Month: April 2017

The rest of this week was spent propping, either from our own props store, from the internet, or setting up props visits to stores throughout Glasgow. The main issues that became immediately apparent to us was the wealth of 80s technology required for the show, and the fact that Andrew wanted to fill every ensemble scene with as many items as he could – be them notepads, microphones, or lanyards. These difficulties made themselves present from our first visit to the RCS props store, along with the realisation that – due to many pieces being unavailable – most of our props list would have to be sourced elsewhere. However, a set of rehearsal props managed to be cobbled together and we put them into rehearsals. Propping in Glasgow is hard. My first responsibility was to phone up company props stores over the city to see if we could arrange visits and borrows – thus limiting the amount of our reasonable, yet tight, budget that we would have to spend on new items. The first problem that arose, however, are that there are very few stores in Glasgow, and – of those – even fewer open to the idea of people borrowing from them. *cough* Scottish Opera *cough*. Despite this, meetings were arranged with Titan Props, as well as with the National Theatre of Scotland and the Tron theatre to go and browse. Thankfully Kenneth’s props references had been thorough enough to a point where I could send the stores an idea of what we were looking for prior to our arrival, saving time and effort on the part of both parties and limiting mindless browsing. This was especially evident with Titan, the manager of which ushered us directly to what she thought we’d need as soon as we stepped through the gap where the door should probably have been.

Titan Props appeared, certainly to me, a Godsend. The cave of memorabilia and items identical to our reference images let to us all leaving on a high – filled with the pride and knowledge that basically everything we needed, they had. However, we still had two more stores to look over so concealed our adoration until we found out what else we could get for free. This proved to be a good idea, as when Titan finally sent us their costings it became swiftly evident that we would be hiring little, if any, from them, lest we break the bank.

NTS was our next stop, this time with Kenneth in tow. This proved very useful as he was able to give us immediate answers to proposed items rather than having us wait for him to reply to an email. Emma, who showed us around, was very useful in pointing us in the right direction to what she believed could be useful to us. However, she did explain that NTS tend to quarantine props from previous productions, resulting in a store that I think, proved smaller than we had expected – or hoped – it would be. However, we did end up sourcing a couple of suitcases and chairs from there later on which was very useful.

Lastly, came Tron. We were not expecting to find very many items from here as – Babette explained – they tend to buy in pieces based on what show they’re doing for the length of that run. However, the woman who showed us around was a former production student so understood exactly he position we were in and so was able to talk us through suggestions for things like pick-ups and returns of larger items. Having someone like this made the experience so much easier and really showed the benefits of links like this. Tron also had a box filled with retro tech and broken cans sets and belt packs which was promptly raided and shoved into a bag with a borrow sheet. Overall, the stores were an invaluable resource for use as a team, and made the part of the process which I was looking forward to the least, vaguely pleasant.

This allocation began with a coffee meeting with our Stage Manager, Babette, at 9am on a Tuesday morning. In our chat, she outlined for us exactly what she expected out of each member of the team and what help and support she was there to provide us with. Furthermore, she asked us to comment on what we felt our personal strongest skills were and how we felt we could best use them to contribute to the process – be that creatively through making props or using people skills to set up meetings. To have a chat with an H.O.D. like this at the beginning of an allocation was great as it immediately broke down any barriers and informed us of where we stood in regards to our duties. It was also nice to reflect on what we felt our strongest skills were and what we knew we had to improve on; and the free coffee was a perk.

Following this conversation we made our way to the rehearsal studio where we set up for the model box presentation. This gave us a chance to hear from our designer, Kenneth, and director, Andrew, on how they envisioned the show looking, both from a visual and directorial standpoint. It also let the cast become aware of who we were and what we do, a dynamic that would become important later on.

Day two came with the sound of steel deck and drills as we assisted the Technical Stage crew to install the rehearsal platform into the room, so that the cast and creatives could begin to gain an understanding of what space they had available. This experience was also greatly beneficial to us as Stage Management as having a real life representation of a set in front of you immediately propels you into thinking about what the practicalities and challenges of such a huge space could be. The deck, combined with the markup which we then laid down gave me my first realisation of just how big this show would be. The markup itself was not without its challenges, however, as Babette had pre-taken all of her measurements from points that, as it turned out, were not present within the rehearsal room. This led to us having to re-measure the plans from different points and navigating through scaff legs and under deck with our tape lines. I also had to restrain my compulsion to work measurements in millimetres as it led to more communication trouble than was worth the hassle.

‘Chess’ is a musical – with score by Benny Anderson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice – which is set at the height of the Cold War in 1975. It follows two chess players – Frederick Trumper of the United States and Anatoly Sergievsky of the Soviet Union – as they compete against one another at the World Chess Championship in Merano, Italy. However, Freddie’s drug habits and bad temper cause him to lose his world championship title to his Russian counterpart – along with his ‘second’, and assistant, Florence, who falls in love with the emotionally troubled Soviet. After winning, Anatoly defects to the West, leaving his wife, Svetlana, and his two children, in order to live with Florence in England. A year later, the competition resumes in Bangkok, Thailand. Here, Anatoly tries to defend his title, whilst his former adviser – Molokov – uses Svetlana to try and blackmail him into returning to the USSR. Anatoly wins the championship again, but decides to return to the Soviet Union anyway in order to help free Western prisoners of war from the Russian regime.

My responsibility on this show is to be an Assistant Stage Manager, working alongside fellow ASMs, Rosie and Rachel, Deputy Stage Manager, Ryan, and Stage Manager, Babette. This involves responsibilities like assisting in propping the show, along with helping to run the wings and stage when we reach tech and performance. As I had never ASMd a show of this scale before I was initially excited to see how it would contrast with my former experiences of Stage Management. This show also comes with the added technical challenge of touring to another venue, meaning each prop would need to be catalogued and able to be transported, something that we would need to consider from the outset. As the design of the stage also expanded into the wings, this would also place additional pressure on on the SM team, as we would have to ensure our props cabinets and furniture storage was organised in a way so as to be easily accessible to actors, but without restricting their ability to navigate the backstage areas – something that would be particularly challenging on the smaller Athenaeum stage.