Problems you face as a 'Sound and Lightboard' Operator... (Plus a pretty fascinator I hand-crafted)

We have now finished the showings of Hedda Gabler. As light and sound board operator I was constantly on my toes waiting for cues and preparing the next piece of music, I enjoyed the feeling of working under pressure!

This was a bit of a challenge for me actually and although I knew was I was doing, I got really nervous beforehand. I think it is because you are so aware that one mistake could really affect the show.

We did have one issue with the lights during the show - I opened the first scene with lights and all was fine. Until the lights turned off for a few seconds, then back on. The director was looking at me very "what the hell?!"ish and whilst I pressed buttons there wasn't a fix I knew of. Once I realised the lights were not stopping this crazy behaviour I used my initiative and turned up the lights manually. This is something that I would only ever want to do in a pickle like this as it doesn't look smooth at all and you cannot predict how it will look. I tackled this problem the best I could, and ensured the next night to arrive even earlier to test the lighting.

The intimate theatre space at the L'Archiliuto in an early morning light set

My gadgets - sound board (left), light board (right)

My finished fascinator

Shot from the show - Hedda and Loevborg

We went out for the traditional cast meal after the final show which is Gaby's generous thank you treat to everyone. Hedda, the main character played by Alashiya had written 'suicide notes' to each of us in the form of limericks and we all wrote (on our paper table clothes) a limerick back. I used to really enjoy poetry when I was younger and it bought back how naturally rhyming comes to me! I have explored yet another form of the creative arts whilst out here. Here's my little limerick:

General Gabler he led them all,

With his face I portrayed on the wall,

His young daughter admired,

But her life soon expired

With that trigger she chose to pull

As I think I previously mentioned, Gaby, is also a professor at the John Cabot University here and as part of her curricular work she was given the task to mark and assess a 23 videos entered by Italian students as a competition. The videos were the students interpretations of 'the namesake' the novel on which the first show, Under the Overcoat was based on. We had to work to a criteria and pick out certain aspects of the videos and analyse them to see how well the students did in terms of originality, performance, creative direction and other marking criteria. As a student it was very interesting to have a go at switching the role to professor. I used knowledge from my own previous feedback sheets to understand the basic idea of how it worked, but it was good to have Gaby to show me also how it can be done.

I just applied and received my codice fiscale, an Italian document which allows me to work in the country. Using the Italian systems was definitely a new experience for me, and a challenge if you count waiting in line for 4 hours trying not to melt of boredom. After the LONG wait I have my document and to make the most of this piece of paper I have applied for a part time role at a company called NutKase. They design cases for laptops and tablets and they are looking for someone to work within their marketing team and branding. I have now updated my CV to include my English Theatre Of Rome information and I have to say, (pardon me to blow my own trumpet!) I think it is now looking pretty good. I have dabbled in a lot of the skills required for the job and it would be an incredible opportunity to get the part time position - it will broaden my knowledge on marketing and branding which would come in incredibly handy in my third year and also look great as further work experience.