Lighting & Theatre
Posh actors
There’s a bit of an ongoing barny about how many deeply successful (mostly male) actors in Britain right now are posh. A mull…. It’s an argument not without a grain of truth to it. A […]
Read MoreIn Praise of… Moira Buffini
She writes plays. I start with this statement, because usually I praise books and occasionally films, but remember how I also do a lot of theatre? I’ve now lit a fair amount of work by […]
Read MoreLDs and Arnica
Recently I did 5 days of tech. They went like this: Day 1. Sunday. Arrive 9 a.m. at the venue, meet the crew, trot through any final, obscure details on the lighting plan, then commence […]
Read MoreStage Fighting
We did a couple of techie-orientated lectures on stage fighting, back at Ra-de-da, while the actors did their stage combat training. In tech the arrival of the fight choreographer was always a Big Deal, as […]
Read MoreCollaboration
(Subtitle: I do not think this word means what you think it means….) Collaboration! If you could please imagine proclaiming it with brass fanfare behind… … coll-ab-or-ation!! It is the battle cry of theatre. What […]
Read MoreSo You’ve Got To Prop A Community Show
Aaaah propping. I’m not the world’s greatest prop-hunter – not gonna lie. It involves people skills, and negotiation and imaginative use of solid objects and, frankly, these are not things that come as naturally to […]
Read MoreSo You’re A Community Deputy Stage Manager
This is continuing my theme of hopeful-advice for anyone dabbling in community theatre. For the pre-amble, please see this post. Today, let’s talk about the Deputy Stage Manager, or DSM. In professional theatre, the DSM […]
Read MoreSo You Want To Do Some Theatre
This will be the first of a series of posts, giving some thin semblance of technical advice for anyone dabbling in community theatre. I love going to the theatre. I love brilliant plays beautifully put […]
Read MoreThings Lighting Designers Don’t Want To Hear
Theatre’s subjective. You liked Death of a Salesman; she likes interpretive dance. A lighting designer’s job is to create something that ideally pleases my sense of artistic excellent, the director’s desire for the actors to […]
Read MoreDown & Out in Edinburgh
I love George Orwell. I say that – I don’t know a huge amount about him as a human being, because I’m always a bit scared of finding out too much about your heroes just […]
Read MoreStop! The Play
I’m lighting a play at the moment! Actually, I’ve been working on it for a while, but tomorrow we go into fit-up for it at Trafalgar Studios and I’ve printed off the plans and the […]
Read MoreReasons Why
I will never be asked to give a graduation speech at my old colleges. I’m not academic enough for LSE, nor actory enough for RADA, and thus the distilled wisdom of the last few years […]
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