Nottingham - Lauren takes you into the technical world of Birdsong!

This week we have been at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham. Lauren, our Deputy Stage Manager, has been kind enough to write a guest blog about technical life behind the scenes of Birdsong...

What makes a great week on tour?

This can include many factors; digs, the town, how far you have to travel to get home afterwards, audiences, what you did and what you saw on your time off can all play a part in making a truly great week. But often, particularly for us backstagers, the theatre itself can be the most important thing. What makes a great venue? Well, I'll try and take you through it from the point of view of a tour's technical and stage management team and also give you an idea of what we get up to on the show (and not bore on too much about technical stuff!)


Location:
This pretty much affects everyone in the company. Many things can make a great location and can vary from person to person. If you're commuting or arriving by train, how near to the station is it? If you're driving, does it have free parking? Any parking at all? How near is it to the shops? - and that's not just for leisure time - Emily has to top up on consumable props each week and so an M & S or Tesco nearby can be a real time saver. Nottingham Theatre Royal ticks all the boxes. It's practically in the centre of the city, the metro stops right outside, there is a small newsagents opposite for any emergency supplies, a well known coffee shop which is not as good as Neros' next to that and Gareth was even able to park his motorbike right outside stage door!

The Load In: 
Nottingham Theatre Royal, in my opinion, is one of the best theatres in the country and one which holds a special place for me as it was my first ever touring venue on my first No 1 tour back in 2007. Tim S, our Company Manager, and I had been telling Gareth (our Technical Stage Manager) and Sinead (our Wardrobe Mistress) for weeks what a fantastic venue it is and how much they would like it, so when I arrived on Monday morning I was hoping it had lived up to our praise! Tim S and Gareth arrive at 8am on the Monday at each venue, meet the in-house crew and begin unloading the set from the trailer. Here is one factor of a great venue: the load-in. How far away from the dock (the unloading area which will lead onto the stage) is the wagon? Sometimes the dock is down a side alley so everything has to be taken off and manually transported into the theatre. Then sometimes the stage is on a different level to the street so everything has to be loaded onto a lift and then taken to the stage. As you can imagine (especially with the summer we're having) the weather can also play a big part here. Transporting scenery backwards and forwards in a downpour is interesting to say the least! Nottingham Theatre Royal has an amazing dock where the wagon can actually be parked inside and everything can be unloaded straight onto the stage! Whilst the crew unload the wagon, Gareth and Tim S direct where everything goes and begin laying the floor, rigging the lighting bars and hanging any flying pieces. (If you look back at Polly's Crawley blog you can see Liam's pictures showing the order in which everything is done.)

Our trusty Wagon!

Space Savers:
Nottingham stage is an excellent size and has a large area stage right where we can store anything that won't be used on stage that week; flight cases that hold our lighting and sound equipment, boxes of programmes, spare props as well as closer to the stage, props and furniture used in the show. This benefits everyone in the company in some way. Some of our bigger furniture pieces come on from stage right and it means our cast can easily get to them. It also means Sinead has a good area to do any quick changes and store her stage right wardrobe skip - most of the quick changes in the show are done there. 

Poppy and Arthur changing quickly...

Emily has a good area to set up her props tables and I have somewhere to store all of my sound boxes (of which there are many). Nottingham also has a fairly deep stage so once the set is up, there is a big area upstage for the cast to use as a 'cross-over' for getting from one side of the stage to another and also Sinead was able to set up a well-lit make-up station so the cast can apply and re-apply as the show goes on without having to go too far.

Dressing rooms can also play a bit part in making a great venue. How far are they from the stage? Is everyone close together? How are they furnished? Are there windows, etc. The dressing rooms in Nottingham are right next to the stage right wing and are all pretty close together. This is not just good for the cast, but also for Sinead and myself as it means we don't have to go too far to distribute costumes and personal props and also if there is a minor 'emergency' before or during the show (such as broken shoelaces, lost props etc) we don't have too far to go!


A wee backstage tour...

It's all about the people:
It might seem obvious to say but the in-house staff play a massive part in making a great touring venue. Stage door is often the first point of call for anyone arriving in a theatre. (Although some of the smaller venues don't have a manned stage door.) Nottingham stage door serves both the Theatre Royal and the Concert Hall so it is not unusual for their stage door keeper to be dealing with two separate companies at any one time as well as all the office staff working in the building. All of the stage door keepers this week have been excellent - helpful, friendly and cheerful - they were always happy to point you in the right direction and not just for inside the theatre. Want to know where the nearest WH Smith is? Or Wagamamas? Just ask at stage door.Front of house staff were all efficient and friendly too, ensuring that the audiences had as good a visit as we did!Then we come to the theatre crew. The size of the show usually dictates how many crew will be called in for the 'get-in' and 'get-out' and also for the show itself. We'll usually have between 8 and 10 crew for a get-in and out, and between 2 and 4 for the show. Nottingham Theatre Royal crew are excellent. Although Birdsong is quite big and technical for a play, our technical requirements are nothing compared to the big musicals that go to the venue. This means that, for their crew, our show is quite easy to put in and take out and so both the in and the out went quickly and smoothly. The crew also rotated on the show during the week, so everyone had contact with them at some point. This brings me onto the next section...


