Up in the Grid

I was invited to help in the lighting setup for Mamma Mia at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope. It's a space I've worked in before, but I had hoped that my experience at Vic Hall in Cobourg would put me in good stead to keep up.

David Hoare was our foreman of sorts, working with Marc, the lighting designer who was adding dozens of instruments (that's what you call a "light") to the "hang." We trundled these heavy pieces of equipment and all the cabling up into the catwalks above the roof and into the two "coves" of lighting banks that feed the downstage and upstage areas. It's a very steep angle, so getting the positions right to hit all the spaces that Marc wanted to cover was critical.

Walking the catwalk above the house, lined with dozens of instruments

A closer look at the lighting pipe and instruments from the cove

There's also an onstage grid of lighting directly above the stage. This was a particularly challenging area to work in for a six-foot-four lumbering human like myself. It has a grate floor and it's only about four feet high. At one point Joe, David and myself were sweating up there as David dangled down over the stage fixing a "gobo" (a little round device that creates a lighting effect for a particular instrument) to create a moon effect.

Somewhere up in the catwalks between instrument hangs

A quick lunch break with director Val Russell

As I sat there, holding his legs and waist so that he would feel supported, it hit me that I had already become very close to these people, and I would probably go out of my way to work with them again.

By the end of the day, it was only myself, Marc and his friend from Toronto who had come to help out. We were finishing the "focus," which is the process of setting the final angles, intensity, and "gels" (colour sheets, only needed in older instruments). I discovered that I had forgotten to wire in 6 new RGB instruments that I'd hung earlier that day. These were part of about 20 lights that I'd hung with Joe, so it was easy to miss a few, but at the end of the day I was pretty knackered.

It's a good kind of tired, though. The kind of labour that's shared in a common goal is different from the day to day tired that can wear us down. I'm really grateful that I was able to help out and feel a part of the team that day.

P.S: I also took some photos of the incredible set designed by Jan Crane - but I’m not showing those! You gotta come see that yourself.