Royal Court - Birdland. Week 2 - Day 1. WAC Arts, Belsize Park.

Today I got to WAC Arts for 9am so that myself and the rest of the Stage Management team could unpack the flight cases from Friday evening. 

When everything was unpacked, I sat in on rehearsals. Afterwards, myself G. Sharman and S. Hopkins went to Hampstead Theatre to collect 3 office style chairs that S. Hopkins had arranged to pick up. We now had the correct amount of rehearsal chairs. 

After rehearsals finished, the Stage Management team stayed on to mark up the rehearsal room with the measurements of the Royal Court Theatre in order for the cast and director to get an idea of how much space they have when its transferred back during Tech week. The following images were photos that I took throughout the mark up.

   

On Tuesday I reconciled with S. Hopkins and G. Sharman for a props meeting. The rest of the week consisted of us sourcing the props that we hadn't already found, so that we had something to present to the director and set designer at the end of the week. 

Royal Court - Birdland. Week 1 - Day 5.

After my university lecture I met the ASM at Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage at around 3pm to pick up two office style chairs that he had previously arranged for us to borrow as rehearsal props. We took these, as well as one other chair that we had found at the Royal Court into the rehearsal room for the cast to start practising with. We required 3 more chairs so that each cast member had their own chair to use.  

Upon our arrival back at the Royal Court, we continued to look for cereals. We progressively started to pack up what we needed to take with us to WAC Arts from the office. Rehearsals finished at 6pm; S. Hopkins, G. Sharman, and myself went to the rehearsal room to begin packing up.

We stripped the rehearsal room and packed the flight cases up with:
 -  2 x bags of costume
 -  costume rails
 -  props (standard lamp, mirror, cereals)
 -  tea/coffee/biscuits/kettle/plastic cups/mugs
 -  design print outs
 -  timeline of the show
 -  printer

The chairs were kept separate. I labelled them with numbers and the name of the theatre or drama school we borrowed them from to avoid confusion when we have to return them. It took us just over an hour to pack everything up. Everything was to stay in the rehearsal room over the weekend. It was then going to be loaded into a van and transferred to Belsize Park first thing Monday morning for myself, G. Sharman, and S. Hopkins to unload and unpack into our new rehearsal room. 

Royal Court - Birdland. Week 1 - Day 3/4.

Week 1. Day 3/4. 

Today I was called in for 9.15am to set up for the Production Meeting that was scheduled to start at 9.30am. Staff from Stage Management, Lighting, Sound, and Production attended as well as the Director, and the General Manager. 

Myself, G. Sharman and S. Hopkins raised the questions that we had gathered together from our discussions in the office. As of next week, the rehearsals will be based at WAC Arts in Belsize Park. Therefore, the main priority for us by the end of the week was to make sure that everything required for rehearsals was to be packed up into the flight cases provided, ready to be moved to Belsize Park the following Monday.

At around 10am, myself and G. Sharman left the theatre to go and pick up the standard lamp from the Orange Tree in Richmond. 

When I returned back to the office, I started researching for Russian supermarket brands/ cereals. I. MacNeil, the set designer, showed us a box of Trix cereal that he had collected from the USA which we were to use as our guide. We were looking for branding that was eccentric and colourful.

I made a list of Russian supermarkets in Central London and went to visit them during the day. These included shops in Baywswater, South Ealing, Brick Lane, and East Finchley. I was out researching for the majority of the day. Unfortunately, I had no luck in finding any cereal matching the brief I was given. For rehearsal use, I went to Partidges in Sloane Square and bought a box of Fruit Loop Cereal as it was the closest thing I could find that could be used as a rehearsal prop for the time being. It prices at £6.99 a box, so I am going to have to find a cheaper alternative for the rest of the rehearsal period.

Day 4 (Thursday 6th March) consisted of me sourcing the same props. 

Royal Court - Birdland. Week 1 - Day 2.

Today I was called to the theatre again for 9am. I reconciled with the ASM and we went over the props list that we had both gathered from the read through and speaking to the Director and Set Designer. The following is a copy up of the props I noted down with the ASM for that week:

- 6 x shell chairs with swivel bases.
- Russian food packaging - cereal packets. Froot Loops? Partridges £7.99?
- Practical black firing gun.
- Brandy Glasses (Plastic) One small, one big. 
- Champagne Flutes - plain glass.
- Black shots of sambuca.
- Buzzer for hotel scene. Panic button type for the journalist scene.
- Standard 80s style lamp. (Patterned)
- Watering can. Same style as the one in the office.

Director's Wishlist

- Keyboard. Small. In rehearsal room by the end of this week. 
- Skinning up kit. Roll up cigarettes.
- Photo shoot umbrella.
- Professional camera with flash.

- Crockery/ Cutlery.
- Fountain Pen.

From this list I began to contact theatres and drama schools in London to see if any had the props we required. We asked to borrow them for a couple of weeks for rehearsal use. The following theatres were the ones that I contacted throughout the day:

- The Young Vic.
- Hampstead Theatre.
- The Almeida Theatre.
- The Tricycle Theatre.
- Central.
- The Bush Theatre.
- Regents Open Air Theatre.
- ETT.
- RADA.
- LAMDA.
- Guildhall.
- The Donmar Warehouse.

The following image is a picture of the type of chair that we were looking through in our search:

I received emails from those that I had contacted regarding borrowing props, however, no one had what we needed. Fortunately, the ASM managed to find a standard lamp at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. We both arranged to go and pick this up the following day

Royal Court - Birdland. Week 1 - Day 1.

This week I started at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, as a Stage Management Intern working on the upcoming show, Birdland. 

