“There was much shock from the audience at the final kills on the stage.”

I rarely watch every single performance of each production that I direct. I’ll usually watch the first few shows and see it a couple more times throughout the run to make sure it’s still looking good. After each performance of each production the stage manager will produce a show report documenting anything that shouldn’t have happened during the show. This could be a missed lighting cue or an actor stumbling over their lines, you never know what’s going to happen and that’s one of the joys of live theatre.

Most of the time the audience will not notice that anything has gone wrong but it’s important to keep a record of what happens to see if there is anything that needs addressing (for example if there’s a cue that keeps getting missed is there a reason behind that? How can we prevent it happening again?). These reports are a way that I can keep track of what’s going on during the run of the production.

The reports are always formal in tone and refer to the actors as Mr Smith, Miss Jones etc. They will reference lighting and sound cues by number and reference the point in the play by the page in the script. These reports are then looked at ahead of the next night’s performance.

Sometimes, however, the report can be a lot funnier than intended. The audience has just as much of a role to play in live theatre as the actors on stage, take a look at a few examples:
“As Mr Bowerman fell to the floor during the diabetic episode a female member of the audience could be heard saying “Oh Dear!” very loudly.”
“There was much shock from the audience at the final kills on the stage.”
“When Mark hugged his dad there was an audible ‘aaah’ from the audience.”
“When Ms Alshibaya stepped forward to do the curtain speech a man in the audience shouted “Not in French”, she told him he had ruined her joke.”
“At the top of Act 1 Mr Healy delivered his line “Good evening Werneth, how ya doing?” and a man in the audience replied “Fine thanks”.”
“Honey the guide dog was sitting in her normal spot at the front of the stalls and was clearly quite alarmed at the garroting sequence and the log attack. She did however like Helga ten Dorp.”

Sometimes the stage manager will comment on how well a complicated sequence might have gone:
“The blood bag in the garrote sequence was excellent tonight.”

And of course, there are also little slip ups on stage, but a professional actor knows how to recover:
“Pg. 24 – Ms Matthews fell over onstage just before her exit, she ad-libbed “that floor’s a bit slippy Mavis”. She was uninjured.”

Panto has a mind of its own – it’s our most complicated production of the year so there’s a lot that can go awry. But sometimes it’s not the set, props or cues that malfunction, it can just be a member of the company:
“Just before the safe scene – Sarah the Cook made the ad lib as she left “This next bit’s a bit dull but don’t worry we’ll be back on in a bit”. This derailed Dick. The audience loved it as she found it impossible to compose herself. We did eventually get back on track.”
Of course, the preferred words on any show report would be: “A good, clean show.”

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artisitc Director