THE STAGE ELECTRICS AWARD FOR TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
When the Palace Theatre, Paignton closed its doors after PPP’s highly successful Christmas season of Cinderella in January 2006 it was known that the theatre would not be open in time for the next pantomime season. The much anticipated near million pound refurbishment was due to take place so a new home would need to be found. The Committee decided to stage the 2006/2007 pantomime, Dick Whittington, at The Riviera International Conference Centre in Torquay which would create a whole host of technical problems not associated with our home theatre.
Now the Palace Theatre has a 22 foot wide x 30 foot deep stage which is fully equipped as a theatre stage. The Riviera International Conference Centre has a 40 foot wide x 10 foot deep stage with a 10 foot front apron, no rear access to stage left, no wing space, no show replay, no fly lines, only 20 channels of lights and is basically a concert platform. So the problem was how to produce a show with numerous scene changes, 8 x 24 foot cloths and numerous entrances and exits for characters, dancers, chorus and babes both stage left and right. First a grid had to be suspended from the ceiling on which to attach the cloths and LX bars. Then working from the rear wall hang our star cloth 2 foot from the wall to provide a corridor to allow the performers to get to stage left, and provide floor lighting for health and safety considerations. Then attach the remaining 11 cloth bars and LX bars to the grid in the remaining 8 feet thus using all the 10 foot stage depth. Attach the running tracks for the cloths to the bars so they could all be pulled from stage right and attach various forms of lighting to the LX bars. In front of this the 24 foot false proscenium arch was erected to hide the wings and the fact that our cloths are designed for a 22 foot wide stage. This was the basic set up and added to this was all the sound equipment, lighting equipment and accompanying never ending metres of cabling. The Society had to borrow and hire in ropes, tabs, sound and lighting equipment, a truss, rigging and cabling and a great show was forthcoming with the director, Iain Douglas, skilfully utilising the changed arrangements. All the above was masterminded by our Technical Manager, Clive Simmons, with help from Alex Bowen and Ben from ESW. A truly technical achievement to which the audience probably didn’t give a second thought but it is nice to know that such planning and hard work has been recognised with the Stage Electrics Award. I must also mention that as well as the above Andrew, Jane, Emily and Lee were all heroes in the amount of work they did to set up the above in time for the performers to arrive for the technical rehearsal and they probably didn’t give it a second thought either!!
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