The Speculator

The Speculator
Summary
Dates 2nd & 3rd December
Performance Course Third Year BA Acting
Location New Atheneum Theatre
Creative Team
Director Mark Thomson
Designer Rachael Light
Sound Designer Conor Brown
Lighting Designer Louise Chan
Production Team
Stage Manager Nina Madriz
Deputy Stage Manager Rhiannon Mitchell
Assistant Stage Manager Catherine Donaldson
Assistant Stage Manager (Book Cover) Marjolaine Demaude
Assistant Stage Manager Shannon White
Technical Stage Supervisor Darren Wilson
Head of Flys Euan Dyer
Deputy Technical Stage Supervisor Kyle Jessiman
Deputy Technical Stage Supervisor Rory Gilmore
Production Electrian Nicholas Ruebenacker
DPLX/ Programmer Pierce Brown
Lighting Crew Laura Martin
Sound 1/PSE Stuart Green
Sound 2/ AV Stuart Henderson
Sound Supervisor Corey Jackson

Overview

The Speculator is set in Paris in 1720. The French playwright Pierre Marivaux is playing games with love and chance. Europe is in chaos. And John Law, a Scot from Edinburgh, is the richest and most powerful man in the world. He upsets order and alters the value of money. How long can his influence last?

Cast

Stage Management

The ASMs did some provisional props lists, risk assessments and props research tasks remotely before most props were cut due to Coronavirus safety measures.

However the ASMs did build an IKEA bed and mix some brown and black paint with some Cuprinol Oak finish wood stain which was then painted onto the bed as well as using the mixed brown and black paint to paint the top of a table.

the Tavern Crates and Barrels were borrowed from NTS.

Technical Stage Department

Design

There wasn't much technical challenges for the Stage Department in this show, the design consisted of painted flats and a raised deck. Our main challenge was the tracking backdrop flats.

The backdrop flats needed to open in the centre to allow a Harley Davidson to pass through. We decided not to use trucks due to the size of the backdrop flats, there would have needed to be a large truck base to account for the height of the flats. A flown track was also not desirable as drifts would have been visible. The solution was to design a ground tracking system that could be supported by a truss structure, this was all built around the need for the flats to open to around 2m and the deck that was in place.

Masking Plan

Dimensions provided on the plan so that an accurate representation of the masking drawn in Vectorworks can be achieved in the venue.

Tracking Backdrop Flats

The ground supported tracking backdrop flat system was designed so that the tracking system could would not be visible to the audience. By mounting the track onto the back of the flats and having the scenery carriers fixed on to the truss structures it would mean the track would move with the backdrop flats and would never be seen.

As we weren't in the building as much as we would have been pre-covid 19 a lot of planing had to be done to ensure we had enough equipment in stock to build the tracking backdrop system.

A small concept test was carried out before the full system was designed.

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  Concept
• 
  Concept
• 
  Truss Build
• 
  Truss Build
• 
  Truss Build
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  Flats Rigged
• 
  Motorbike in place

Equipment List

Equipment Prep

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  Equipment Boxes
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  Labels
• 
  Prepped Kit

Fit Up/ Strike Plan

Fit Up Plan

Strike Plan

Show Running

Team Running Document

Stage Supervisor Running List

Flys

Points Plans

Points Plans

Points Master

Sound

This show had many complex factors regarding sound. Due to the COVID risk assessments all actors had to fit their own radio microphones and the sound crew were not allowed to touch the microphone on the actor. This led us to double micing all the cast. We had some challenges with wigs and masks but in the end it sounded great. We had to set up a broadcast mixing desk as the production was being filmed. Stuart mixed the mics for the room on the Yamaha QL5 and Conor adjusted levels on the Yamaha LS9 for the recording.

Input and Output Sheets