Good Bye Feathers!

It is always the case that after any show you feel slightly shocked. You have spent all your time focusing on that show and then suddenly it is over. The past week has been a very intense week. It started on Monday the 7^th of March with the get in at the Etcetera theatre. Now doing a get in in this type of theatre was an experience in itself. I had never been to the etcetera before Feathers. I was aware that it was a small space but I don’t think I was quite ready for how small. The nice thing about it was with the nature of the play it was ideal. The size of the space makes the performance intimate and helps draw the audience in. Sarah and I did the get in together. Working with the lights and equipment provided I realised how lucky we were at university and how amazing the facilities are that we actually have. It was a very hard rig and focus as we had limited lights. Also most of the lights were in dire need of repair as light was escaping out of the back. The barn doors of some wouldn’t stay on. Even the ladder we were using was a bit rickety and you were scared to hold onto the rig as if you did it wobbled! However, we got the lights up, focused and as it was such a small space we were able to do a mini plot at the same time as rigging and focusing. The main plot went smoothly I was a bit annoyed as we were not able to get the sound plot done that day but it would only be a small  sound plot as I had worked out most of my cues in rehearsal times. The 8^th was a very long day and it was the one I was dreading the most. I was really nervous as I had never done sound operating before and I was cuing at the same time. We had to finish the sound and the last two lighting cues do a Q to Q and get in two dress runs. I was a bit worried about this as it is a very long day for the actors. They needed to be in shape for that evening as they had their first performance. The aim was to get through the technical as quickly as possible to give the actors a good lunch break ready to do two runs and then a longer break before the show. I am so used to tech days not going according to schedule this however, did. Once the Q to Q was done we did not need a tech which was great we went straight into the dresses and there were no major problems minus a couple of sound level adjustments. Whilst the actors were on their break I took this as an opportunity to get everything ready and set for the actors. Sarah and I just did some final adjustments on the boxes re writing cues in the book, making sure everything was ready for the show that night.

The show was performed for 6 nights. This was a new experience for me as I am only used to doing 4 nights tops.  Each night cueing the show got easier and more enjoyable. I found being in the box  in the Etcetera interesting as u have very limited visibility to see the stage and it had a very low ceiling therefore, you could not stand up straight. You only really looked at the stage when the cues coming up.  What I found interesting is by just listening to the show you could tell if it was a good night or not some nights the actors pace just went down their voices weren’t as energetic the pace was lost. One thing I found really hard was at the end of each night the director would change the lighting cues or sound cues. This became very confusing and after a while it was hard to work out what her final decision was for those cues. This is defiantly something I am going to have to work around. I need to find a way of dealing with it so it does not become confusing and over whelming.

I had lots of feedback from friends and family that went to see the show and most of the comments were it was a brilliant show! This I was very happy with as it had been a hard and long process. After working with outside professionals I have realised how professional most actors can be. After my bad experience with the actors on shape of clouds I had sort of lost faith in them but the actors I worked with listened when they needed to. They had fun but also took things very seriously. Working with Jen as a director was great. She defiantly gave me enough to work with that it kept me on my toes and it made it an awesome challenge. Even though I am glad it is over so I can work on Sweeny and my dissertation I am defiantly going to miss it and its going to be hard to get used to not rushing up to London every morning!