came the reply, and looking to my right, I was greeted by the astonishing sight of a wall of dry ice fog pouring out of the staging sides into the Voms (& downwards to backstage) whilst accompanied by a string of profanities over the headphones as number two struggled to find the lid and get it back on again.

We managed to regain our composure for the Finale’ (& we were just passengers then, Linc was doing the bangs in time) and we were rewarded at the end by the Compere, Richard Baker, giving Linc’s Company a plug. (I think Linc had nobbled him in the interval).

I took a look on YouTube to see if I could find some really good dry ice stage effects (think Swan Lake). I did find this though, which is … erm… odd.

Newcastle’s Theatre Royal

Yesterday, I was up in Geordieland to see various technical innovations introduced in recent refurbishments of Tyneside’s premier touring theatre.

On this outside view, you can see a builders compond down the side of the building. This is for the renovation and expansion of various front of house and ancillary spaces, as well as an education space.

When we got inside, we were treated to the delightful new mural of an actor taking a bow in Grey Street. This is fixed directly onto the safety curtain which was originally relatively plain.

After being told about the project, the safety curtain was flown out to reveal the stage as the audience never see it- the dream factory laid bare.

From the stage, the auditorium can be seen in all of its Matcham glory. I can remember it being described as like performing inside a wedding cake by Jimmy Edwards in Big Bad Mouse with Eric Sykes back in 1970, the first Pro show I went to see by myself. (Aisle seat, row C, front stalls).

From the back of the stage, the auditorium looks rather small in scale to the height and width.

The stage right area is new- extended into an old Barclays Bank with some forthcoming access into some vaults below for flight cases and such. When I worked the 75/76 Panto (and indeed up until a month or so ago), the wall finished to the left of the thick column next to the large white electrical box, narrower even than the auditorium on that side of the stage.

Standing centre stage and looking up, the fly floor can be seen, along with three gallery levels.

The grid, sixty feet above stage level.

In the upstage right corner is a dumb waiter lift, intended for raising chain hoists (or anything else) to grid level, safe working load 450kG.

After flights and flights of stairs, we eventually arrived at the grid. This is very unusual as it is the first one in Britain made of Plastic, or more accurately Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP), a Fibreglass (but stronger) based structural composite widely used in industry.

The Grid covers the acting area but not the wings, due to the sloping roof construction. There is a large smoke lantern over the grid, the glass painted out (but needing a repaint!)

The large yellow fixtures are movable spot loading points. All of the vertical ladders and handrails are made of GRP which is workable somewhat like timber. This view is of the counterweight and header pulleys. Note that the last four sets have an extra pulley to allow for ladder clearance.

After climbing down three sets of vertical ladders, we arrived on the flyfloor. This is a brand new flying system on the normal counterweight principle, although it is possible to link up some motorised units for powered flying. The blue weights are used to balance the bar without loading and are at the top of the cradle rather than the bottom due to height constraints in the fly tower. (It is a grade 1 listed building and much of the original timber & steel beams have been preserved)

This is the Flyman’s view from the fly floor, raked the same as the stage.

This is a double-purchase system, where the rope and cradle move only half the distance of the stage bar. (It has to be this way to give the stage dock clearance stage right but is more difficult to operate for the flyman).

This is an architects model for the construction work on display in the circle lobby. The stage haystack lantern can be clearly seen at roof level.

More about the new work in another posting.

A cultural treasure in Yorkshire

I first visited the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 1996, a few weeks after it had opened. It was organised by the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT), an organisation that I still belong to as an associate. When we first visited, we were unable to see quite a bit of the building due to ongoing rehearsals and snagging but we were privileged to have the legendary playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE spend quite a bit of time with us telling us about the history of the theatre company and the long, complex move into their third home.

Whilst our original visit was cursory, we did get the opportunity to stay and see a show- “By Jeeves!”, a rehash of the Jeeves & Wooster stories turned into a musical with Andrew Lloyd-Webber and such a piece of fun that I took Karen to see it a week or two later, then again when it ran in the west End, and now it is one of David’s favourite DVDs.

