Backstage Blog from the Production Department – a little bit of Techie Talk

17 January 2011

I fear tears are about to be shed in Production as we reach the end of an era. During the past two weeks, along with all the usual servicing and tedious PAT testing of electrical equipment, we have stripped out and refitted the control room to make it more streamlined for the Deputy Stage Managers (DSMs), and to incorporate our new lighting desk. The control room (for those not versed in the ways of theatre) is where the DSM sits during the shows operating the lights, sound and the queue light system. From here they also communicate with the actors and the front of house team and keep an eye on what’s happening on stage.

Now over my years, sound playback at the theatre has been through a range of machines from Pantographs, Ferrographs, Uhers, Tanbergs, Revoxs and Denons through Carts, Cd’s, Md’s to hard-drives and now Macs and Qlab. However, throughout this time the type of lighting desks we’ve used has been the same – Rank Strand lighting desks. Alan Jay-Green, an avid reader of the Production blog, may confirm this, but I believe The Watermill hosted the launch of the M24 series.

As a theatre student, I remember going to trade shows where we were normally ignored by all except the Strand sales rep. (who I seem to recall was Mr Eric Baker). His policy was to catch them young because they are the customers of tomorrow. A policy which did pay off over the years as we met a few times when he sold me new Strand control desks for various theatres. (I also had an odd loyalty to Duckams oil for similar reasons!)

Long gone are the days of desks with great names like Gemini and Galaxy. These were replaced a while back with the dreary titles of 300 and 500 Series, but they have been good workhorses none the less, and there are still many about.

So, now the new guys on the block are the ETC desks and the small version we have, the ION, we today put into the theatre. We’ve sat through the three hours of training video and are now ready to put it through its paces. That will give us just a couple of days to get used to it before we light Seasonal Sauce.
The tears are not for the loss of our dear 300 Series desk – one of which will still be travelling around the villages lighting our Outreach touring shows – no, these will be tears of frustration as we have to get used to the desk’s new terminology as it says things like “Sure you want to update your new look?” (and it’s not referring to my Kipper tie and Goatee beard!) In the old days the message said simply, “Confirm cue record”. Arghhh!
Lawrence T Doyle – Production Manager