I was asked to get to the theatre for 9am so that I could meet S. Hopkins, who is going to be my placement mentor for the first two weeks of the rehearsal period and who is also the Stage Manager of the show for the first two weeks. I also got to meet G. Sharman, (ASM), and I. Andlaw, (DSM) who I will be working closely with for the duration of the rehearsals. 

The full cast were called for 10am to 'The Site' (the rehearsal room) for the read through. Myself and the rest of the Stage Management team attended alongside C. Cracknell (director), S. Stephens (writer), V. Featherstone (artistic director), D.Hannan (Assistant Director) and I. MacNeil (Set Designer). 

After the read through we all attended the design meeting to discuss the set and the costume with the designers which proved to be very exciting for me as a student trying to understand the different areas to the business. 

After the design meeting myself, the ASM, and the SM went to the Stage Management office to start trying to source turquoise swivel base chairs, as proposed by the set and production designer. I was told that the budget for props is to be roughly £1000. 

The rest of the day consisted of me doing little jobs for S. Hopkins around the office. This included creating cast head shots on Microsoft Word for the Stage Management team; I also photocopied the costume designs and inspirations from the designers portfolio that were to be stuck up in the rehearsal room:

SMOG - February 24th, 25th, 26th 2014

                       

I was appointed the role of ASM 3 days before the first performance on Monday 24th February as it became clear that the cast needed extra help backstage. I attended the rehearsal on Friday 21st February where a total of three runs were performed for mostly my benefit as I had never seen the show before. It not only helped me gain an understanding of the show from a backstage perspective, but it also helped me realise where abouts I was needed during the show. 

My que sheet was always being added to and edited. Here is a final copy of my que sheet which was used throughout all four performances: 

Here are some images of the jobs I was in charge of as ASM backstage: 

This is a picture of the escalator that I had to push on and offstage after the station scene, SL. 

This is a picture of the mat that I regularly had to help the cast move on and off stage. The size of the wings made it extremely hard for the cast to manoeuvre the mat as it regularly risked the props table and some of the cast members being exposed as the SL curtain would get in the way. Therefore, I made sure that I was always around in the SL corner so that we could prevent this from happening. This wasn't so much of an issue at Jackson's Lane Theatre as there was a lot more space backstage. It made  the scene change a lot quicker and cleaner. 

This is a picture of the trapeze rope, SL, that I had to pull onto the hook screwed into the wall after Miss Fay and Mr Harper's trapeze routines. 

Jackson's Lane Theatre, Highgate.

On Wednesday 26th February, SMOG moved to Jackson's Lane Theatre. I arrived at 11am to start the Get In. 

The director, Mitch Mitchelson, and the cast members were adamant that they wanted to get another run in as they wanted to get used to performing in a new space. Therefore, I was needed backstage during the scenes that needed attention before the evening show. 

I also assisted the Get Out which consisted of packing up the van with the sound and lighting equipment, props, rope, the trapeze and all of the costumes. We had to make sure that all of the dressing rooms had been emptied out, and that the theatre was in the same condition as it was before the Get In that morning. 

Finborough Theatre, Earl's Court. (27th January- 22nd February) - Box Office.

My main job throughout my internship at the Finborough was to run Box Office for either the matinee or evening show alongside the General Manager, and 2 other interns. 

Around an hour and a half before the Box Office opened the General Manager would print off the tickets sheet from online and I would have to use this to fill in the returns sheet. 

This is an example of what the ticket sheet looked like once printed out: 

1.

A similar sheet is printed out in the same format for comps, press and ticket buyers that haven't already paid for their ticket: 

2.

The ticket sheet states the surname and forename of the audience member, how many tickets they have purchased and the price of the ticket. Ticket prices range from around £10-18. Standard tickets are £18 and concession tickets (students and pensioners) are less. 

This is an example of what the returns sheet looked like once I had finished filling it in: 

3.

At the top of the sheet, I would have to write the name of the production e.g 'Carthage', the day, the date and what type of show it is e.g matinee or evening. I would then fill out the sheet with the surnames of the audience members who had confirmed that they were still attending the performance.

The surname of the ticket buyer is written on the spaces provided. The ticket price is written next to it. For example, 'Laser' purchased 2 tickets; one ticket was £16 and the other was £10. The line underneath is marked with a '-"-' to represent the second ticket. (See above photo) 

I would fill the comp, press and 'to pay' tickets in afterwards. A similar process would happen - the surname of the ticket holder would be written in the space provided, followed by a small C in the corner (comp), a small P (press) and '16' (to pay £16 at box office). 

I would then have to transfer this information onto the actual tickets themselves. Here is an example: 

4.

On the back of the tickets I would write the surname of the ticket buyer and how many tickets they have. For example, 'Adams x 1' (see photo no.4). As you can see from the picture above, all of the tickets are numbered. This number has to match the number next to the surname on the returns sheet. Comp and Press tickets are displayed at the front of the box. 

Myself and another intern would then have to set up Box Office for an hour before the show is scheduled to start. 'Person number 1' deals and speaks with the customers and 'person number 2' gives out tickets and handles the money if ticket buyers purchase programmes. We would have the completed returns sheet, the original ticket sheet, the Box Office float and programmes on display. If someone came to collect their ticket(s) I would circle over the number(s) next to their surname on the returns sheet to show that their ticket(s) had been collected. I would carry on doing this until all ticket numbers were coloured in (see photo no. 3). Every programme that was purched would also have to be coloured in at the bottom of the sheet (see bottom of photo no.3) To show that Comp, Press and To Pay tickets had been collected, I would also have to write a 'C' , 'P' , and 'the amount paid' e.g 16 in the section next to the surname in pen (see photo no. 3) 

Finally, at the end of the show, I would have to calculate the total earnings made that afternoon or evening.