Helping Backstage

Day One - Monday 8^th March 2010

As the show of the production “Little shop of horrors” was going to commence at 7pm prompt, everything needed to be done preferably during the day and so as instructed by our client: head of drama Ms Jones, all backstage helpers including myself set out all the props in position on and off stage. As time was value we hurried to allocate the furniture i.e. chairs, tables etc to the main hall at Heston Community School where the production was taking place from the other school building. At approximately 6:30pm the audience had started to arrive, at this time many of the students including myself and a few members from my group and senior students from Heston Community school were at front of house to greet, check tickets, guide everyone in the right direction and provide them with a leaflet containing names of the actors/characters, special thanks message, poster and important information. During the performance we were able to acknowledge when the props, scenery and furniture needed to be positioned, changed, added or removed as we had rehearsed this several times before hand, we were organized hence everything flowed fluently without a problem.  By the end of the show I was able to get answers from the audience I was interested in to investigate by asking them to kindly complete a survey.


Day Two - Tuesday 9^th March 2010


The second day was just another run down of the show; however there is always a bit of improvement in similar tasks as organizing an event. By acknowledging the reasons of a few obstacles which arose on the first day my group and I were able to find solutions for it not to happen again; leading for a more better and successful show. One of the issues we were able to sort out was the volume of the music. We noticed on the first day it was not as loud and clear as it needed to be and this really confused the audience as they were not able to understand the script well enough. The actors were much more confident and comfortable on the stage and you could notice the difference. In conclusion the second day remained a success as it was on the first and in addition a more improved show which left many of the audience speechless.


Within the two days of helping backstage I was able to learn how important it is to be organized in detail and be able to communicate clearly among whom you work with. I strongly think if you lack either of the two it can be very difficult and if you come across any crisis you may be in a lot of trouble. Having researched about the role of an event organizer and experiencing it myself, I now know that you need to be quick in making decisions and being very certain they are the right decisions, especially if it is live during a show taking place. You should be confident and show off your effort as should be your best!

Final Props and Backgrounds

Whilst creating the props and backgrounds for the stage of the production 'Little Shop of Horrors' a lot of thought went in to it. We looked at moodboards to identitfy the atmosphere we wanted to achieve, experimented with materials, developed ideas after being influenced by looking at images of real theatres and much more. The costumes were chosen by the teachers as they wanted to make sure all clothes were appropriate for the audience. Once provided with the costumes me group and I styled them to make them look like old fashion clothing accessorized with a similar feel. A lot of the flowers which were used in the flower shop were created using different materials, primariliy we wanted to experiment with the materials but after positioning them on stage we really liked them all. Whilst producing the props we conducted measurements to achieve sufficent space for all the actors to perform. In addition to all the entertaining props around the stage we also had a live band play on the night which was absolutley fantastic, it was more jolly and more interacting. The lighting was perfect as you were able to see all the actors clearly, the colours of the lighting also went well with the background and produced a great contrast.