Amanda Hall Interview: Bringing an Amateur Show into the Theatre Royal
Title
Amanda Hall Interview: Bringing an Amateur Show into the Theatre Royal
Date
19 September 2017
Description
Oral history interview with Amanda Hall, a locally based director, choreographer and youth theatre leader.
What's the story?
Director and choreographer Amanda Hall has had strong links with the Theatre Royal for many years, from performing in the venue in a special schools show in the 1980s to her involvement with Nottingham Operatic Society and in particular from 2014 with Carlton Operatic Society.
In this interview, Amanda talks about the whole practical process of bringing a show into the Theatre Royal:
When you come into the Theatre Royal, there’s nothing here. You treat it as if there is nothing here at all. Because it’s not a “producing house”, like the Playhouse, so they produce things. So they have quite a lot of stuff, in stock, or storage, or whatever and you can always ask for things. Because this isn’t “producing”, then everything comes in fresh each week. So the place is cleared out, you come in whatever time in the morning, and your truck arrives and all your set arrives and the floor, and so it’s floors down, lights up. We spend most of the Sunday that we come in, or the first day, just getting everything set up, with our crew and the guys here as well.
We do, we have meetings, supposedly at six months, three months, and whatever. But, obviously I’ve known the guys here a little while now, so we get in and meet with Mike and Mac and things and they get all our copies of what set we’re hiring. You know we spend lots of money. Tens of thousands of pounds on … we come in as a professional company. We just don’t pay anybody. That’s the only difference. So the standards all have to be at that level. We’re charging a good amount of money for an amateur production for Carlton, so it has to be of a good standard. So the sets we hire, the costumes we hire, the orchestra, we pay our orchestra. We pay musicians’ rates for orchestra stuff and so all at that level has to be professional, but everyone that’s performing is an amateur.
In this interview, Amanda talks about the whole practical process of bringing a show into the Theatre Royal:
When you come into the Theatre Royal, there’s nothing here. You treat it as if there is nothing here at all. Because it’s not a “producing house”, like the Playhouse, so they produce things. So they have quite a lot of stuff, in stock, or storage, or whatever and you can always ask for things. Because this isn’t “producing”, then everything comes in fresh each week. So the place is cleared out, you come in whatever time in the morning, and your truck arrives and all your set arrives and the floor, and so it’s floors down, lights up. We spend most of the Sunday that we come in, or the first day, just getting everything set up, with our crew and the guys here as well.
We do, we have meetings, supposedly at six months, three months, and whatever. But, obviously I’ve known the guys here a little while now, so we get in and meet with Mike and Mac and things and they get all our copies of what set we’re hiring. You know we spend lots of money. Tens of thousands of pounds on … we come in as a professional company. We just don’t pay anybody. That’s the only difference. So the standards all have to be at that level. We’re charging a good amount of money for an amateur production for Carlton, so it has to be of a good standard. So the sets we hire, the costumes we hire, the orchestra, we pay our orchestra. We pay musicians’ rates for orchestra stuff and so all at that level has to be professional, but everyone that’s performing is an amateur.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Diane Jones & Jennifer Sherwood
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
