Matt McFarlane
Productions
Projects
Preliminary Ideas
MARY POPPINS
For my Technical Stage Management project i contemplated replicating a flying effect seen in "Mary Poppins" which i saw in the West End - the effect consisted of flying an actor across the stage then through the audience in one continuous move. I did some research into this effect and discovered that the New Atheneum Theatre does not have enough roof space to safely fly an actor across the audience and then to the "gods".
Mary Poppins Flying Across Audience
WICKED
I then looked towards the flying effect used in "Wicked" where the main character 'Elphaba' flies above the heads of the actors onstage. The effect achieves the illusion of the actor flying. After seeing a 'youtube' video on how this works it seemed like a good challenge to recreate for the stage of the New Atheneum.
How 'Elephaba' is flown in the West End musical "Wicked"
ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
During researching the effect of "Wicked" i stumbled across a picture from the Royal Shakespeare Company's archives to which it showed an actor being suspended above the stage in a suit of armour with large red wings attached. The actor was earlier seen onstage and 3/4 of an hour later seen suspended. There was no obvious path to suspending the actor, and it was impossible to preset the actor as he had been seen onstage in a previous scene.