My work at the Maltings is incredibly varied and no two days are the same, my job basically requires me to look after all the technical facilities in the building, from the film projector to the visiting artist to the electricity and gas supplies, computers, things with plugs and everything in between.
A typical day in my job would start at around 10.30am, I would arrive and check with the box office for any messages and check all the computer systems are behaving themselves, from there it’s a quick trip to the office to check my voicemail and emails then down to the bowels of the building and prepare the stage for the show.
There are about 40 lights usually hanging above stage, these will need coloured up and re-focused as required. This usually takes about an hour or two depending on what the lighting was used for previously.
Hopefully shortly afterwards my artists will arrive and I will give them a quick tour of the spaces and the load in will start. You would be amazed at what you can squeeze into a van, should you have too. The goods lift to the stage is a cavernous space, 6m tall and big enough to park a smallish car in, however, it is nothing compared to the TARDIS like space of a touring companies vehicle. Several loads later all the gear is down on the stage and the fit up begins.
Everybody has there own little jobs during the fit up and you can generally tell how far into the tour they are by there efficiency, early on it’s a free for all, mid tour it’s a well oiled machine, towards the end its nit picking and cabin fever is beginning to set in.
This takes up us to late lunch, I'm not a big eater during the day, so coffee and a sandwich is order of the day.
After dinner its back, normally to plotting, sounds a bit Machiavellian, but it just setting the lighting and sound levels cue by cue, light my light, sound effect by sound effect. This is quite a time consuming and complicated task usually involving speaking in a strange language that only the touring tech team and the lighting desk programmer can quite understand…
3, 6 and 11 thru 16 at 50, no try 60? Up in 3 down in 2, we’ll call that 21.1 and 36…
And this hopefully, and I use the word hopefully, takes us to about 45 minutes to curtain up, so its time for a quick break and once the stage is clear to give the stewards clearance to open the auditorium doors and let the audience in.
Sitting in the control room pre-show can be quite electric, on a big show everyone’s a little nervous and you can feel the energy the audience are giving off, its one of the major reasons I enjoy this job so much and it gets into your blood.
Then comes the call from Front of House that everyone is in and seated and its showtime, time for a quick check that everyone ready and out with the house lights, this is another favourite moment of mine when the audience chatter stops and we are all sitting in a very dark room, waiting.
During the show, everyone in the control room has their job, on a small show I might run it just myself, but if there is any live sound then its better to have 2 people operating as a problem with anything can have massive knock on effects if anything needs more that just a minor tweak.
Although I’m involved with the running of nearly every show here, I don’t actually get to see that many, I’ve usually got my head down, in the script looking for the next cue and watching everyone else in the control room has a handle on theirs, I normally only get to actually watch them toward to the end of a multiple run show when the operation of it has become second nature.
Once the shows over, I generally head to the bar, not to drink but to get a measure of the audience feeling as they are leaving and let the audience clear the auditorium so I can switch the lights on and strike the set.
Get outs are usually very different to Fit ups, normally its quiet, head down, get the job done, chatter is to a minimum and it all happens much quicker than earlier in the day, and the TARDIS effect works in reverse, all of a sudden the lift is massive and the van is a tiny box in comparison.
Helping with the van load is another sight that has to be seen to be believed, usually there is a van packer, and they will want everything in a very specific order and they manage to fit it all in like a massive game of Tetris with the strangest shaped objects, I should note at by this point, Berwick’s’ climate being what it is, it is normally raining, cold and dark.
Van pack complete, final farewell to the crew and artists, its lock up, lights out and maybe head to the bar, if its still open for a nightcap or two!?
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