'It Was 50 Years Ago Today!'

Quoting as I did in my blog post title, to the Beatles album track 'Sergent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.' It's something of an anniversary this weekend. It's exactly 50 years ago that I started work, as a very green 18-year-old, when I went to work as a student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. I was taken down to Cheltenham by my mum in the Land Rover because it was snowing heavily and I had lots of luggage, including a bicycle to take. I had to live in the Y.M.C.A. because my mum didn't think I'd be able to manage on my own in a flat. I was eventually to live with a family in Cheltenham as a lodger. Whether I would have managed on my own in a flat is open to doubt. I wasn't given a chance to find out, but I suppose, as I was the first of her five sons to go away from home, she was only doing what she thought was the best for me. 

I was thrown into the deep end because that first Monday I went to work at the Everyman was the technical rehearsal for the latest play, an adaptation of 'Jane Eyre,' which had Angela Richards as Jane and Philip Voss playing Rochester. It would have been quite an eye-opener for me, as generally a technical rehearsal can be a very long and tiring experience, going on all day and probably into the early hours of the next day. The play is virtually taken apart and lighting and sound cues rehearsed, along with scene changes and it will be the first time the actors as well as the stage management, got to see and experience the set. Some of the scene changes could be very complicated, with the set consisting of several wheeled units or 'trucks,' built on platforms which had castors underneath them and could be difficult to manoeuvre over the stage floor which was built at a slight angle or 'rake,' meaning if you weren't careful, they could disappear over the edge of the stage and possibly fall into the audience, so each 'truck' had to be equipped with bolts which could be pushed into drilled holes in the stage floor to prevent them moving once in place. On the following Tuesday there would be a dress rehearsal, that is, if the technical rehearsal went on too long on the Monday. This would be almost like an actual performance, but without an audience, although the director would be making notes throughout and after the dress rehearsal he or she would gather all the actors and stage management to give these notes, for example, could a scene change be done quicker, could doors be prevented from opening or squeaking unnecessarily etc etc, as well as tweeking sound or lighting cues and endless other things that might need rectifying before the first night.

I think I was put on helping during scene changes. There would be a 'curtain drop, which was meant to be very short and you'd have to go on stage and place a prop or take something away. It could be barely a minute so you had to absolutely sure what you were expected to do. It could be quite difficult if you had to set a piece of furniture, probably carrying it on with another member of stage management and make quite sure it was positioned correctly. Coloured tape was put on the stage floor and usually the 'up-stage' legs of, say, a table or chair, would be marked and it could be quite difficult to find these coloured marks, particularly if you had such a short time to find them as well as the fact that there probably wasn't much light to see by, and then exit rapidly before the curtain went up on the next scene of the play. If it was a prop that was vital to the plot, or the piece of furniture was wrongly positioned, it could ruin the performance. Can you think of a prop, such as a vital piece of evidence in a 'whodunnit', if it's missing and the police, who are looking for evidence, suddenly that vital 'prop' is missing? Or the murderer looks in the drawer of a desk to find the weapon to shoot another character, and it's missing? Could be devastating. So, you needed to be on your toes when setting as well as striking props.

Another couple of anniversaries in 2019. It was on 20th July 1969 that the first humans went to the moon and walked on the surface. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin explored the lunar surface while Michael Collins remained in the Apollo 11 module, piloting the capsule around the moon. I recall watching this historic event unfold on television, in really grainy black and white pictures. I'm not sure I was that interested and the television coverage seemed to go on for a long time, even though the picture quality wasn't particularly brilliant. A D.S.M. at the Everyman insisted on me going to a jewellers shop in Cheltenham to get a model of the Apollo module which was on display in their window. As part of our job, we had to go and beg, steal or borrow items from local business for use as props in the plays we were staging during that season. It took me a while to pluck up courage to go and ask for whatever was required in a particular production, such as a tea set or, in one case, a samovar. If the business lent an item they got a credit mention in the play's programme and also got a couple of free tickets for the play. So, it didn't take me much courage to go and ask in that jeweller's to get that model. I duly came back and presented it to the D.S.M., who would have been more senior to me in the pecking order. Why couldn't he have gone and asked himself? I don't know, looking back, but probably to see if I would obey orders or just because he couldn't do it himself.

