Projects
As a production manager and an all-around sound and lighting engineer with extensive stage management and backstage knowledge, I have worked on a variety of projects that have honed my skills and expertise. From theatre production & live concerts to corporate events
and festivals, I have experience & knowledge, but recognise, that every day is a learning day.
Small Town Boys
Shaper Caper - Small Town Boys July/August 2024
Production Manager, set build sound system design
My first Shaper Caper Show. This company's inclusiveness is paramount. Everyone is allowed to have ideas and vocalise them, if they are good, they stick. There is no bigotry, it's simply not in the company's DNA, everyone treats everyone else with respect.
Small town boys is set in the late 80s early 90s. The production is staged in a real nightclub, not a theatre, in this case the Kings Nightclub, Dundee. Clearly this brings challenges but the will of everyone to work with everyone else makes for a single team regardless of wether the are tech/SM, venue staff or the dancers
The show is technically challenging as it incorporates AV but not on a ubiquitous big projector screen or massive flat screen, but on 30+ year old CRT TV's which have now become a nightmare to find. We had to pay over £100 on scrappy largish TV and in the end hired some 24" TVs from a local Dundee visual artist. The rest of the Becky Mintos's site specfic set includes era reverernt gaudy slashed cloths and shiny velveteen.
Various rooms depicted in the piece were achieved by custom made (by me) toilet cubical doors, with formica veneer, pink one side, blue the other. Fitted with rubber corners and handles, these had to withstand serious physical abuse.
Picture dancers using these like roman shields to create a toilet, a wall, a moving corridor with multiple doors, fabulous choreography by Tommy Small.
Lighting in the 80s had very few moving fixtures, Parcans were everywhere. We dont use Parcans much anymore, (very not green) everything is LED and LED Pars are a myriad of little coloured dots. Lighting designer Dylan Baillie was not around in the 80s. I was and so were others in the company . Dylan had to make a modern LED rig look like the 80s. Kenny Irons from Buzz Lighting and Sound, supplied us with joyfully tacky chrome LED Parcans with colour frames and a heavy frost filter. Dylan meticulously programmed these with no colour changes during dance chase sequences. Other LED fixtures were made to look like 80s/90s pin spots. Dylan had to use moving fixtures, but here again these were programmed to focus on a position and not visibly move whilst lit.
Sound Design for the piece by Mark Franks was centered on original composistion and a remix of "Small Town Boys" by Bronski Beat.
Other audio was tied to video clips from the Era.
Sound system set-up relied on speakers set at different points in the room to assist with focusing the sound on where dancers were performing at any moment, two sets of stereo speakers plus three other mono points sources and sizeable Sub Bass cabinet system were once again run via QLab. The difference being that different audiences standing in different places changed the sound radically from performance to performance, and during the performance. All the cues were fired by stage manager Dayna, whilst I gently tweaked playback levels on a zone by zone basis by iPad on the fly. Each performance was allowed to subtly change, within agreed bounds, to react to the audience and the space. Q lab also ran the video via converters to the old analog TVs
Big Burns Supper - Dumfries
Electric Theatre Workshop. 2013-present
Production/Site Manager
Big Burns Supper (BBS) was an 11year old Winter Festival held at various locations within Dumfries.
Sadly, the funders have removed the funding for the festival this year (2023). Dumfries seems to be almost forgotten by Scotland’s funders, tucked out of the way and stuck with many social economic issues one would be forgiven for feeling Central Belt folk would rather forget Dumfries existed.
Despite this BBS is at its very heart a volunteer and community lead organisation and festival, and not just the usual volunteer suspects, although the numbers of folk involved are extraordinary, 400+ for a small town. The volunteers included, roofers, electricians, crane drivers, structural engineers, network power specialists, IT professionals, caterers, accountants plus a host of others. I expect a Phoenix like resurrection through sheer will power.
This meant for my role an amazing set of skills to tap into. Things that might be impossible for a small theatre company became possible because of the quantity and skills-breadth of the volunteers. And BBS needed that because BBS was arguably Scotland’s most difficult community festival to mount, the weather!
BBS takes place in January in a bit of Scotland that seems to catch every weather system available. For over nine years BBS was based in a series of Spiegeltents, Marquees, Containers and other forms of temporary structures. We got everything, hurricanes, whiteouts, torrential rain followed by flooding, the river Nith floods…a lot. The Dumfries volunteers took all the above in their stride.
Depending on the situation my role has shifted from Site Manager to Production Manager and everywhere in between. Responsibilities have included, Site Design, Site Licensing, extraordinary amounts of risks assessments, Venue Rigging, Aerialists Rigging, FOH Management, AV, LX & Sound Design and Operation, Stage Design and Construction plus fixer of various things that have broken.
Working directly with the volunteers I was able to design and operate LX and mix sound for simpler events and share those responsibilities for larger ones or pre-program and train to allow BBS staff and volunteers to undertake the tech for a run themselves.The joy of digital gear being that I could log into the systems remotely if an unforeseen issue was to occur.
A Number
Rapture Theatre Co - 2022
Production/Stage Manager, Lx & Sound design
Rapture's second post-covid tour. Due to unexpected circumstances, Stephen, Raptures long standing SM could not join the party. For the 1st time in 35 years I was back on the book, plus LX and Sound Design. Just Lyn, Frankie, Robin Kingsland, Paul Albertson and me. I could only spend about 50% in rehearsals, furniture, LX makes and sound design with dare I say a wee bit of music composition by myself took all the time.
On tour this time, until I was joined by the rest of the company at the venue, I was going to be on my own.
Set pieces must be possible (if required) to be moved by me only. in the end i was never without a venue helper/tech.
Sound and light must be easy to achieve and both be plotted and operated by me.
Thankfully Rapture have both QLab and EOS license's/dongles for Mac. All cues were fired from QLab sending q-No, Go cues to EOS. this is such a far cry from the Revox tape machines and 3-preset manual Strand lighting desks of my youth. Technology at its best. multitrack audio playback through multiple speakers. easy LX control of re-patching/plotting venue by venue with either generic or LED rigs.
All with one Mac laptop, an ETC EOS DMX gadget/dongle, a midi controller for real buttons/knobs, Pro Audio QLab licence and Midas audio mixer/interface in a box
The Dock Brief
Rapture Theatre Co 2020
Production manager, Lx design and set build
Dock Brief was the first Rapture tour after Michael Eman's passed and his partner, Lyn McRoberts, took the helm solo. This quite old and in some ways morally challenging script was brought to life by a fantastic cast and for me, the blossoming, in my eyes, of a truly mazing director in Lyn.
However everything production wise was a challenge, this was Rapture's first tour post-covid with a pre-covid budget. Every part of the set was re-cycled from old Rapture sets. The walls came from an old mdf routed tiled effect floor. Re-purposed timber from all over created frames etc, the floor itself
The lighting stock that was toured consisted of one gobo. Just remembering how to do stuff after all the inactivity, all the mandatory H&S etc was only a wee issue. Possibly the hardest was discovering, post Covid, how many people had left the business and what resources were no longer there. However everyone's exuberance at working again, more than compensated.
The above projects are a fraction of my work but are the ones I have access to images for.