This year we really went all in for it and gave it our best, producing arguably the most elaborate NIS theatre production to date. With a walk-around style Shakespeare presentation featuring 4 stages, a quadrophonic speaker setup, a live video feed to monitor everything from 3 different locations, a live band and a multitude of backstage areas and facilities.

The Outcome

Above you can watch the complete production video. Below are some promo shots from the show:

Behind the Scenes

Being in charger of audio design and tech setup for this production, I present to you tons of behind the scenes!

A View From Above

Given the quadruple stages spread all over the collapsed seats of the theatre, due to the placement some stages were either partially or completely obstructed to be viewed from the control room; this is why we needed the video feeds for the control room, stage managers and actor running room to work. This meant quite a few views from above were gathered.

Audio Setup

Audio setup was quite involved. Not only was there a live band, but given all the actors and multiple stages: no actor mics were used. Instead a combination of floor mics and “choir” style condenser mics were used to capture sound. Altough this simplifies the audio work during the performance, it complicated the setup. Since the seats were collapsed back, extra stereo speakers were setup at the back of the theatre and combined with the front speakers in a quadrophonic setup. After getting direct live input from the MacMini to the Yamaha TF5 Mixer over USB and playback from QLab working, Panagement 2 a stereo-panner VST plugin was used in GarageBand to provide quadrophonic panning for audio samples played to create a mysterious lost in the woods effect; with the audience unable to tell the ever-changing direction of the sound.

The Live Band

As well as all the previous sound setup, there was also a live band! Which always adds a lot of livelyhood to the show. With Noa Seto on drumkit, Martyn Newman on Bass, and Michael Chesterman on Keyboard.

Live Video Setup

Last year’s Little Shop of Horror’s was the first production with a live video feed, there it was needed to bring a conductor feed to backstage singers. For this production it mwas much more essential. An overhead view of all four stages was the only way for the control room (audio and lighting desks), the stage managers backstage and the actors in the waiting room to be able to see what is going on in order to get their cues right. There were also audio monitors backstage so that actors could hear the action from all stages from anywhere backstage, but the live video feed was essential. To do this it required many HDMI splitters and HDMI to Cat5 transmitter/reciever pairs which allowed the video signal to be sent down hundreds of meters of cable. I learned to terminate RJ45 connectors as I laid down and setup what ended up being around 200m of cable for getting the video signals where they needed to be. This was a complex matter of planning, ordering materials and maintaining a reliable setup that was essential to running the show.

A Warm Farewell

Being my last production (as I graduate this year) after four years of working with theatre crew, I had the pleasure to have a warm farewell as I enjoyed the best production yet and was treated to some lovely goodbye presents and words.

The Dream Team

To add to the farewell aura, together with Nohemí Alexandra Martinez Guitierez and Matilda Moon we made a tribute to THE DREAM TEAM; which has run the techbox for the majority of these past 3 years and has given us an absiolute blast of experiences working in theatre. It now proudly hangs in the theatre office, for many years to come.