Employer Engagement: Seagull's Theatre

Hounds of the Baskervilles Play

Where: The Seagull's Theatre, Lowestoft

Duration: Thursday 19th to Friday 20th September and Monday 30th September.

Reason, with link to Creative Enterprise: As this is early on in the course year, I did not have a solid idea for a business. The Employer engagement with the Seagull's Theatre was a chance to figure out what kind of direction I wanted to go into. I also did this experience as I wanted to know more about the behind the scenes of a theatre production, how it was planned, prepared and developed.

What I did:

Thursday 19^th September

I saw how a production was planned, some rehearsals and went on a tour of the theatre. The tour was interesting as the building was old and a few notable rooms were the lighting room, the toilet (It had an Alice in Wonderland theme) and the costumes room. I did find the rehearsals interesting to watch but I had previously believed the experience would be more involved, with helping Mark out with whatever he needed, and so got restless very quickly. 

Friday 20^th September 2019

On the second day of the first duration I was able to read the play-script of the Hounds of the Baskervilles. Mark had written it, using the book as a reference. He found it dialogue heavy, and as he likes to add more visuals, he had created some interesting ways to develop it. One of these I saw was on the previous day, and this was the use of lights on a wall to show a scene with one of the actors reading out as Watson. I saw another interesting addition on the Friday, which was the actors using sounds, such as chains, the wind and whispering, to attract the audience’s attention. After reading the script I listened to the actors practice their lines with one of my classmates helping them learn it. It was interesting to know how much they had learnt in a really short amount of time. We planned to go back a few weeks later. 

Monday 30^th September 2019

I went back to the Seagull’s Theatre to see how much they have developed in the short amount of time. They were scheduled to start performing, and touring, on the 1^st of October. (The next day) As I entered, they were going through different stages of lighting and asked me and two others to help. They wanted three people, there was three of us there at the beginning, to stand in front of the microphones. They were adding each staging of lighting to a keypad so when they pressed a button the light, they want on,  would turn on instantly. After this I watched the actors go through the first scene, with their costumes on, and then watched as they tried and figured out how they can move from the first scene to the next. They needed to move the microphones and boxes, that were part of the set,  because the play was about three actors doing everything. This looked very tricky and time consuming and I believe we left before seeing if they accomplished the task.

My personal thoughts:

Seeing how a play was planned and carefully develop was a very interesting experience and my favourite part was seeing how the actors and Mark, the director, communicated and planned each scene. They had a very good bond and the actors were allowed to give ideas for the scenes, which I had previously believed that this wasn’t something that happened, and it was the director that knew how everything would go.