End of the Year

I'm nearing the end of my last year of college and I'm going to have to start looking for some full time employment in the industry. I'm not going to get my hopes up and believe that i'm going to get a solid paying job right away backstage in one of Brighton theaters. I'm still going to try for those jobs, but I'm expecting a job connected slightly to the industry, maybe working in a box office or as an usher. I may be able to work my way up from there, or even just work in a shop and keep working in theaters in the evening as much as I can. 

  The West End/Broadway musical 'Avenue Q' is coming to the Theater Royal in Brighton next month, and I'm desperate to go. The musical uses hand puppets on stage mixed in with actors. I've watched some clips of the musical on YouTube and it's incredible how they can interact so well. I've also heard that the set is very simple but well done and effective. I'd love to work with puppets, when I started getting into drama when I was young I joined a couple puppet workshops and drama clubs which involved using puppets. I've always been amazed that through body language you can make a puppet feel any emotion. I feel that Brighton needs a Punch and Judy stand in the Pavilion Gardens somewhere, old children's entertainment used to be so simple. 

I think people should play with Puppets more, especially with children. Enough of silly video games for the under 10s!

Our House Stuff

I've been doing lots of little things for Our House over the past couple weeks.

We've been rigging (putting on the stage) an Irish Pub, and a Caribbean Island themed Las Vegas Hotel Bedroom as well as the rest of the main set, which creates all the other scenes.
The entire set is monochrome, and only certain parts of the set are picked out in bright red, I've been painting all day in gloss white, making sure everything on stage is either black, white or grey.
I designed and painted one of the backgrounds for a scene yesterday, It was the cocktail bar.
Opening night is in 5 days, and we're so close to having the set completely done so we can let the cast in on Sunday (3 days away!) and I can't wait.
I have more painting to do tomorrow and to finish the Vegas bedroom (putting pineapples above the heart shaped bed)
I believe it's going to end up as a pretty good show!

Set Building

Finally, I am actually starting to feel like the Stage Manager for Our House.

The inspiration for the houses!

We have begun to build the main parts of our set, and I had to give jobs to each of our team/crew, to make sure we finish it as quickly as we possibly can. I started out by beginning each job by myself, then after the individual got he hand of what I was doing I would let them carry on. his worked particularly well as we were painting 9 almost identical 2 meter by one meter 2D terraced houses for a backdrop on the entire musical.

We only have four weeks left till the show and we have LOADS to do. I'm going to work on finishing the terraced houses (probably by myself) all Friday, then start on designing all of the other scene's backdrops. Including a cocktail bar, an alter, a penthouse..


I hope it all looks great! I can't wait to post some pictures of the finished article!