A Lighting Operators Thirty Dances and a Deadline
by Theatre Production Secrets
Dance schools are their own strange ecosystem they are part art studio, part small business, part family drama. The choreography ranges from genuinely beautiful to barely rehearsed. The teachers range from professional to well-meaning volunteer. The parents are always in the audience with cameras, and the dancers are always nervous in the wings. And someone in the back of the auditorium has to make the stage look good through all of it.
Karen, was not a villain. She was a driven, passionate, exhausted woman who had built a dance school from nothing and who wanted this show to be the best it could possibly be. She cared deeply about her students. She cared deeply about the dancing. What she did not understand, and what she had never needed to understand, was how the lighting worked. That was Bruce's job. That was why he was there. This is the behind the scenes look at Bruce doing lighting dealing with Karen and her dance schools end of year show.
More books by Theatre Production Secrets
A Lighting Dilemma
Looks like it's you
This book is for the person who answers that unexpected call. The one who gets told, "Our lighting operator can't make it. You're in." Maybe you've run a few lights before. Maybe you've only watched from the audience. Either way, you've just been handed a musical with a tech rehearsal, a dress rehearsal, and three performances, and you're expected to make it look like you know what you're doing. This book is the note I never got when I was in your shoes — the practical, honest, unglamorous guide to getting from the first production meeting to the final curtain without losing your mind.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This job is hard. It's technical. It's political. It's artistic. And it's all of those things at the same time, often in the same breath. But I'm going to tell you something I didn't believe until I lived it: you're more capable than you think, and chaos is part of why this work matters. The show needs you, not just to push buttons, but to hold the light steady when everything else is uncertain.
A Sound Engineer's Fight for the Stage
The long game...
The one thing that never changes, no matter the venue,
is the politics. The tension between departments.
The territorial battles over who gets the best speaker
position, who controls the sight lines, who gets to call
the show. It's always there, simmering under the surface.
We take you on the rollercoaster of doing the sound for
your first musical theatre production where doing
sound is only half of this adventure.
The Duty Techs Children's Theatre Challenge
On setup day, Dave is not the one programming the
lighting console. That is Cindy, the touring lighting
technician. He is not the one calling the cues.
That is Fred the touring stage manager.
He is not the one assembling the scenery.
That is George, the touring mechanist, working
alongside Jonny from the house crew.
Dave is the person who makes sure all of those people
can work in the same building at the same time without
getting in each other's way or, when they do get in each
other's way, sorting it out before it becomes a problem.
Dave is the Duty Tech and this is the story of his overseaing
two Children’s Theatre Shows.
A Day in the Life, The Theatre Sound Tech, from Load-In to Encore
I want to take you through one real day. As a house sound technician doing not a simplified day or a highlight reel. A Tuesday at a six hundred seat theatre with a touring ABBA tribute band on the schedule, a truck arriving at 3:00, a soundcheck at 4:30, and a show time at 8:00pm. Most books about this work are built like manuals. They tell you what a mixing console does, how to route a signal, where to place a microphone. They are useful the way a parts diagram is useful — accurate, organized, and completely dead on the page. This book is built differently. It is built like a clock, because the job is built like a clock. Every hour moves forward whether you are ready or not, and the whole point is to stay ahead of the hands.
Busking a Theatre Lightshow
Edward is a theatre lighting technician who
has agreed to light a one-off concert by a touring
ABBA tribute band. His day will be full arriving early,
reviewing his console, checking the stage,
coordinating with the sound operator and the mechanist,
testing with the performers, and then running the show.
Along the way, he will face problems that are familiar
to any technician who has worked a one-off:
a stage plan that does not match reality, a projection
that will not cooperate, and of course a moment or two of uncertainty during the live performance.