#rwcmd

[asat3683]

👀 Michael Sheen will be performing in Cardiff on February 27th, 2022.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jacqueline Houston (@tiger_orgasm)

More info here:

Margins to Mainstream with Michael Sheen | Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama

[alexmilledge]

Puppetry In A Suitcase

This Autumn term of my MA in Performance Design I have been given the task of designing and performing a ‘Show in a Suitcase’. 

The show needs to include original puppetry elements that are all contained in a suitcase with the idea that it can be packed away and travel easily. 

It will be aimed at children between age 5-7, use no technical lighting and hopefully have some level of musical accompaniment or collaboration. 

In its final form it will be documented in film and developed along side the performances of the other Puppetry MA’s. 

I will be documenting the process on here with images, ideas and drawings! 

[saxlockian]

Been missing big band work lately but I’m excited for some online projects 
coming up! 🎷🎺🎸🎹🥁🎤

[cse2k]

It would be really cool to be able to do the whole work, but still awesome to be able to play the sacrificial dance! #keepcounting #stravinsky #orchestra #rwcmd #clarinet #clarinetstudent #musicstudents #conservatory #lesacreduprintemps #theriteofspring #riteofspring #1212312345

[kirionline-dame-kiri-te-kanawa]

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's #CardiffSinger Masterclass earlier today at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

(c) Sumi Jo

[lovefromemm]

Rehearsal props. Assistant Stage Manager duties. Hello mammoth scale Opera, please be kind 💕 #ASM #bringiton #streetscene #rwcmd #opera #stagemanagement #props #rehearsals #propshelf #summerseason (at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama)

[alleiramagic]

Grimm Tales Production Week 6 - Seeing the Final Show and Get Out!

Royal Welsh College Music & Drama MA Design for Performance

The final week working on Grimm, was truthfully, the easiest one so far - due to the nature of the show, all the actors never came offstage and there were no quick changes for us to deal with as dressers. Therefore, I could arrange the schedule so only two of us had to be on each night, and nobody had to work both the matinee and the evening show. I also made sure there were three of us for the first and last nights, so everything kicked off smoothly and we could start preparing for the get out.

The main assistant tasks pre-show were hair and makeup - Lila had her hair in french braids with two smaller plaits on either side, which either I or Layla did as we had the most hair experience; the ASMs also needed eyeliner moustaches. We also had to hand over Jerome and Seb’s smoking caps to the ASMs each night, as they wore them at the beginning and end of the show and were kept on the props table. The ASMs made this much easier on us after the third show by bringing in a props box for the actors to put any leftover props in after.

There were three major emergencies in the middle of shows that we handled well - Lila’s skirt tearing near the hem, Alex’s shoe sole coming apart, and Seb’s left trouser hem falling down. We sewed together Lila and Seb’s hems between shows, while for Alex we had to tape the boot together for the second act and source a replacement pair for the next evening. We were split across the millinery workshop on Monday-Thursday, so we stayed on top of laundry with whoever was in university during the day putting the shirts, tablecloths and socks/tights on to wash and tumble dry. 

Our get-out on Saturday was very successful - by storing the actors’ accessories in labelled plastic bags, they kept track of their costumes during the performances and there was only one sock we couldn’t find on the final day. This was also when the digital Costume Bible came in handy, as I was late coming in on Saturday; but Arianna accessed and printed of the BCS Hires Description List I’d already made earlier and the others could crack on with organising costumes without my presence. After bagging up the costumes, we took any extra university items back to underseating and the makeup cupboards, cleared and swept the dressing room, and added any final receipts and schedules to the bible folder.

[alleiramagic]

Grimm Tales Production Week 5 - Intense Tech Days

Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama MA Design for Performance

We went into tech for Grimm Tales on Tuesday 30th November, with three full-on days from 9am-10pm scheduled, as well as two dress runs. I’d previously created the schedule for the assistants across these days, working around an Opera Meet and Greet that myself and the MA1s had to attend on Tuesday evening, as well as Arianna’s tech sessions for the other two shows. This made the intense few days a bit easier to handle, as we all had an opportunity to sleep in at least once after a late evening - I even took a small nap myself on Thursday afternoon before going into the first dress run (pictured above)!

Tuesday and Wednesday of tech were mainly taken up with finishing off the Thousandfurs coat, which I already covered in a previous post. During the Thousandfurs tech on Tuesday, Izzy was clearly struggling to do up the front of the ballgowns with the hook and eye tape - so the next day Hazel and Katie had to remove them again and go back to using the stronger magnets we’d ordered. There were a few essential jobs we had to attend to throughout the tech period; namely, we had to arrive between 8:30-8:45am to open the dressing room for the actors, and also at least one assistant had to be in the theatre during the tech sessions to make notes on anything we’d missed in the production weeks or needed last minute changes.

This included sourcing and adjusting new waistcoats for the ASMs, who were meant to be dressed as waiters when they came onstage to move set pieces - we pulled the smallest black waistcoats we could find from Wardrobe, then took in the sides on all of them and slip stitched the lining back in place. Jerome’s trousers also lost 3 buttons in the first days of tech, so I had to sew these back on on Thursday. Finally, we experimented with some “dead” makeup for the band, who were meant to be the Grimms’ dead relatives: as seen above, we tried something in the way of hollow cheekbones, but after the first dress on Thursday decided against doing any makeup at all.