Christmas at the Conservatoire is an annual collaboration between the School of Music and the MA Musical Theatre Programme. It is a Swing Band concert performed in the Stevenson Hall on the last week of term. This year, my role would be Deputy Technical Stage Manager, taking on the planning and pre-prep process of the production whilst my HOD was still allocated to another show, and assisting with the rig, performance, and strike of the final concert.
Though at first it appears quite simple, there were many technical challenges present in this show. This year, our designer had requested that the stage be surrounded by blacks, as he didn’t want to use the red tabs usually present at the back of the Stevenson Hall. We accomplished this by hanging a full black on a 10m length of scaff to cover the majority of the back wall, two 6m scaff lengths with half blacks on them for SR and SL of the orchestra riser – in the style of last year – and three 6m x 1.4m hard maskers to fully hide what remained of the red tabs on the back wall and to create a barrier between the DS edge of the SL black and the wall – thus creating a wing. The SR black was tied on in such a way as to lie flush with the edge of the organ, so as to show both the Christmas tree and the ‘Christmas at the Conservatoire’ gobo which the LD wanted to shine on the organ’s DS edge. The side blacks were hung on hemp and tied off to the catwalks and gantries, with the back black being hauled up on hemp and dead hung on 1.5m drifts attached to strops and turnbuckles hung from the roof beams. This back bar was also covered in fairy lights on the DS side, provided and rigged by the electrics department.
The US truss was switched out for a 10m span of H30V (comprised of two 3m and two 2m sections) which we hung on four 1/4T Lodestar motors – two of which were already in situ with the other two being swung from the FOH truss and hung on two additional beam clamps. The FOH truss was then flown on two Lodestar 1/2T motors. As in previous years, we extended the orchestra risers to the rear – this time with four 2’ x 8’ and one 2’ x 4’ deck sections on 585mm deck legs, so as to reach the – awkward – 610mm height of the back riser. Due to the narrowness of the new deck, and the fact that we were unable to screw into the Stevenson Hall floor, we were pressed to find ways to secure treads to either side for cast access, settling on ratchet strapping them around the legs of the deck to keep them secure and in place. A kick rail was fitted along the back for safety.
Snow formed a big part of the concert this year, with Grant purchasing bales of wadding to use over the stage, forming ‘snow drifts’ in front of the risers, along the kick rail, and over the band wedges and subs. This effect was achieved by teasing the fibres of the wadding at the edges to make it look less like it had been cut off a roll, and taping and securing it to look like it had naturally been ruffled and had been blown about by the wind. This task was repeated a lot, as the cast kept stumbling into the snow and kicking it out of place during almost every performance. There was also a snow drop during the last song. This involved six crew members on Catwalk One sprinkling snow from buckets onto the stage – the buckets secured to the railings with climbing strops and carabiners to safety them against falling.