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Press, 4 February 1987, Page 23

not just go home and come back in the morning, Joe’s answer was simple. “If you are doing a lighting design, you are the only one who knows what has to be done. So there’s no option.” The reward comes the next week, when nothing is happening and they can all take the week off. As well as lighting, there are sound effects to consider. The technicians spend a lot of time making up sound tapes. Once Mike got a couple of members of the company out the back of the theatre, kicking rubbish bins and talking very loudly in Liverpudlian accents. They ended up sounding very much like the bin men working in the streets of Liverpool. Creating lighting and sound effects is often an exercise in making sure things are not too realistic — as Joe says, you are not aiming for reality, but what people think reality is. The noise of a printing press was needed >for “Pravda.” So Mike went off and recorded a printing press at work.

“The director said ‘No, that sounds like a diesel engine.’ ” So, insteaed, he created something people felt a printing press should sound like. The technical staff are also working during the production, controlling all the lighting and sound. If it is a relatively simple show, one person controls both, but if the technical effects are complex, one person will control lighting while another is responsible for sound. General maintenance is another job for the technicians. The theatre does most of its own repair work, but every now and then, something has to be sent away.

Joe is working at present on plans to replace all the house lights. People have often complained that they cannot read their programmes, so new lights are needed. One important aspect of the job is thinking ahead — if a light fails during a production, how can it be replaced? There are three aims in lighting, Joe says. The most important one is visibility — the audience has to see what is happening. After that, you create the environment and the mood.

Visibility must never be sacrificed — there are usually enough lights operating to ensure an area can be lit, even if the principal light goes.

There might be a green light for one scene instead of a blue one, but the audience will still see what is happening. Fortunately, Joe says, the operator very seldom has to resort to the “what if” plan. Lights only rarely go down in the middle of a show. Production Lynette Woods is head of the properties department. Her job, as she puts it, “is just to go and cadge and beg. "We have to go and badger people to give us their prize possessions for five weeks.” She talks to antique dealers, or whoever else may have something the Court wants. One show required about $lO,OOO worth of antiques — they were all supplied by one dealer. It is not just antiques that may be hard to come by. “I think the worst thing that ever happened was having to find three office tables of unusually small size for the set of ‘Pravda’.” Lynette ended up with just one desk, and one day to find the other two. In desperation she took to the office blocks of Christchurch. She would get in a lift and go up to the first floor. There she would get out and have a look around. If she did not see what she wanted, she got back in the lift and went up to the next floor and so on. Eventually she ended up in Trustbank Canterbury. Not only did they have the desks she wanted, but they had a whole warehouse full of them. Sometimes props have to be made. One of the more interesting problems Lynette has been presented with was providing a dead body for "Jumpers.” To make the head, she commandeered one of the actors, and covered his face with plaster of Paris. He sat there for a couple of hours, with two straws up his nostrils so he could breathe, until the “face” dried. Lynette is also responsible for keeping shows stocked with the props they need when they are running. Some props might get broken, others get eaten, and they have to be replaced. Lynette tries to keep her job within the hours of 9 a.m. and 5.30 p.m., but sometimes that is im-

possible. You guessed it — production week. Once the show is actally on stage, the director might realise one of the props is not quite right, and something else has to be found. Lynette may end up with just three or four days to find it.

Once the week is over Lynette may get up to a week off in lieu of the overtime she has worked. Then it is back into the treasure hunt again. Stuart Aiderton is the Court’s production manager. He is, in his own words, “responsible for everybody and everything backstage.”

He continues: “In terms of ordering, and budgeting, and scheduling, and making sure everthing runs somehow, and maintenance and building, and equipment. If it happens, I’ve got to make sure it happens.”

He is the one who orders stock, and finds replacement dishwashers for the bar, makes sure there are enough raw materials around for the designers; to work with, and generally administers the whole backstage area. Unless something goes drastically wrong, his is a nine-to-five administration job. But if something does go wrong, he can find himself being stage manager for a night or two.

Ross Joblin is one ol the two full-time , stage managers.

His job has two areas ol responsibility — one when a show is in rehearsal, the other when it is in production.

Stage managers only work on one show at a time. When it is in rehearsal, they are responsible for providing substitute props, for ensuring actors are at rehearsals at the right time, and recording notes for the director.

During this time the hours are regular and there is no evening work. The second phase begins with production week. Then the stage manager is responsible for transferring the show from the rehearsal room to the stage. The stage manager becomes responsible for the whole technical side of the production. He or she

has ultimate responsibility for the props and the scenery, for calling the lighting and sound cues, and for making sure everyone is in the theatre at the right time — .and on the stage at the right time.

During a show, the stage manager has to be in the theatre at 7 p.m., to make a number of routine safety checks. He or she also checks the set to make sure everything is where it should be. When the audience arrives, the stage manager is responsible for its safety. Once the show is over for the evening, he or she has to stay and make sure everything is as it should be. The stage manager usually leaves the theatre half an hour- after the show finishes. The next day, Ross comes in for a few hours to re-set the stage for the beginning of the next performance. Because he enjoys it, he also spends some time building sets. Then he goes home again, and is back in the theatre by 7 p.m. Promotions Mark Skelding and Bridget Hanrahan are the Court’s two promotions staff. They are responsible for everything from arranging advertising in the papers to finding sponsors for shows. Around 3 p.m. that afternoon, Mark spent some time discussing a display with Helen Shaw, a Singapore Airlines sales representative. Singapore Airlines has sponsored “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” by providing return travel from England for Michael Billington. In return, the airline has received several free seats, will receive acknowledgement in the programme, and will be able to display some publicity material in the theatre.

There is always a conflict between what is tasteful in promoting a sponsor, and giving them the best possible return for their investment. Mark has to try to please the theatre, by making

sure displays are not so prominent they make the theatre look like an advertising billboard, and try to please the sponsors,' who want to feel they have gained something out of the exercise.

Larger companies, which have usually acted as sponsors before, are often easier to deal with than the smaller ones, which are new to the game, he says. After a while companies come to realise that subtlety is the name of the game. The promotions staff are also responsible for media liaison. They arrange interviews, and let the media know when something is happening. Then there is what Mark calls the “internal P.R.” When an article is written, they make sure the staff knows about it, they pin reviews on the notice board for everyone to see, and pass on comments from members of the public. While the job is theoretically a nine-to-five one, things do not always work out that way. “I go weeks on end without having a lunch break,” Mark says. Promotion can often involve some time during the week-end, and staff have to be there on opening nights, and for meetings with sponsors, whenever they may be. They are always looking for new ways to promote the theatre. That afternoon, they sat down and had a chat with the promotions officer from Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre, about the way things are run down there. .

“Just about every other department in the theatre is inward looking,” Mark says. “We are the one that looks out, and tries to go out.”

There are many other workers at the Court — the bar staff, the box office staff, the construction workers, secretary, cleaners and receptionists. Then there are the ushers, who are all voluntary workers. These are the people whose work you may not notice when the house lights go down, and the show begins.