The other anniversary would be the fact that I passed my driving test whilst working in Cheltenham. I had been taking lessons before arriving in Cheltenham and had my first test during the break in the season and I'd gone home for the week. Consequently I had failed, and when I had returned to Cheltenham, I resumed taking lessons and then went on to take a second test, which I passed and the my parents bought me my first car, a two-tone green Ford Anglia, which cost the princely sum of £75! It lasted probably two or three years until it finally bit the dust. It had an odd habit. When it rained, you put on the windscreen wipers and if you went fast, they moved slowly, but if you were driving slowly, say, going up a steep hill, they went fast. Can't see how or why, but presumably they were linked to the speed of the engine. Also, you dipped the lights, when you drove at night, by using your foot on the floor, to depress a pedal near the accelerator pedal. It's a pity modern cars don't have this pedal to dip the headlights. Something you don't have to do nowadays when you learn to drive, and that's to use hand signals. Sticking your hand out to show you're intentions to move left or right or slow down seems a rather foolhardy thing to do. Most likely if you were to do it today you'd get some strange looks and possibly get your arm knocked off by a passing vehicle. 

Working In Theatre- Stage Management Duties- Part 13

Once the play has been rehearsed for the given period, the show will then move into the theatre, particularly if it has been rehearsed elsewhere, although some shows are rehearsed using the stage, and the set mark-out will fit into the standing set of the show which is running currently. It is at this stage that a technical rehearsal will be done, which enables all the technical elements to be tried and tested. Stage management will have worked over the previous weekend, having 'struck' the previous play's set, and constructed the incoming show's set on the stage. All the rigging, flying, lighting etc will have been put in place before the set in built. This used to be done on a Sunday, and we would have worked until around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning removing the set of the outgoing show, sorting out props which have to be returned and doing general housekeeping to allow the new show to be set up.

The technical rehearsal is so that  every cue, for lighting, sound, scene change, costume change can be tried out. At this point neither the actors or stage management will have been able to work with the set. The actors will also have all the props they need, rather than the 'stand in' ones that they would have had in the rehearsal room. A technical can last all day, into the early hours of the next day, and in some cases they can drag on into the next day with a break in between, but this is rare. It depends on the complexity of the play. Obviously the more cues, of whatever type, the more stopping and starting there will be. At the end the director will give notes to all concerned, in particular stage management will have to deal with such things as doors sticking, wobbly flats, and a whole host of things, before the first dress rehearsal. Sometimes the first dress rehearsal can follow on almost immediately after the technical, and then one final dress rehearsal the afternoon the play opens. This can be incredibly trying and when stage management have been working since the final performance of the previous play on, say, a Saturday (which was how we worked when I was in rep.) and the next show opens on the following Tuesday evening, that's a good four days solid work with very little sleep.

As with any show, the prompt corner is the operation centre who the whole show. Whoever has been 'on the book' during rehearsals will now be in control here. The 'Book' will, by now,  be made up with  all the cues market in. If a line spoken by an actor is the cue for, say, a lighting or sound effect, then the 'book' with have it market in clearly. In most theatres there is a cueing system using lights, rather like traffic lights in the street, but obviously a good deal smaller. You give a warning that a cue is coming up for the operator, usually a red lights, and when the cue comes, you give a green light. At Ipswich theatre there was a three-light system, which had an additional blue light. The idea being that the operator of sound, lighting or whatever, would flash the blue light to indicated to the prompt corner that they were standing by. It was quite a good idea as it allowed you to be sure the operator was ready. On one occasion at Ipswich I was doing the book for one show, I forget which now, and I hadn't got the blue light from he lighting operator. I had given him the standby, but he hadn't indicated that he was actually standing by. It got closer and closer to the actual lighting change, fade or whatever and I began to panic. It just happened that the lighting board was above the prompt corner, and was accessible by a metal ladder. I had to climb up and see where the operator was, and found him asleep! I had to operate the lighting board as he wasn't awake in time to give the cue! A bit of a seat-of-the-pants situation!

If you were put on props for a show you would be expected to go out and find the relevant items listed for the play in rehearsal. I can recall trudging the streets of Cheltenham as a very green student A.S.M. I became a good deal more savvy at going into shops and asking if we could borrow such-and-such item or items, the owner of a particular shop would be very trusting that we weren't going to damage whatever the item was or even sell it. They would be given free tickets for the play, or the next one in the season, and have a credit in the play's programme. At Ipswich Theatre I remember borrowing a white linen tablecloth for a play. Unfortunately it got badly stained with something which would not wash out. We had kept the wrapping in which it would have been carefully folded for display in the store, but when it was returned it was re-folded, so that the stain wouldn't show! Goodness knows what Debenhams would have done when they discovered that the tablecloth was stained when it was opened up. I just imagine that it would have been sold in a sale or probably not put out for sale at all.