Fast forward eleven years. We had visited the theatre a couple of times in the intervening years (including a special 50th Anniversary celebration in 2005) and are still on their mailing list but now was a chance to see the building in much more detail.

The Stephen Joseph Theatre is actually two theatres, housed in the shell of the original Scarborough Odeon. The foyer and public spaces were restored and the back circle was retained to become the McCarthy Theatre (8 rows of seats to an end stage, seating 165) whilst the stalls and stage end were excavated to form the Round (which seats 404 on four sides) with workshops and rehearsal spaces below.

I imagine that one day, the Round will be renamed the Ayckbourn but let us hope that it is posthumous and many, many years away yet. (Alan Ayckbourn had a stroke early last year, but he is now back at work and his output remains high both in quantity and quality).

Our guide for the afternoon was Paul Baines, the theatre manager. We met in the lower foyer which houses the box office and would have been the original wet lobby. This leads on into the inner lobby with the former entrance to the Stalls (now a toilet block) and a Circle staircase. The current colour scheme is a pale tangerine and our tour guide pointed out a number of subtleties in the design, described as “threes”. The skirting board was a triple piece of woodwork, the recreated deco light fittings were triple lamped and there were three colours in the carpet. The carpet design was a recreation of the 1930s house Odeon style and it was pointed out that the arrow effect always led patrons in the direction of the screen.

The inner foyer also houses an extensive bookshop and it is rare that I don’t buy something when I visit. Yesterday was no exception- Sir Alan’s authorised Biography- and a fridge magnet!

Pausing at the foot of the stairs, we could see a niche that had been uncovered during reconstruction. It was painted in what were assumed to be the original opening colours- pale green with golden aztec motifs. The internal decorative schemes were attended to by Lily Deutsch, Wife of the Odeon proprietor, Oscar Deutsch. (ODEON was later claimed to stand for Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation, although it is thought to have been reverse-engineered.)

Odeon buildings were mostly very stylish in a relatively plain way, bold bands of plasterwork in art deco style rather than the highly ornate interiors of the American school of design (such as the Paramounts and Astorias). Their exteriors were particularly striking and the trademark motifs were the cream faience tiling (with green bands), the Crittal metal windows (which could be made to follow curves) and the strong vertical fins.

Odeon cinemas were generally just picture houses with vestigial stages rather than Cinema-theatres, although a number of seaside resorts were better equipped with Organs and full stage facilities. Scarborough had accommodation for an Organ planned into the structure but one was never installed.

Going upstairs, we arrived in what had been the Circle foyer, now the upper lobby. This leads into the large Cafe area (which doubles as a multi-purpose space) and further stairs (originally for the rear circle) lead on to the McCarthy theatre above.

The main route into the Round is through what had originally been the Circle Vomitory, which is the arcane term for an entrance that leads directly into a seating (or staging) area. It now leads into a bridge/stepped walkway that passes through an Atrium (internal space) the full height of the building, the Atrium providing light down to various internal backstage spaces as well as providing an accoustic barrier between the two theatres.

Rather than follow the bridge route, we went down a side corridor and through a security door and found ourselves backstage. The Round has four blocks of tiered seating and the space below forms the Stage management domain, known as the RunRound. There are three entrances onto the acting area, one in the centre of the seating block nearest the atrium (Vom 1) and the other two in the corners of the opposite block.

Theatre in the round does not require much in the way of scenery but more in the way of Props, i.e. items around the set or carried on & off by the actors (books, spears, lanterns, buckets etc.) Many of the Props for the current show appeared to be musical instruments.

Carrying on through the space and out through Vom 2, we found ourselves onstage in the Round. It is called round because the actors are surrounded by audience on all sides, not because the auditorium or stage are circular (although some are). This space is hugely intimate, you are never more than about 20′ from the stage and you can see everything, other than what the cast may be obscuring by their presence. There are two innovations here, one strikingly obvious, the other hidden from view.

The obvious one is the steel mesh ceiling with stage lighting above. This is colloquially known as the Trampoline grid and is strong enough to walk on whilst rigging and focussing the stage lighting. This saves a huge amount of time over ladder access and is much more flexible than fixed catwalk arrangements.

