The Magic Flute 2025
| The Magic Flute 2025 | |
|---|---|
| Summary | |
| Dates * - * 2025
| |
| Location New Athenaeum Theatre
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| Creative Team | |
| Production Manager | |
| Director | |
| Assistant Director | |
| Conductor | |
| Designer | |
| Lighting Designer | |
| Sound Designer | |
| Assistant Sound Designer | |
| Production Team | |
| Stage Manager | |
| Deputy Stage Manager | |
| Assistant Stage Managers [[]] & [[]]
| |
| Head of Stage | |
| Deputy Head of Stage | |
| Head of Flys | |
| Stage Crew [[]]
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| Lighting Programmer | |
| Lighting Operator [[]]
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| Production Electrician | |
Summary
Technical Stage Department
On the ground for this show we had a few different technical elements to this show.
The set itself was in a triangular shape with the SL and SR walls being in 2 parts each, meeting at a top point far upstage. The first part to each side, was just the downstage flats with a couple doors in and the second part was an upstage flat which hinged off the downstage ones in order to open up. This worked by having the most upstage part of the flat have a small truck on wheels attached to it so that a crew member can then hold onto the flat and walk it backwards until the SL and SR flats were parallel to each other. This all was done so that 2 auto lines holding 'the sun' can fly into view and the lights can shine into the audience.
We also had a truck that was SL and came out of the wall onto stage for someone to act on. Its front face was painted to look exactly like the rest of the flat so that until it came out, it was just part of the set and looked like it wasn't there. Behind the flats, by its entrance, we screwed down thin batons of woods all the way from its front face to its back face along its side, so that when the truck was being pushed in, this wood could be used as a guide rail for it. We also placed a baton at the back, acting as a stop rail for the truck so it got pushed in fully, but not too far.
In the show we had a scene were the actors had to have their faces seen in the windows of the set. We did this by having most of the actors stood on 4 step ladders so that they were the correct height for the windows. Behind the most upstage flats that hinge open, we used 2 bits of 3 by 2 steel deck and 2, 3 step treads in order for the actors to get to the windows. Because of all the bracing and wheels for the flats to hinge open there wasn't enough space for ladders to access the windows.
A really fun part of the set was the breakaway wall. This was made from a rectangular wooden frame that was the height of the first half of the wall flats, and we screwed down a pre made front face which was painted to look like the rest of the wall, but was made from foam board and was scored in a way so that an actor could walk up to it with a prop fire extinguisher and use it to bash in easily through the wall and walk through the set. Every day we would take the whole frame out of the set, unscrew the pre made face, and attach a new one, then cut away any excess around the edges so that the frame would fit perfectly into the set so we could then screw that in.
Groundplan
Flys
fly plot fly cue list
Mothergrid
We made a mother grid that was 10m by 5m, with 8 motors, 6 Big tows and 2 Loadstars and 10 metres above floor height. We spent 3 months planning the mother grid on Vector works and were able to place the motors in line with every well in the grid. This was useful as it just meant we could use 8 beam clamps and attach the chain from the motors directly to the clamps creating an easy check and an easy derig.
The mother grid’s purpose was to hang a free hung ceiling that resulted in needing 27 rigging points. Having all these points more biased to the middle of the mothergrid having 27 points was mandatory in ensuring that we did not go over a SWL and each points was taking an overloaded amount of weight. These rigging points were hung from the mother grid using cross bars so that we could the exact accuracy for each point to run along the seams of the ceiling as the ceiling was a 4-part build.
We used a strop to a shackle to a 6m drift to a turn buckle and then to a shackle which was our attachment point. We used turn buckles because they gave us more accuracy and precision whilst trying to level out all the points on the ceiling. Ruit lingers was our other alternative however they had an infinite amount of tension instead of a 300mm precise guideline and ruit lingers cannot take a dynamic load which in this situation we needed. Having a mother grid with 2 different types of motors it was important to note that each brand of motor will operate differently. The loadstars had the tendency to lose tension when taking the ceiling out or when brining it in took all the load of mother grid. This was something we had to keep an eye on and always have spotters when moving the grid because if not done with care this could have resulted in a chain spill or an overloaded point. We had 25m cable looms coming from each motor that we took to the fly floor meaning the cables were all in one place and with the mother grid being just above fly floor height meant that the flyman could control the mothergrid with a clear view.
Stage Management
Lighting
Programmer: Cameron McGrath
The Lighting designer wanted to use the visualiser Agument3d for this production. I had no prior use on Agument3d so I had to do a lot of research on this subject. I also decided that I would do this as my personal project called "Media:Augment3d From Drawings to Show File (Paperclip).docx". I believe I made a good functioning Augment3d file.
Sound
