Shakespeare School Festival

We attended the Shakespeare Festival, which consisted of 7 plays performed by different schools, including Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, and Romeo and Juliet.

A table for all the shows and who ran tech for those shows: 

Show 1: Macbeth from Michael Lucius     

Video 1: This shows the collaboration between the light technician and me, I was running the sound from the software qlab with a queue stack we created in the technical rehearsal. During the show, we reminded each other when a queue was coming up, and we collaborated with each other to start sound and light cues together to create a nice effect. 

The collaboration in this show made me realize that collaboration is a vital part of theater. And it's important to have a teammate that you can depend on, for example when you lose track of the script.

I also learned a new method to track the script more easily from Luca, the lighting technician at the venue. The method is to go to the next light or sound cue in the script and memorize the cue line so I will be able to focus on the performers and the sound or light desk to run the next sound cue, rather than looking at the script.

Another thing that I learned is that I need to develop my own way of annotating the script so that I can understand and work very efficiently. For example, Luca labeled to increase the intensity of the wash as "Dim++" which I think is very efficient.   

Video 2: Here is the full video of the show from inside the tech booth, which I think was really smooth, the cues were hit at the right timing, except for the little accident where the curtains opened with the spotlight still on at the beginning of the show. We were supposed to start on a blackout. 

Evaluation: 

This show was the best show out of all the shows in the Shakespeare School festival, the teamwork and collaboration made the running of the show very smooth. Operating sound from a cue sheet, I collaborated with the lighting technician to make sure the cues were hit at the right time. And created a phenomenal show for the audience.

Show 2: Macbeth from St-Georges

In this show, I was operating the lighting using the lighting desk at the venue. The lighting states were already pre-programmed into the lighting desk using the cue sheet provided. And some changes were made during the tech rehearsal. All the lighting cues are programmed into a cue stack, which allows me to change to the next lighting state with just a button.  

Video 1: This is a video of me operating the lighting. There were some mistakes made in this show, I skipped a few lighting states. And because it was the first show of the Shakespeare school festival, I was still not very familiar with the lighting desk. Which resulted in me not knowing how to skip cues after I had missed one light cue.  

     

Video 3: This is a full video of the show from the audience's point of view (the camera is a bit overexposed).

Overall Evaluation: 

The overall performances throughout the Shakespeare Festival were very good. My understanding of the role of a lighting technician has increased considerably. I have found that having a well-prepared cast and director has a direct impact on the success of the performance. The cast needs to know their lines very well, as well as their entry and exits. And the director needs to provide the relevant cue sheets or marked scripts, and MP3 files before the tech rehearsal. During the tech rehearsals, my sound skills have developed because I have learned how to use qlab, which will help me in the future when running sound cues. Also the effective communication between the actors, directors, and us the technicians in the techbooth. I have made a lot of progress in both lights and sound compared to the beginning of the year, everything is very easy to do now, and I have a further understanding of the importance of collaboration when running a show. I can see myself progressing from the beginning of the Shakespeare school festival, from not hitting the cues at the right time, and missing cues because I lost track of the script, to me hitting all cues at the right time.