Amanda Hall Interview: The Raked Stage and Orchestra Pit
Title
Amanda Hall Interview: The Raked Stage and Orchestra Pit
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 discusses the Theatre Royal’s famous raked stage and how companies deal with it, as well as the venue’s orchestra pit:
When you sit in the stalls, particularly, if the stage was flat, you’d want to sit further back so that you could actually see the back of the stage. So because there is a rake on it, it means that you can see, I mean in ballet and dance and things like that, you can sit on the front row and see everybody’s feet. Whereas if it was flat, you wouldn’t see the back of the stage. It causes complications when you bring in a show and you want a flat stage and then they have to raise the front edge: you have to have a false floor and everything, like Singin’ in the Rain. If you’re bringing in Singin’ in the Rain, you’d want a flat stage because otherwise all the water would flow. So you’d have to take out rows of seats as well. So you’d lose income from those, so it gets very complicated.
But the design is fabulous. It’s very similar – there’s a theatre, I think at Wolverhampton, that’s got something to do with the same designer, I think. I’ve been there as well and that’s got very much the same sort of arrangement of seating and things and the rake on the stage as well. It’s weird because you think that everything you put on the stage is just going to start falling this way, but, obviously, everything is either weighted or adjusted to sit on the stage, but yes, you have to be aware that if you drop something, it could roll, rather than stay exactly where you’ve left it. So those sort of things.
But dancing becomes – there are certain exercises you need to do really if you’re dancing on a raked stage and there are health and safety regulations to do with that and working on a raked stage. So it’s about making sure your dancers are aware of that, because then if you put heels on, as well, on a rake, and then suddenly your whole body is starting to fall forward, so it causes a lot more stress on the backs of your legs. But we do it, we do it. That’s OK.
We’ve never altered the stage so it was flat,. We’ve removed the pit. This last year we’ve just been in with West Side Story and we had the full orchestration, which is a massive orchestration, and we couldn’t fit in the pit, so we actually put them in the dock at the back of the stage and filled that whole space with musicians and took out a couple of rows at the front. So we’ve adjusted things slightly and the pit here, you can raise and lower the pit, so it can come up to stage level. So if you wanted to, you can do it, if you don’t use it as an orchestra pit itself. So you can do that, but the shows we bring in with Carlton Operatic, we hire floors and things, we hire the whole set, so we literally cover up the whole of the actual flooring that is down, which is actually quite slippery. We put on false floors. But we’ve never levelled it. I’ve never tried that one.
In this interview, Amanda discusses the Theatre Royal’s famous raked stage and how companies deal with it, as well as the venue’s orchestra pit:
When you sit in the stalls, particularly, if the stage was flat, you’d want to sit further back so that you could actually see the back of the stage. So because there is a rake on it, it means that you can see, I mean in ballet and dance and things like that, you can sit on the front row and see everybody’s feet. Whereas if it was flat, you wouldn’t see the back of the stage. It causes complications when you bring in a show and you want a flat stage and then they have to raise the front edge: you have to have a false floor and everything, like Singin’ in the Rain. If you’re bringing in Singin’ in the Rain, you’d want a flat stage because otherwise all the water would flow. So you’d have to take out rows of seats as well. So you’d lose income from those, so it gets very complicated.
But the design is fabulous. It’s very similar – there’s a theatre, I think at Wolverhampton, that’s got something to do with the same designer, I think. I’ve been there as well and that’s got very much the same sort of arrangement of seating and things and the rake on the stage as well. It’s weird because you think that everything you put on the stage is just going to start falling this way, but, obviously, everything is either weighted or adjusted to sit on the stage, but yes, you have to be aware that if you drop something, it could roll, rather than stay exactly where you’ve left it. So those sort of things.
But dancing becomes – there are certain exercises you need to do really if you’re dancing on a raked stage and there are health and safety regulations to do with that and working on a raked stage. So it’s about making sure your dancers are aware of that, because then if you put heels on, as well, on a rake, and then suddenly your whole body is starting to fall forward, so it causes a lot more stress on the backs of your legs. But we do it, we do it. That’s OK.
We’ve never altered the stage so it was flat,. We’ve removed the pit. This last year we’ve just been in with West Side Story and we had the full orchestration, which is a massive orchestration, and we couldn’t fit in the pit, so we actually put them in the dock at the back of the stage and filled that whole space with musicians and took out a couple of rows at the front. So we’ve adjusted things slightly and the pit here, you can raise and lower the pit, so it can come up to stage level. So if you wanted to, you can do it, if you don’t use it as an orchestra pit itself. So you can do that, but the shows we bring in with Carlton Operatic, we hire floors and things, we hire the whole set, so we literally cover up the whole of the actual flooring that is down, which is actually quite slippery. We put on false floors. But we’ve never levelled it. I’ve never tried that one.
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
