7 Days Till Panto - Day 3

Today we started the Technical Rehearsal - essentially a rehearsal where the progress is controlled by the technical side - so frequent pauses for lighting, scenery, flying, costumes and making them all fit. It's a very long day. Everyone starts at 10am, and the performers wear their costumes, but no makeup. This way costumes changes can be practiced - and we time things to check the are possible. Things like scene changes are also up against a clock. The first time the crew do them, the usual problems are things in the way, or the storage in the wings full of items that need moving to create space. Bit by bit they get faster. Today is also the first time the performers have headset mics, and the band are miked up and playing - so it's a mix of real sound effects, recorded sound effects and music. It is also the first time the performers get to hear the real sound. It's quite tedious - everyone has to stay available, so at a moments notice we can move on. We finished at 10pm - so a twelve hour day - and quite a few were just so busy, that getting food and drink was difficult.
Apologies - in the audio, squeezed in while trying to grab food, my brain got the name of the personal mixers the band use wrong - they are Aviom 16 channel mixers. In the pit we have drums, bass, sax, flute and trumpet, plus the MD on keys.

[@EnergeticEchidna]

Went to see this today and I gotta say everything was brilliant from the lights, the jokes, the sets, the soundtrack and most importantly the special effects. It is definitely interesting to see how everything is done.

[@paulears]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Joe - we've had a fair bit of sickness and we have to swap things which is a stressful time and it caught up with us backstage today when one of out stage management team went home ill between shows, which meant I had to cover her jobs - so a lot of running around. The secret switch for the toilet, making the teddy do it's stuff and making horses legs, eyes and ears do things that I bet many in the audience didn't even notice!

[@Sassy_Slayz]

I went to see this the other day with my school it was so good

[@eastanglianradio]

That's great! I didn't expect any people in NI to find this video - so I'm really pleased you found it and saw a little behind the scenes! Have a great Christmas

[@shitshow3398]

Let me get this started so the backdrops or clothes are the ones we’re you can’t see through them but the gaurze are the ones we’re you can see through them

[@eastanglianradio]

@@shitshow3398 Yes - pretty much that is it. Gauzes are often decribed as lots of knots, tied together - often in a diamond pattern. You can paint on the front, and if there is blackness behind, and lights on the front - they appear solid. Remove the lights at the front, and bring up lights behind - and it sort of bleeds through magically. Then once people are seeing behind, they fly up and out and often nobody notices. In old fashioned theatre - these often are part of transformation scenes. Paint a forest on a gauze, and put snow white's dwarf cottage behind it, and it magically appears! Backdrops and cloths (same thing really) are solid, so opaque. Gauzes have thousands of little holes, so are a bit like home net curtains.

[@shitshow3398]

@@eastanglianradio ok thanks