With Flyplot v6 proudly gaffer taped to the flyrail, I sat through Stage and Piano and Stage and Orchestra sessions so repetitive that I knew this show to a greater level of detail than pretty much anything else. The teething problems that had come up regarding the automation desk had been sorted; turns out it helps if your flying piece is not screwed in position and is allowed to move freely. I remembered – eventually – how to programme multi-target moves, and the chain effect that had been secured to the flying lines actually sounded pretty good. These sessions were also when it became apparent that it was going to be a slow, slow show. Nothing live flew apart from the house black and the garage door, with that effect only happening once for all of 14s. It was at this point that we made the decision to request the crew be moved onto other shows, reasoning that they could learn more at the Citz or on CPP than they would standing around in a wing doing nothing for three hours. Dimitri, myself, and Fi would deal with anything that needed fixing in the morning sessions we had, but apart from that I’d be on flys alone; left to journal and write time-sheets. Once again, the flyman loneliness would kick in occasionally, my only point of human contact being Karyn – our LX op – and Susannah – our DSM. It was unfortunate that my conversations with one often concerned the other, but when you’re bored you notice the little things; like not receiving standbys or having GO yelled without a cue number. If there had been more than one cloth in this show, this would likely have proved a severe issue. As it stood, it was little more than an annoyance, and didn’t affect me drastically more than giving me something to write for the show report.
Our (Finally) Completed Set
A conclusion was made during our Wednesday night performance; Rebecca Bell is amazing at her job. As if the show hadn’t been going bad enough, a gentleman in the circle began to suffer health problems to the point that a show stop needed to be called. That was, once Front of House decided that having paramedics in the auditorium may be interfering with other audience member’s enjoyment of the piece. Calmly, Rebecca informed the audience that we would be holding, and commanded Karyn and I to get in a suitable lighting state and bring the full black in. In the fifteen minutes that followed, communication was maintained with every department as we waited to hear what we would be doing. Rob – our conductor – was tamed after he tried to yell at Stage Management when he was calmly informed of what was happening. I observed all of this from the small gap in the German masking at the DS point of the fly floor, adrenaline rushing at this new experience. You always remember your first show stop. When the time came to recommence, Rebecca told everyone exactly what she needed us to do, and to rapturous applause from the audience we restarted the show – just in time for the ice cream sextet. A situation like this needed a calm, controlled response, and Rebecca delivered. A notable downside, of course, being that Act 1 lasted 15 minutes longer than its already bloated running time.
My First Addition to the Fly Floor
Four shows went up, four shows came down, and with the final curtain the strike reared its head. I believe that everyone knew it was going to be at least a little bit painful, though the happiness on everyone’s faces at 9am that Saturday morning didn’t really show it. Between the sun shining through the opened roof and Dave’s yellow Hawaiian shirt everything was bright and cheery. My first priority was to grid as many bars as I could to allow the house to be attacked by workshop, then run motor control cables for the build motors to be plugged back up. Next, everyone set about taking down the SL dog legs and hard masking, retaining the steels on the flats so Ballet wouldn’t have to waste time re-running them. The garage door and its flats came down and were laid off to the side, before the rake started to be taken up piece by piece – allowing us as much open access to the dock as we could get so as we could begin shipping pieces into the StageHire van waiting for us in the loading bay. The houses came down a lot quicker than they went up, all of the additional onstage welding managing to be cut out with little to no hassle. By lunch time, most of the upstairs sections had been removed, with these safe grid panels, access treads, and front flats being removed pretty quickly once we got back. The pit infills came out with a few ‘gentle’ taps from a mallet and the floor panels were re-fitted and re-skinned. And then we kinda stopped. Malki and Dave had come to an arrangement with Dimitri that – whatever state the Ath was in at 7pm – everyone would go home. It was, in fact, 7:15 by the time we actually vacated, and I wasn’t the greatest fan of what we had left behind. Metalwork was stacked on the back wall, the dock was filled with bits of flat, pavement, and balustrade, and the void was a shambles of LX cabling and untidy blacks. I’d likely have cared less if I wasn’t aware that I’d be fixing it come Tuesday when we began work on ballet, but – either way – I didn’t like not leaving the venue as clean as I would expect to have found it. Having put so much effort into the rest of the production, it felt like we’d half-arsed a strike; and no amount of Malki logic could quash that feeling. However, as Stevie’s schedule commanded, we migrated to Jacksons for a well earned celebratory Ribena. At last, it was finished.
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