The hidden piece of technology is the stage itself; it is actually one of three pallets and is supported on a huge hydraulic ram. This gives the theatre the flexibility to change the set and work in repertoire as required. The stage cannot be lowered with an audience present, however, it is necessary to fit guardrails and lock the auditorium doors before any platform movement is possible.

The Round looks rather bleak when lit by fluorescent working lights, lots of black relieved only by the blue of the seating. With the house lights on and an audience in, however, a definite air of theatrical expectation occurs.

After a brief visit into the technical control room (which is unremarkable other than having a desk for the Deputy Stage Manager (the show caller on the book, i.e. cueing and actor calls,) there not being a Prompt corner possible elsewhere) we carried onwards and upwards. We visited their third space, the Boden Room which is suitable for meetings and events, located in the upper floors above the parade of shops to the side of the building. (Some of the shops are let, others in use for the Company use with administration and the education office).

Pausing at the top of the audience bridge, the various offices overlooking the Atrium were explained. We had also passed an archive office squeezed into a spare space, stuffed to the gills with files (and an archivist). At night, various coloured lights were projected onto the atrium walls and a smoke effect showed up the beams nicely- until smoking was banned in the Green Room below!

Up some more stairs and we found ourselves at the back of the McCarthy. This doubles as a Cinema and it is an awkward space as it is very wide but rather shallow, with only eight rows of tiered seats facing and end stage with very limited flying capabilities and little over-stage height due to the roof. As part of the reconstruction, decorative plasterwork grilles on the original splay walls were preserved and replaced (somewhat cut down) as decorative features either side. The original projection box has now become the control box and the get-in is through two large dock doors 50′ up in the air- if it isn’t too windy. This possibly qualifies for the worst get-in ever, although the eight person passenger lift mitigates this slightly.

We couldn’t linger there as the space was in use, but we did visit the electrical workshop where we were able to step out onto the trampoline grid for a quick bounce and admire their collection of vintage lanterns, a couple of which probably dated from 1955.

Making our way back downwards, we were unable to visit the workshops, wardrobe or rehearsal rooms due to things going on there but we were able to see into the workshop from observation windows and could see into the stage lift shaft. (I was able to see into the rehearsal rooms from windows on the outside of the buildings afterwards, I was surprised by their size and height). We passed on down to the Green room which is on two levels, the upper zone is where the refreshment facilities are and below are all of the comfy chairs which also sprawl out into the bottom level of the Atrium. Our guide explained that kettles were banned in offices and there were traditional tea breaks at 11am and 4pm when the Company were encouraged to come down, make themselves a drink and mingle. Staff were expected to provide and wash up their own mug and there was a “Mugs of shame” bucket for miscreants to be suitably humiliated. There was also a water feature there (Sophie’s Fountain) which was a tribute to an up-and-coming actor who had died whilst on tour with the Company.

Our visit was now coming to an end. What we didn’t expect was how much was squeezed into what was admittedly a very large building but was now riddled with convoluted staircases, corridors and multiple levels. Practically evey wall was covered in some form of Company history, particularly framed programmes from past productions in the fire exit corridors that would not normally be seen by the public, unless they asked of course.

The visit is actually open to the public every Saturday morning in the Summer and for the princely sum of £3 anyone can participate. It comes well recommended and I think I’ll take Karen and David once the summer comes.

I took lots of photos and here are a selection in a rather quirky order- reverse alphabetical. (It’s a blogger thing…)

The upper lobby- bridge to the left through the doors

The mis-spelt trampoline/grid rating sign
Paul shows us the mug of shame bucket

One corner of the Round

The outer lobby and Box office

The McCarthy in the back circle

The niche with original colours

The inner lobby and gift shop

Hard hats in the runRound

The grid looking through to the Round

Bouncers on the trampoline

The staff cups in the green room on the upper level

The Green room lower level

View from the bridge to the upper lobby

The Round control room, lighting desk in the foreground, sound mixer beyond

The electricians bench with practical props

The Atrium, underneath the bridge

The atrium towards the green room

Sophies fountain

The archivist at work