Working In Theatre-Part 8

From working at Greenwich Theatre I next went to work at Liverpool Playhouse. Something of a culture-shock, I suppose because it was a greater  distance from home and Greenwich was within the London area. Looking back from the vantage point of some 40 years I think I should have stayed in Greenwich, but when you are offered a job elsewhere it seemed a good move, but to be honest the move to Liverpool wasn't the best decision I've made.

I arrived in Liverpool at the weekend preceeding the opening of a production of 'Hamlet.' I have to admit to be something of a 'Hamlet' obsessive, built up over the years, but in 1971 at the age of a mere 20 years, it was something of an enigma (as I expect it would be to most people.) The previous show's set  was being 'struck' or dismantled and the new show (Hamlet) was being bought in and there would be a technical rehearsal over the following week and then several dress rehearsals and then the play would have opened on the Tuesday. 

The set was fairly straightforward, with most of it being a large coffin-shaped raked floor which came out over the orchestra pit and with most of the scenes created with 'flying' pieces, I seem to remember them being something like flags or curtains. The fly system at the time at Liverpool Playhouse was a counterweight system, as opposed to any flying being done manually, sheer brute force being involved with stage-hands pulling on ropes or 'hemps' suspended over the stage through a grid and then cleated-off on the fly floor, which is usually above the wing space in most theatres. It was one of my jobs on this production to operate the counterweight-flying for these curtain pieces during some of the scene changes, but nobody had thought to train me on the best way to operate this. During the technical rehearsal it is the stage management crew who has to be able to learn to do any scene changes that are required, along with the lighting cues, sound effects  setting of props and to make sure the actors enter on time and get used to working on the set, which up until that point they would not have seen. 

The scene changes were done in pitch black, for example, the lighting would fade on one scene and the scene change would be done in the dark and then the lights would come up on the next scene, the actors would either walk on as the lights faded up or would be discovered on stage. I was supposed to bring in one of these pieces of curtain and it was supposed to be set exactly in place, without it moving or hitting the floor and not curled up. But, unfortunately, I pulled the rope the wrong way and when the lights came up the confounded thing was there, on the stage, for all to see, in a crumpled mess on the floor. You can imagine the embarrassment for me, I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
This production had John Castle playing Hamlet and Joanna David playing the part of Ophelia. She is currently to be seen on I.T.V. playing the part of the Duchess of Yeovil in the series 'Downton Abbey.'

One of the problems with the counterweight system was that the ropes that operated it had to go down into the theatre basement which often got flooded and as a result of being in water these 'hemps' or ropes tended to shrink slightly, so when you came to pull on them, because they had shrunk slightly, it was very difficult to get a purchase on them, making the operation of them  very difficult and therefore smooth flying up, or down, quite difficult. 

Another job was to go up into the grid to put weights into the cradles which made the system function, the actual 'counter-weights.' This was one of my least-favourite jobs (I doubt, with modern-day health and safety regulations it would be allowed) as I suffer from vertigo and having to climb up some 50-60 feet to the grid and looking down onto the stage was not my favourite job, as well as it being very dusty up there and very hot and very unpleasant. Also, having to handle the weights and putting them in the cradles so that the scenery was balanced correctly was not very pleasant. I think at that age I was not particularly used to saying 'please don't send me up there!' but I just got on with it. I think today if I was asked to do something similar I would refuse and not feel in the least embarrassed to tell the ther person why.

Working In Theatre- Part 1

I had always been madly keen on theatre since I was about 5 years old, not particularly acting, more in the production side of things. My family had absolutely no knowledge of the world of theatre, as they were all in farming. Anyone who came along with any sort of information regarding how I could get into 'The Business' had their brains picked! I had originally intended getting in to television to do floor management, and had been told by the B.B.C. that I would need to have a couple of years experience in theatre stage management before I could work in television. As it turned out, I never did get to work in television, preferring a different career path. I was going to go to university and get a degree in performance or at least something theatre-related. I was lined up to go to Bristol University, but my A Level mocks weren't very good, so I attempted to go another route and apply directly to theatres and get some sort of stage management post. I wrote to a whole host of theatres across the United Kingdom, and eventually got an interview at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham. They were running a Student A.S.M. scheme (Assistant Stage Management), where you were taken on for a year and learned stage management 'on the job' as it were. I was paid the princely sum of £1. 10s (or £1.50 in decimal currency) so my parents had to subsidize me the whole time I worked there, which went towards my upkeep, board and lodging and so on. 

