#AssemsOnTour with Tamworth Arts Club
Last week has seen the team supporting our old friends Tamworth Arts Club with their production of Peter Pan, performed at Landau Forte 6th Form Theatre. Whilst everybody was enjoying their Easter Eggs over the bank holiday weekend, the cast, crew and production team were working hard to get the show ready for Tuesday’s opening night. 
With a complicated radio microphone script, involving 14 headset mic’s shared over 30 of the cast; there were a lot of quick changes between various characters.
One moment in particular involved the character Tiger Lily having to retrieve not just one but two different microphones from two different cast members, all during the same scene.
Providing the soundtrack to this show, behind the curtain sat Tamworth Arts Club’s Orchestra; consisting of eight musicians playing a wide variety of instruments including, Full Drum kit, Percussion, Congas, Bongos, Bass Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, 2 Keyboards, Cello, Saxophone, Clarinet and Flute with Sue (Musical Director) playing wood blocks, so my fellow Arts and Events technician Jem, certainly had his job cut out mixing front of house (FOH).
FOH mixing was conducted via an Allen and Heath QU24 Digital Audio Desk which enabled scenes to be saved to memory, so various gain structures, mix sends, musician’s mics and effect settings could all be recalled for the various changes throughout the show.
Working across different venues always proves a challenge with each having a different set-up to adapt to. Although the venue does have a tech box for lighting and follow spot, it was decided that the best approach for this show was to create a position FOH to provide a more accurate audio image. To this effect (thanks to Alan), a purpose built table for use in the bleacher seating meant a FOH position was created.
From the sound desk we ran a Digital Snake (Cat5e multi-core cable) for the microphone rack and speaker mixes; including FOH, side fills and foldback for the cast.
A 24 channel analogue multi-core was run down the other side of the room and round the back of the set for the Orchestra pit. This provided monitor sends for the band and the inputs for the various microphones and DI’s.
With quite a few musical instruments used for this show the inputs soon became full up and most of the rhythm section was sub mixed on a Yamaha 01V sound desk.
Our next challenge was working out the patching of the Dimmer Racks for the lighting outputs and to find out what was working and what wasn’t. Arts Club’s very own Vaughan was left to get his head around that one, fortunately he hired in some intelligent fixtures and LED parcans (theatre lights) to supplement what was already at the venue.
The set once again looked impressive with a great use of the space (not actual stage just a flat floor) which the crew did a quick fit up to achieve.
The show itself provided a great experience for all the younger members of the Arts Club and for some this was their very first time on stage. The whole cast worked really hard to pull off this difficult show and produced some tender moments along with some light hearted scenes.Special mentions go out to James Gorton (Hook) and Andrew Gillman (Smee) who made a great double act. Kayleigh Sparks played an amazing Wendy and young Callum Davies delivered a great performance as Peter Pan.
The 5 night run was seen by over 600 people, and the months of hard work by all involved was rewarded by some great comments and reviews by audience members.
A few weeks off now for the cast and crew before production work begins on A Monster Of A Show, a Halloween themed compilation show to be performed in October 2017.
