As you can imagine with seven separate plays on one night there is a lot for the backstage team to keep track of and they have to be very organised. In this photo stage manager Emma is making a list of all the bits and pieces that have to be in a cardboard box on stage for The Deep Blue. Razor blades and pills were top of the list of essentials.
On the list of props to be set for The Flood is 'Liz
Carroll'. Liz recently broke her ankle but in the true spirit of theatre
"the show must go on". In The Flood she plays a
hairdressing client so once the play starts she doesn't have to move about. She
is now wheeled into position by the stage management team as part of the set up
of the play.
As all
plays in Writefest are new unpublished works they are liable to change between
being submitted and the first night. Some of these changes come from the
writers and some are suggested by the directors and actors as they see what
works and what doesn't during rehearsals. This is a common process and is why
published scripts usually credit the director and cast of the first run. Of
course at some point the changes have to stop and everyone needs to be working
from the same script. Lighting designer Richard got some blank looks from the
cast of Yawn when he read out what he thought were the cue
lines for lighting changes, apparently they had been cut in a later version.
After some quick checking and reprinting we are now confident that everyone has
the same version of the scripts and everyone knows exactly what they are doing.
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Progress Youth Theatre, Mojo by Jez Butterworth, 7.45 –