I began my career on 16th February, 1969. I was taken to Cheltenham by my parents in the Land Rover, as it was a very cold, snowy, day. I even took my bicycle with me, as it was felt that I would need this if I was to need any sort of transport. I had been given the address of suitable accomodation in Cheltenham, which my mother did not think I would manage in, as it was my first foray into living away from home, so it was decided that I would live in the local Y.M.C.A. I have a feeling that I must have lived there for several months until I moved into a house with a family, no doubt my mother found this by placing an advert in a local Cheltenham newspaper.

The first show I worked on was an adaptation of "Jane Eyre." That first Monday was the Technical rehearsal of that show. It had Angela Richards as Jane Eyre and Philip Voss as Mr Rochester in the cast. I have to admit to being extremely 'green' as regards life and how things worked. I think we lived a very sheltered existence!

There was a very complex scene change that was rehearsed during this Technical, and I recall being detailed as to what was to be 'struck' during this particular scene change. Someone put something on the set, (I seem to remember it was a portfolio, one of those things artists use to store their artwork.) and I inadvertantly removed it! I was described as being 'over-zealous' but the stage manager!

The season was run in the tradition of 'repertory' theatre, a basic company of actors, appearing in a season of plays, which ran for two weeks. A show would run for two weeks (although I seem to remember some shows ran for three weeks.), and while one show was running, the next one would be rehearsed, one would end it's run on a Saturday, and that night, once the curtain came down, the old set was 'struck' and the next show's set would be constructed. We were supposed to work until 2 a.m. and go home to sleep, and then return the following morning to continue building the new set. On the Monday there would be a Technical rehearsal, which could go on for hours, sometimes into the small hours of the next morning, where all the lighting, sound and other cues were put into the action, all scene changes, costume changes and so on would be rehearsed and then put in. Then, depending on what time there was left, there would be a dress rehearsal, where everything rehearsed during the Technical would be put into a run, which was, in effect, a performance, but minus an audience. On the Tuesday there would be another rehearsal and then the show would open that evening. Sometimes there would be a very brief gap before the first performance. Then it would be straight into the First Night performance.

There would be a couple of days break before the next show went into production. The cast and stage management would meet for a read-through of the play, and the designer of the show would present a scale model of the play's set. This would have been produced from the working drawings/ ground plan he/she would have produced, and these  would be used by stage management to mark out the floor of the rehearsal studio. This would give the precise position of such things as stairs, doors, windows, fireplaces etc so that during rehearal the actors would have some idea where to move to on the set and time such things as entrances/exits. This marked-out floor would then be set up with furniture, not necessarily the actual furniture that would be used when the play was produced on stage, but it would allow the actors somewhere to sit when the directions required it. Also, during the 'blocking' of the moves, the D.S.M. would write the moves in the prompt copy and keep these moves up to date as these often got changed as the play progressed through rehearsal. He/she would also have to make notes as to things like the positioning of props, cues for music/sound effects, costume changes, off-stage sound effects (or 'spot effects, such as doorbells, gunshots, crashes etc.) but generally these points would be noted by an A.S.M. (Assistant Stage Management) who would also sit in during rehearsals.

Once the moves were completed for all the play, stage management would be sent out to find props, the items that the actors would use during the play, from firearms, to bits cups and saucers, hairdriers, books, infact, any item which was used on stage. Some of the more difficult to find items were often hired from specialist firms, such as guns, period things such as sports equipment, but generally we had to go out and scour the town to beg, steal or borrow items from local businesses. You had to learn to be quite imaginative as regards borrowing things. The various shops that lent things would get a credit in the play's programme and they'd get free tickets, but it could be quite difficult to find some items and it could be quite a feat of effort to walk into a shop and brazenly ask to borrow something which was worth a fortune, such as a piece of antique furniture which I presume was insured, because they was always the possibility of it being damaged whilst being used on stage. For instance, a piece of scenery might fall on it particularly item during a scene change. Or it could get lost or stolen. Fortunately nothing did happen with any of the items we borrowed, but the theatre must have some sort of insurance policy to cover such likely events.