Die Fledermaus

Creative Team

Director -

Conductor - Timothy Dean

Assistant Director -

Designer -

Assistant Designer

Lighting Designer

Production Team

Production Manager Stephen Roe

Stage Manager Valentino Fabbreschi

Deputy Stage Manager Chariya Glasse-Davies

Assistant Stage Managers - Poppy Apter, Regan Kelly, Jessica Reid, Jak Coventry, Monica Schmocker

Technical Stage Manager Ben Leach

Deputy Technical Stage Manager Heather McKennan

Head Flyman Reece Flynn

Stage Technicians Rachel Matthews, Rosie Orford, Fraser Cherrington, Yesha Subotincic West,

Chief Production Electrician Rachel Wells

Deputy Production Electrician Adelaide Harney

Board Programmer and Operator Euan Odd

Assistant Electricians

Production Photos

Stage Management

Props used in this opera, please see below.

File:Act 1 Props Plot.pdf

File:ACT 2 Props Plot.pdf

File:ACT 3 Props Plot.docx

File:DF Master setting list-1.pdf

Props making: the champagne tower

The director and designer requested a champagne tower/pyramid that would have to be assembled on stage by the chorus. The action onstage also involved one of the principles pouring “champagne” onto the tower during every performance.

Once the designer had chosen the table where the tower was to be set, I was able to calculate how many glasses I would need (75) and decided to purchase polycarbonate plastic coupes from Drinkstuff, which look very realistic and can be found here: Champagne Coupes

Because the tower had to be disassembled and washed after every performance, I decided to build it into sections of 6 and 4 glasses. The glasses included within each section were glued together using glaze silicon, which is a very clear and strong silicon. I then provided a template and instructions on how to build each level of the tower to my ASMs and chorus members so that they could practise it during rehearsals. The tower worked very well on stage and never presented any issues - see picture and a copy of the template below.

Tower Template: File:Tower template.pdf

Technical Stage Management

One of the largest stage elements to the Opera was a giant champagne bottle. The bottle was constructed with metal rod in the centre to make it sturdy and then polystyrene was shaped on these to look like a champagne bottle. The bottle was put on castors so it could be moved on stage live by cast members and it also had a reinforced bottom edge to allow us to tip it on it's side during a hidden scene change. The bottle had to be moved by 2 people minimum when upright and required 6 people at a time to tip it over: 2 to lower, 2 to push and 2 on each side to give it balance.

There was a letterbox flat (bar 3) which was used to create a hotel scene (Act 1) and a prison scene (Act 3). This difference was distinguished by having curtains fixed on a rail to the flat during Act 1 then during the interval we would detach the curtains, fly in the prison bars (on bar 4) and fix the prison bars to the letterbox flat so that the two bars could be flown together. 5 pin hinges were enough to fly both bars together as it was correctly balanced. The curtain rail (Act 1) was attached onto the flat by being on a baton which was just sitting on hooks mounted on the back of the flat. When the curtain rail was not in use it was attached to a spare bar and flown up above the stage (this was done during the interval).

The champagne bottle was built out of polystyrene by the props department. It took just 2 people to move (as it was on wheels) but 6 people (in steel toe-capped shoes) to lower it down as it was very heavy.

The large set of on-stage treads used for Act 2 come too far down stage and flying pieces would not be able to come into the ground had the treads not been movable. For this reason, they were fitted with a pneumatic lifting system (using CO2). This meant that the stairs could be moved by just two crew members and without damaging the stage.

Fly Plot

Within both the Flyplot and Running List, it is all colour coordinated to deads on the fly floor which made it easy to read at first glance when flying in this fly heavy show.

Electrics

Due to the amount of data points in the show, We needed to have a node on stage to distribute the signal adequately. We had 12 points of data coming out of the desk via Cat5, MANet and Raw DMX. This meant that we were able to run data through the pre-wired Cat5 throughout the theatre.

We also needed followspots on a lower level in the theatre. We tried making these source 4's desk controlled however we had to switch to manual control because of the amount of cues that each followspot had.

Sound

For Die Fledermaus within the sound department it was a fairy simple show. The full in-house Ath system was in use plus 4x D&B E3 Speakers onstage for foldback and effects speakers. There was only 20 sound cues in the show consisting of door opening and closing noises.

Paparazzi effect:

For the paparazzi effect back camera shutter sound was linked to a midi note that was sent to the LX console to trigger a onstage strobe.