Technical Theatre 12

Last week we performed our drama assessment: The Tempest.
In this post I am going to discuss the different technical aspects of the show, what I thought worked and what I might have changed!


I absolutely loved the lighting for the show; I found it really atmospheric and it made the contrasts between scenes and even moods very vivid.
I particularly liked the lights in two scenes, the opening shipwreck scene and the scene later on when Ariel appears as a harpy.
For the shipwreck I thought that having the whole stage in a completely blue wash looked great, particularly in correspondence with the transparent sheet we had over the front of the stage. It set the scene perfectly; a cold swarm of sea and waves.
For the harpy scene, the whole stage was red apart from a white spotlight downstage left where I appeared as Ariel and fought with Alonso and Antonio. I felt this represented the danger and darkness of the scene and the fear that the characters feel.
There wasn't any lighting that I would have done differently, I believed that it all fitted the action onstage pretty perfectly.


The soundtrack was good, too. The storm scene was really made more dramatic by the storm sounds crashing throughout the auditorium, it sounded good. At first, however, we also had Toiler on the Sea by The Stranglers playing over the storm, and I didn't think it worked. It was too loud and overshadowed the lines onstage and the storm sounds, in my opinion. For reasons like this we stopped using that song for the scene after the first performance, which I was happy with.
Something I liked was how there were specific pieces of music and sound effects used for the entrances and exits of the different characters.
My favourite sound effect used was the combination of Kas, Jerome and I's voices in the harpy scene. It sounded so cool and made a real impact, which worked better than it would have done if we just had our individual voices, I think.
All in all I was pleased with the technical audio and lights for our performances.


Today we watched the level twos, year one level threes and music certificate students perform.


I liked the lighting they used, the colours seemed to correspond to the themes of the songs and I thought the way the singers and musicians were highlighted in spotlights worked well.
There were a few audio faults which could have been improved though, such as feedback from the equipment and the volume of the microphones.


I did enjoy the performance, and I think it would be good if more of the other performing arts students came to see our drama performances. Since we go and support them, it would be nice for the gesture to be returned.