Not to get too technical...
Gareth and Tim S deal with much of the set and lighting in each venue. Each week a theatre will receive a technical 'ryder' which will have all our requirements for the week; how many crew we need, what technical equipment we need to use, what our wardrobe needs are etc. Included in this is a 'rig-plan' which states what lighting we need and where it goes. Gareth and Tim will supervise the rigging of lighting equipment on the bars above the stage. Some lighting equipment we tour ourselves and some of it will be the theatre's own. The plan will also show what colour gels we need for each light. Once this is rigged and the set is up, Tim S will work with the venue's electrical team to focus each light in the position it needs to be in. This usually happens in the afternoon and the time it takes can depend on what equipment the crew can use to transport the person focusing around the set and also the technical skill of the person focusing. Again, this week the team were excellent and Michael from the theatre, Tim and the lads had the focus done in no time at all - which is great for the rest of us as when the focus is happening there can be no other light on the stage area so it's not unusual to find myself, Gareth and Emily rummaging around in the dark occasionally calling 'who's that?' 'Me!' 'Who's me?' 'Oh, you!'


It is quite commonplace these days, with plays, for the DSM to operate the sound in addition to calling any lighting, fly or stage cues - which will be done by members of the in-house crew - as well as cueing actors, so part of my job is to install our sound system in each venue. Normally this would mean 'tying in' to an in-house front of house system plus a few touring speakers which would then be linked up to a computer operated by the DSM. However, as Birdsong uses a lot of sound to help aid the transitions from memory to war time and due to the nature of being set in the trenches of World War I, our sound rig is a lot bigger than you would normally expect from a play. We have 2 overhead speakers,  then 2 very large subs with 2 large speakers on top which sit upstage which do a lot of the work for the war scenes, 2 small (but heavy!) subs either side downstage with two smaller speakers which give a lot of the off stage effects, 4 small front of house speakers which are used to bring the audience inside the sound effects and make them feel part of it as well as tying in to the in-house front of house sound system. In addition to this we have 5 microphones used for amplification and effects for the tunnel scenes and music pieces (stop me if I'm boring you!) 

I usually arrive late morning, by which time the set is up and ready for me to position my speakers. With smaller venues it is not uncommon for the crew member allocated to help me set up the sound to be more of a general technician with some sound experience (as they are often restrained by staffing budgets), but in larger venues I usually have a dedicated sound technician from the theatre to help me. In Nottingham, I had a chap called Bob who, by coincidence, had trained with our sound designer Dom Bilkey. Bob was excellent and we zipped through the sound set up with lots of time to spare to make lots of noise later on while lighting were on a tea break. Incidentally, Bob broke the sound get-out record for 2 people (sometimes there are 3 or 4 of us working on the get-out as my sound system needs to go onto the wagon fairly early) with 47 minutes,  previously held by Dan in Derby with 47½ minutes. 


When the cast arrive we do a sound check for the microphones which Polly has spoken about before in her blog. I work quite closely with our Musical Director Tim VE to make sure we have a good balance of the microphones for all cast members and also for Josh's violin.

Sound check for letter writing scene

Dom has cleverly built reverb into the microphone cues for the tunnel scenes and for scenes in Act 2 for when Stephen is seeing the ghosts of his past. It's important at each venue for us to make sure we're still getting these levels of reverb but making sure that we don't stray into possible feedback territory where all you end up with is horrible high pitched noises! Dom also worked very closely with our lighting designer Alex Wardle to make sure that the lighting and sound compliment each other so that the transitions from memory to real time happen at the same speed and create the right effect. Alex has recently been nominated for a Technical Theatre Award for lighting and, as we found out during the week, Shaq the flyman at Nottingham Theatre Royal has also been nominated for flying and rigging. We have several flying pieces during the show, one of the most vital being the full black that comes in at the end of Act I - but I won't spoil it for those who haven't yet seen our show by telling you what it's used for! We have an in-house flyman for these and an in-house lighting operator for each show. Neither of these will have seen the show before the first night and they don't get any sort of dress rehearsal so are completely dependent on the information we give them and how I call their cues. It's here that a theatre crews' experience can really shine through. The guys in Nottingham, led by their stage manager Mac, make their shows run so smoothly and are so efficient that Tim S and I were saying on the first night that it was almost like Shaq (on flys) and Matt (on LX) had been with us since Basingstoke! Smooth flying of a light bulb or lampshade that it basically suspended on a length of fly wire without making it swing or jerk, is far more tricky than it looks - especially when factors such as the air conditioning can cause a piece to swing and my speakers are setting of explosions all around you!

