Lighting up the park...

As you may already be aware, we are producing an exciting open air production in Alexandra Park this July. It will be a reworking of Romeo and Juliet with the star crossed lovers coming from Oldham instead of fair Verona (we’ve appropriately named the play Star Cross’d).

The process of lighting an outdoor production is completely different to that of a usual production on the main stage. When the play opens at 7:30pm it will still be light and the sun will go down during the evening. The production team need to know exactly when the light will start to change and when they need to start to add extra light. To make sure that they get this right a few weeks ago the production team took a tour of the park under the same conditions the park would be in the other side of the summer solstice. Arriving at the park at half seven the team moved from scene to scene in real time – staying at each location for the same time the scene would take to play out. By doing this they knew which scenes needed what type of lighting (if any) and how much.

One of the unique aspects of outdoor theatre is watching the action unfold as the sun goes down. It can be a really magical experience. The extra lighting that will be used as part of the production will be very subtle and we’ve come up with some really exciting ideas – especially for the production finale at the lake. Make sure you don’t miss this magical event which opens on 12 July.

Back to this week, on Tuesday Dumb Show opened at the Grange Arts Centre which will be our last production at the Grange where we have performed several plays during our time out of the building. The staff at the Grange have been absolutely wonderful and have made our time there really enjoyable. It’s been fantastic to be able to put on plays in the round with the audience on all four sides of the stage. It’s given us a chance to programme plays that really lend themselves to this type of staging. Dumb Show has had some great reactions from audiences who caught it this week.

This week has also seen the final preparations of our homecoming season which will be announced at our season launch. To find out what we’ve got planned for our return to the building come along Monday 18 June at the Grange.

See you out and about.

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director