Beauty and The Beast at Abbotsholme

Each year, Abbotsholme holds a senior main production; this is the show that is worked on for months before and is always sold out. The production is in the 120 seat purpose built theatre, located on the Abbotsholme Campus. I had the role of Technical Director, directing all technical aspects of the production, from lighting to ensuring that in scenes where the risk of falls from height was involved, the risks were minimised. I spent a lot of time discussing with the director his ‘vision’ in order to understand the creative ideas that he had. Once I had an overview and a deeper understanding of the show, I began to collate my ideas and watch rehearsals in order to understand the story and script of the show. In my script, I began by making notes of key parts of the show and writing rough mic lists to understand the volume of mics I would need. Additionally, I booked the hire of microphones to ensure we had good quality mics for the show. Once the mics had arrived, we ran through the show, ensuring we had the right cast members mic’d. We then tweaked the EQs and got all the monitors set up correctly to guarantee that we could run the tech and band runs without mic problems. A few days before the show, we began to tech the show. As the only member of the team who was able to use the lighting and sound desk proficiently. I had to do double duties. All of the lighting equipment was prepped and rigged by myself, and I began to plot the lighting cues. Due to the Director contracting COVID, most of the lighting was programmed with him on teams to ensure that we were both on the same page. I then had a handover meeting with the Lighting Operator, who operated the lighting throughout the run. After band call, I mic’d and connected them via a digital snake to the X32 sound console. This then allowed me to run the show with the band and sort out any problems. All the sound effects were then added to QLab and the musical director’s camera system setup. In order to prevent myself from having to do all jobs in the future, I set one of the existing crew members up with access to the ETC Learning Portal, allowing them to learn EOS. I then walked them through, and showed them how I program cues on our console. Additionally, I showed them how to make magic sheets and build the Abbotsholme Theatre in 3D.