Our Company Stage Manager Jamie Byron tells us about the team’s latest achievement.
The Stage Management Team have been working really hard on our current site-specific production Manchester Lines which opened to the public last week to great audience feedback.
We had more good news this week as the team have won the award for Best Stage Management Team from the Stage Management Association. This was for last year’s site specific show, Hard Times , which was set in an old cotton mill in Ancoats. The association said about our team:
‘A miraculous example of patience, tolerance and good humour ensuring a huge, trouble free & enjoyable experience for both cast and audience, a fantastic team’.
All site-specific productions are massive projects for stage management with Manchester Lines being no exception. It is the stage management’s role to support the Director Wils Wilson and Designer Amanda Stoodley in their vision, for Manchester Lines this meant recreating a lost property office.We have filled 180 shelves with lost property to create a set which resembles an authentic lost property office up on the fifth floor of an office block. It has been filled from top to bottom with anything you can imagine that could be lost, including at least 700 umbrellas, suitcases, mobile phones, walking canes, wallets, even a stuffed fox wearing a crown!
The team have hunted far and wide to complete the set full of weird and wonderful items. It makes it all worthwhile when we see audiences enjoying the show, and it’s great to get recognition for our efforts from the Stage Management Association.
We are now looking forward to our next site specific production, Manchester Sound – The Massacre set for summer 2013. It will take us back to the beginnings of rave culture so I can’t wait to discover where we will be!
You can see Manchester Lines until 7 July.