Michael Donoghue Interview: The Theatre Royal's Sightline Issues
Title
Michael Donoghue Interview: The Theatre Royal's Sightline Issues
Date
3 August 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Michael Donoghue, Head of Sound & Lighting at the Theatre Royal.
What's the story?
Born in London and involved in amateur theatre as a performer in his early years, Michael Donoghue ‘ditched’ his A levels to work professionally in the theatre. At the tender age of nineteen, in 1991 he moved to Nottingham to work as a lighting technician at the Theatre Royal.
Having clearly learnt ‘on the job’ Michael is now Head of Sound & Lighting at the venue, managing an extremely busy department.
In this interview Michael talks about the sightlines issues that can occasionally crop up with a visiting company’s set. This can be problematic due to a wide auditorium and narrow proscenium arch and requires technical and box office teams to liaise to solve the matter.
Sightlines are always an issue for us because our auditorium is quite wide, the stalls seating is quite wide, but then our pros opening, the opening at the front of the stage, is quite narrow. But then visiting companies come in and they pretty much always want to hang speakers and lights right at the side of the stage, what we call our “pros boom position”. So, if you look on the stage you’ll see there’s like a piece of truss that goes up the wall, where all the lights and the speakers are hung on the front. We had an occasion the other week where someone brought in a speaker that was probably about the size of a free-standing fridge-freezer at home and they wanted to hang them right at the side of the Dress Circle Box. So the Dress Circle Box already sticks out, but then they wanted the speaker to hang there, so it was like “Oh my God, this is going to cause a problem”. So then I had to go to the Box Office to say that the company are saying that the speakers have to go here, because that’s the way it’s designed. So we got the Box Office Manager to come down to look at it. So then they had to look at the seating plan to work out how many people that was going to upset. But a lot of the time we can avoid that by just making the visiting company understand that “You can put your light there, but it’s going to cause a problem. Can we try moving it to this position instead to try to make it work a bit better?” A lot of the time they’ll say “Oh yeah, fine, I understand”. But sometimes they can be awkward. Again, it’s just one of those things. You never know. Some weeks you come in, they say “Oh, the light needs to be here”. But obviously I can’t put it there and they’ll come up with a compromise themselves before you’ve said anything and then other weeks “No, it has to go here. No, it’s got to go there”. It’s like “No, that’s where it has to be”. It can be hard sometimes.
Having clearly learnt ‘on the job’ Michael is now Head of Sound & Lighting at the venue, managing an extremely busy department.
In this interview Michael talks about the sightlines issues that can occasionally crop up with a visiting company’s set. This can be problematic due to a wide auditorium and narrow proscenium arch and requires technical and box office teams to liaise to solve the matter.
Sightlines are always an issue for us because our auditorium is quite wide, the stalls seating is quite wide, but then our pros opening, the opening at the front of the stage, is quite narrow. But then visiting companies come in and they pretty much always want to hang speakers and lights right at the side of the stage, what we call our “pros boom position”. So, if you look on the stage you’ll see there’s like a piece of truss that goes up the wall, where all the lights and the speakers are hung on the front. We had an occasion the other week where someone brought in a speaker that was probably about the size of a free-standing fridge-freezer at home and they wanted to hang them right at the side of the Dress Circle Box. So the Dress Circle Box already sticks out, but then they wanted the speaker to hang there, so it was like “Oh my God, this is going to cause a problem”. So then I had to go to the Box Office to say that the company are saying that the speakers have to go here, because that’s the way it’s designed. So we got the Box Office Manager to come down to look at it. So then they had to look at the seating plan to work out how many people that was going to upset. But a lot of the time we can avoid that by just making the visiting company understand that “You can put your light there, but it’s going to cause a problem. Can we try moving it to this position instead to try to make it work a bit better?” A lot of the time they’ll say “Oh yeah, fine, I understand”. But sometimes they can be awkward. Again, it’s just one of those things. You never know. Some weeks you come in, they say “Oh, the light needs to be here”. But obviously I can’t put it there and they’ll come up with a compromise themselves before you’ve said anything and then other weeks “No, it has to go here. No, it’s got to go there”. It’s like “No, that’s where it has to be”. It can be hard sometimes.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Jennifer Sherwood & David Longford
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
