Tech Runs, Cue to Cue & Dress Runs

Due to a dance show taking place in the Hanger the weekend before our show it meant that we had less time to rehearse in our performance space. This wasn’t a huge problem, it just meant that we were having to make adjustments during our technical/dress rehearsals rather than in earlier rehearsals

One of the doors in our set was Stoneybroke Mansion and so this meant that any exits for the chorus that used to be USR had to be adjusted as we could not walk through Stoneybroke Mansion. It wasn’t an issue as we all took our initiative and changed our exit to somewhere more appropriate, it showed us that in the working place you need to be ready and prepared to adjust to a sudden change to the set. 

 

Our cue-to-cue was a long process, but is crucial otherwise we would be on stage without any lighting or sound. A cue-to-cue is different to a dress run as we don’t run through the pantomime line for line, instead only the lines that come before a cue are delivered. Such as Buttons “I’ll come in my birthday suit” which cued a distorted horn sound at his terrible joke.

 This run-through consisted of all lighting cues, as well as music and sound. It took us all a while to correctly hit our marks for the lighting cues as we developed a habit of coming on stage during the blackout and starting to deliver lines, instead of waiting for the lights to come up. This meant we had to repeat cues several times until we hit our mark.

The final rehearsals were stressful for everyone. The closer we got to the show the more panicked people began to get. On the Monday before our first performance we did a run-through where we had our first practise at the quick change between Act 1 and Act 2. As we had not done the quick change yet we were not sure of how tight things were going to be. Once I was ready I was in my starting place and found that I was the only girl who was ready, this meant that when the music began to play no one was ready to go on. This realisation panicked me slightly and I was uncertain of what to do. I didn’t let this situation concern me too much once I’d calmed down as it showed me that I needed to remain professional rather than start to worry. I felt that this event of people not being in their starting mark definitely prepared me for if a situation similar was to occur in an actual show.

By our last rehearsal on Tuesday evening the show had come together well and everyone was ready to perform to an audience. All we could do now was make sure that we kept the energy up and we enjoyed ourselves each show.