Ready to go...

But back to the afternoons! Just after the sound check, Gareth and Tim S will spend time making sure that every single lighting cue is correct (there's over 114 of them) and Gareth will have to plot the moving lights which we tour, making sure they are moving where they are supposed to in each cue. During the show, the in-house op will look after the lights making sure there are no problems and that the haze machines are running how they should.With all this going on and bearing in mind that by the time the show starts, Gareth and Tim S have done 11 or 12 hours work already and Sinead, Emily and I about 8 to 10 - you really do appreciate a good venue and its staff! But once the first night is over, we do then have a bit more time to spare during the week. Sinead usually has a fair amount of repairs which go on throughout the week, Emily and I have understudy rehearsals...

Understudy letter writing scene

A picture I took of Lauren in U/S rehearsals - making sure everyone knows what they're doing!

...and any prop maintenance to keep us going. Gareth will have a few technical bits and bobs to do and Tim S is kept busy with running the company, but we do all find time to enjoy ourselves and the town and the pace is definitely slower for the rest of the week, which leads me to telling you about a few other things that we discovered/got up to which made Nottingham a great week.

• Nottingham Castle and Ye Old Trip to Jeralem Pub: Claiming to be England's oldest pub (dating back to 1189AD ) Ye Old Trip is carved into the rock of the sandstone caves at the foot of the castle. So named, because 1189AD was the date King Richard the Lionheart became King of England and shortly afterwards began his crusades against the Saracens. I am reliably informed (thank you Mr Stage Doorman!) that the real ale served there is some of the best in the land, yet as we had shows in the evening our visits were restricted to diet cokes and orange juices!

• The Turf: Emily, Matthew, Tim S and I discovered this on the first night and went back a few times. It's quite a small pub just across from the theatre and was pretty quiet throughout the week and has late opening hours. The best thing about this pub is that its tables are glass topped with a games console inside and joysticks on either side so you could play games of Pac Man, Space Invaders and other 80s nostalgia against each other whilst enjoying a pint! Emily and Matthew proved to be far more skilled at this than myself and Tim (although Tim was pretty competitive and kept choosing a game then discovering it was the wrong one 10 seconds into playing it and blaming me!) and won the coveted lolly pops.

• Arthur discovered an amazing little French restaurant not far from the theatre so we went there in between shows on the Wednesday. Completely authentic - they do a special pre-theatre menu which is £9.95 for two courses and a little bit more for three. With more commercial eateries on every corner of every town we visit it was really nice to eat at a more independent and traditional place with freshly prepared ingredients and first class service. Arthur wasn't keeping this secret to himself either - when we arrived, we saw that Poppy had brought some of her friends there on Arthur's recommendation. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I will check it with Arthur and get Polly to add it to a future blog. It really is worth going to.

• Red and Rock City: Sarah Jayne managed to get us a reserved area in the club 'Red' which is just around the corner from the theatre. Comfortably chic with an excellent selection of cocktails, we had a great night. When a few of us ventured upstairs to the 'smoking area' (see street) we saw the queue to get into the famous 'Rock City' live venue. I'd forgotten what a rock city Nottingham was until I went into the newsagents on the Monday and saw that not only was the cashier wearing the same Iron Maiden T-shirt as me, he was also playing them on the stereo! I'm afraid I'm now far too old and boring to brave the Rock City queue, which was about 1500m long and 3-4 people deep, but if you're up to it and into live rock or metal then it's definitely worth a look. 

• The theatre have a special deal with a gym and pool nearby where cast and crew can go for free. Tim S organised this for all those healthy enough to want it!

• Sporting activities: In preparation for a very important event in a few weeks time, the boys of the company (along with special guest star Matthew from Dublin) took part in a training event. You'll have to wait to see what this will be - I won't spoil it. Suffice to say that it was a little way out of town and Alastair left something there. Tim S went to collect it.....

• The Robin Hood Museum: My third trip to Nottingham and I still haven't gone. I would really like to. No one else ever wants to come with me. So I don't.........

Cue violins. And END.


P.S. If you've seen Birdsong and were impressed with the lighting (and flying if you saw us in Nottingham) then visit www.technicaltheatreawards.com where you can read more about Alex Wardle's work and vote.