Author: Gary Richardson

Conclusion.

This module has been, by far, the most difficult I have ever had to undertake in my three years of University. We kept with our original idea from the start and began to devise a script from scratch. Doing this left us behind compared to the other theatre company groups who bought the rights for a well known play. On reflection, I am glad we devised our own play despite the added stress we all succumb to. The final script the scriptwriters produced, I believe, was of a high standard and I am proud to be apart of the process.

The character I played was arduous to perform with believability, and from the feedback I received from my peers after the performance I believe I succeeded in performing my character to a satisfying standard. Learning to play the piano while performing blind was also problematic due to the fact that I have no prier experience playing the musical instrument. I was unable to learn an impressive tune to play in such a short space of time, but tried to perfect a simple melody I could play on stage that was enjoyable to listen to. If I had more time, I would of liked to of learnt a more intricate tune to play on the performance day.

Learning sound and light design was an interesting experience. Instead of listening to a piece of music and thinking “this sounds nice”, I had to listen and decide what fitted into the performance to enhance the stage image Stephanie Doe wanted to create. Our directed knew what she wanted when it came to music and it was my job to present her with samples of music that fitted with her vision. In some cases she knew exactly what song she wanted to be played, for example, she knew she wanted the song Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Emily Browning and it was my job to edit the song to fit into the performance. When I came to lighting design I had a lot more freedom into what the final product looked like and I was able to creatively experiment.

This module has taught me a lot when it comes to what a theatre company must do when it comes to the internal and external administrative outputs, and the different ways a theatre company can achieve this. This module may be one of the most difficult I have had to do, but also one of the most rewarding. As a theatre company we spent countless of hours rehearsing, and the same amount of hours on our documentation in order to create industry standard technical documents. I understand how marketing works and how a marketing team collates data, and how by using that data they create leaflets and advertisements that will appeal to a target audience. I understand lighting design more thoroughly, being Progeny Theatre’s lighting designer I understand how lights can create moods within the performance, and how they can be used to enhance a performance.

A Gothic Tale Magic Sheet.

A magic sheet is a pictorial ‘description of which channels in the lighting design are assigned to which jobs’ (Goudie, 2011: Online). This is the magic sheet for our show: A Gothic Tale Magic Sheet. Creating this took a lot of time as I was unsure what to do at first. This was a useful document to refer to when I needed to know what channels are assigned to what lighting state.

Work Cited

Goudie, E (2011) How to Make a Magic Sheet for a Lighting Design. Available at: http://www.helium.com/items/2110537-how-to-make-a-magic-sheet-for-a-lighting-design (Accessed: 21 May 2013).

A Gothic Tale Focus Chart.

Another document that was needed and had to be sent to the theatre technicians of the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre before the performance date was the focus chart. A focus chart is a useful guide that states what the intentions of each light. The chart shows graphically where each light should be focused and gives specific details on what the light should do and look like once rigged. This is our shows focus chart: A Gothic Tale Focus Chart.

This was a very useful guide for me to refer to when we began to rig and focus each light. Although more lights were added I could still use this document to aid me when giving the technicians information to complete the desired lighting effect.

A Gothic Tale Lighting Plot.

In preparation for our show A Gothic Tale, a lighting plot has to drawn-up and sent to the technical staff of the Lincoln Performing Art Centre (LPAC) before the date of the performance. A lighting plot is scale drawing of the stage and the position of the lights needed for the show. The drawing communicates what lights are desired and where the lights should be placed in relation to the stage. Our lighting plot is as follows: A Gothic Tale Lighting Plot. To create this document we had to go through each scene and decide what how we wanted to light each specific section of the stage. We also used the LPAC’s lighting rig document (LX Bars & FOH Slingco Lighting Positions) to aid us in our own lighting plot to create a document that would be easy to follow for the technical staff.

On the day of the performance I helped rig and focus the lights while referring to the technical documents Kate and I produced. I have learnt from this that, even though our documents were accurate, more lights are needed to create some effects. For example on our lighting plot, light ten and eleven are used to create a wash over the bed. While trying to focus I quickly realised more lights were needed to create the effect that I intended. If I ever needed to draw-up another lighting plot I would take this into consideration.

Lighting Design.

When it came to designing the lights I began to look at the script scene by scene to decide what the mood of each scene was, for example if the scene features an argument in or if the general mood of the scene is a happy one. Once our stage was set and I knew where items were going to be placed I could begin to design the lights. One of the key themes of our play was the feeling of corruption in a fairy tale world. I wanted to contrast the fairy tale image with the use of a natural lighting state in the bedroom and piano room to give the illusion that the world of the play is not a fairy tale despite what  some characters might believe. The piano room was set up stage left and the bedroom up stage right and to link the two together, whenever a character moved directly from the two sections of the stage, a thin natural white light would act as a corridor so the character moving would be lit, and also this would give the feeling that the character is remaining within the castle. I wanted to give the middle of the stage the illusion that it was outside and not apart of the castle. To do this I used the colour green to symbolise the outdoors. The final scene of the bloody chamber I had problems with designing because the scene would be set centre stage. I originally thought to light the stage red to symbolise death and danger but decided on a natural lighting setting. I chose this because I wanted to show that the bloody chamber, in the world of the play, is a real place, it is reality and it is apart of the castle so it would have the same lighting as the piano room and the bedroom.

1 2