After a five-year absence, I’m back at the National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough. The last time I was here to light Peter Morris’ play A&R: Peter won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award for that and I was granted the NSDF/Stephen Joseph Theatre Technical Residency, so Al Smith’s Enola has a lot to live up to.
This is essentially the second major version of Kandinsky‘s work with the play after its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2005 (which I reviewed), and in terms of staging the bulk of the difference is in the lighting. I wasn’t involved with the Fringe production at all, so my approach here has been neither a direct re-light of that original show or an entirely new design. The structure of the piece – in terms of timing and cuepoints – is largely intact, but the festival venue that we were allocated here is perhaps three or four times larger than the cramped conditions in the Underbelly Caves: while the playing space remains as small as is feasible the lighting positions are significantly further away from the stage, and a complete reinterpretation was necessary.
We finished our run of four performances late last night, and we’ve been absolutely delighted with the audience response. The bulk of Enola‘s theatrical soul comes directly from Al’s text, but it’s topped-off with superbly pitched performances and a very mature approach to the production. I’ll have photographs and more post-match analysis up once I get home at the weekend, but for now we’re going to take in the rest of the Festival, eagerly awaiting the awards ceremony on Friday night. We’ll see where it goes from here.
[ Update! Enola swept the awards: the Sunday Times Playwriting Award for Al, an Acting Award for Ellie and - best of all - the Fest-Goers Award, voted for by all attendees of the Festival: we're so very happy!
There are all sorts of highly exciting things on the horizon for Enola, but until then I've onlined some photographs in the usual place, with some bits and pieces from NSDF over at flickr. Enjoy. ]
The first couple of days of Penny Dreadfuls shows have gone very well, and things should pick up even more now that the weekend’s here. All four shows are completely free, so pop along if you’ve got a spare moment.
We’re in the Britannia Panopticon, a Victorian Music Hall that’s Scotland’s oldest theatre. It is a very strange place to work, with the oddest atmosphere of any venue I’ve ever worked in. But don’t let that put you off! The Panopticon isn’t open all that much, so it’s a one-hundred-percent unique opportunity to see some genuine Victorian-themed comedy in it’s natural habitat, and support the restoration of the place to its former glory!
We’re there all week(end).
Later this week I’m off to the Glasgow Comedy Festival, providing technical wizardry to The Penny Dreadfuls‘ four shows.
Aeneas Faversham, Shamwagon, Lost in Time and, of course, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Plot are all being performed at the wonderful Britannia Panopticon music hall.
Each show is on from Thursday through Sunday, and they’re all free. Free. So pop along, if you’re in the area: I’m particularly fond of Sherlock Holmes and Aeneas Faversham, but they’re all worth a gander. For no money.
In just a couple of hours time, we’ll find out if A Plague Requiem has been selected for this year’s National Student Drama Festival, and if we have to do the whole thing again in Scarborough at Easter.
Either way, I’ll let you know.
[ Update: the show wasn't selected. It's a shame, and I'm sure it doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the piece - but it is actually quite a relief, since my Easter is quite full enough already. Never mind, eh? ]
A few bits and pieces as things get updated:
1. There’s a new version of my CV available for download – it’s been nipped and tucked a little, with much more of a focus on lighting and theatre.
2. After a year with this third major version of notlikecalvin I’ve finally converted this weblog to the same style as the rest. Obviously it’s nowhere near finished, but putting it up now is great motivation for doing more work on it. At least, that’s the idea.
And a couple of tips from recent experience:
1. If, for some reason, you have to survive without your computer for a couple of weeks, you can charge your iPod off any powered USB2 port – including a PlayStation2, although it’s fiddly. Sometimes the PS2 won’t behave, but try unplugging any memory cards and going into the system browser – it seems to be entirely random.
2. If your fridge smells a bit, just get a new one. Much easier.
[Edit: comments are still bobbins in my new CSS, so I've switched back to the Green Marinée theme for the moment.]
I’m off up to Edinburgh again this evening: we’re putting Crestfall into the Traverse for another short run.
If you’ve got some time to kill on Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening and you’ll be in the area, why not pop along for some “cutting edge” contemporary drama? It got a five-star review in the Scotsman (which was a bit of a shock, believe me) so we must have done something right.
You can book tickets online with no extra charge, and you’ll make the good ship Nutshell very happy indeed.
(I really should be using this space to publish some notes about my design – the sort of thing that only sometimes ends up in industry journals could be made very accessable here. Once I get back, I’ll do something with that.)
Nine months on, it’s happened again: my iMac G5 has a serious problem. After a week or so of irregular problems with powering-up, she’s now in exactly the same state as before: black screen and overblowing fans. I’m betting my bottom dollar that I’ll be needing a third midplane board from Apple, as it looks like this is the same problem with the power management unit.
Annoyingly, even with the same quick turnaround as last time I won’t get this fixed until next weekend. But it’s been a while, so let’s recap what I’ve been up to since and during the Edinburgh Fringe:
- Assisted Simon Wilkinson with a searchlight installation for the opening of Perth’s new concert hall [Simon's photos / my photos]
- Lit Crestfall for Nutshell at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow [my photos / Scotsman review]
- Trained staff members at Fairbridge in using Macs for editing their own video projects
- A number of print design projects for CHA [research report (PDF)]
- Real-time reactive lighting and sound design for Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Improvised Plot in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
- Half of the improvising technical team for The Stand Players’ Fringe show, Completely Made Up
In addition, last week I devised a Murder Mystery evening for the Drama Society, set at Bretton Hall: I’d written a couple of these for the EUTC at the Bedlam, but this was a bit different – great fun, though.
Crestfall also gets another run later this week, this time at the Traverse in Edinburgh. We were all really pleased with the reception it got at the Citz, and it’s going to be another little adventure staging it end-on. Please do come along if you’ve got an evening free for a slice of genuinely contemporary theatre. I’ll buy you a drink.
(When I get a spare moment, part of my work in this final year of degree is to work out what I’m going to do once I get that piece of paper and can’t laze around as a student any more: looking at the list above doesn’t really help to clarify that much…)
