Calday Grange Grammar School (1996-1998)

My backstage involvement began at Calday. My first play as part of the Backstage Team was "Our Day Out" by Willy Russell, as a member of the lighting crew. At the same time as I got involved, Dan Platt and the others (Jon Hand, Ian Hasler, Alex Barnes, Simon Hilditch) were about to leave at the end of the year.

When that summer play came around, the regular board operator (Ian Hasler) was on holiday. I got to take over. The play was a double bill of "A Jolly Sinister Jape" by Elliot Strange and "Black Comedy" by Peter Schaffer. Both were incredibly good fun to do, especially with "Black Comedy" featuring the much saught after babe-of-the-moment Sally Foster. We witnessed one or two interesting "costumes" from Sally during rehearsals - the makeshift pyjamas being by far and away the most interesting.

After that, Dan and the rest of the gang left school which left me as the most senior member of the lighting crew. The November play ("Lord of the Flies" by William Golding) was fast approaching and not going at all well on stage. I was joined by my good friend Gary Champion and the two of us did the lights with teacher Brian Thompson (the lighting designer) - me on console duty and Gary as cue-master general. This play is still not allowed to be mentioned for superstitious reasons in the immediate vacinity of the school stage.

Next up was the best play the school had done for about three or four years - Billy! The Musical. It was performed mostly by the lower sixth (Gary and my year at the time) and we were joined by Jon Stitcher (lower sixth), Dan Price, Robin Mather, Tim Ruddell and Martin Steel (year 10 & 11). I was given the opportunity to have a mammoth say in the design of the rig and so in order to convey the dreaminess of the fantasy sequences, I designed a rig which copied itself - once in straw for normal and once entirely in red for the fantasies. It looked damn cool! I also built a small two-channel chase controller for one of the props, the "Roxy Arch". On the opening night, one of channel wires caught on a nail in the floor, snapped and caused a massive short-circuit destroying the circuitry which I had to rebuild the following morning. Needless to say the design was greatly revised. The whole setup was huge, with pyros, flashguns, followspots and a couple of dedicated specials. I still don't know how the dimmer packs didn't trip out or how I found enough channels on the lighting console.

This play was followed by "Childhood Revisited" - the less said about this one, the better.

After summer 1997 came "The 61 Club" by Tim Kershaw and Tim Sinnott (two of the teachers). This was the "sequel" to their previous play "For A Few Heroes" and had a lot to live up to. It very, very nearly did. We pulled off our best effect yet - a nuclear explosion. One pyro, a large smoke machine a very big fan and a couple of groundrows. We were amazed at how well it worked, but seeing the amount of smoke generated, I added a police light to the top of the proscenium arch and had it as the only light on after the explosion. It looked very, very cool. 61 Club

The stage for "61 Club" resembled the "big red button" and the set design called for "random" lights to flash along the edges of the stage. This brought about a pair of "R-Lite 8" 8-channel random lighting sequencers which I designed one night (as you do). Within a couple of days, the circuits were built and boxed and are still used on set to this day where a similar effect is required.

Gary's and my final play was "Little Shop of Horrors" and it was another cracker. We weren't happy with the lighting until two nights before we opened, but somehow it just came right.

Little Shop of Horrors The play itself (another musical) was excellent and good fun to be involved with. The plant generated some hilarious moments backstage, but the best effect in the play was saved until last. Darkness, except for the plant lit with ultraviolet light and four green pinspots positioned in the grid above the plant in a fan-out arrangement. For me, that was quite arty!

All in all, I lit 8 plays, 3 fashions shows and 5 charity concerts. Working alongside Gary, Mark Doran, Phil Birss, Adam Chesters, Ali Bell, Duncan Bell, Luke Gibbard, Ollie Carroll and last but by no means least Brian Thompson (the man who made it all possible), I had some really fantastic times which will stay with me forever. :)

Related links:
-- Calday Drama Society
-- Backstaging at Bath University (to follow)