Fourteen Items, Ninety Minutes, Six PAR Cans
The school annual showcase runs 90 minutes with 14 items and no interval. The lighting rig is fixed: six PAR cans on the front bar (two circuits, warm and cool), two profile spots on the back bar, no follow spot, and a lighting operator who is a Class 11 student and has done two shows. The technical rehearsal is 25 minutes on stage on the morning of the show. Items include a Kathakali-inspired piece with a 40-second slow entrance that needs a dark stage and strong side light; a Rajasthani folk piece with fast spins that needs bright, even front light; a solo poem-dance that needs one tight special; and a finale with about 60 performers. Two items need a set change between them, and one performer has asked for a blackout during her piece.
1. Design the lighting approach: what gets a special and what does not, and why? How do you answer the blackout request?
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With six PARs, two profiles, and a novice operator, the principle is a repertory plot: one general wash used by most items, plus a small number of pre-set, repeatable specials. Anything more elaborate cannot be run reliably, and an unreliable cue is worse than no cue.
- General wash: front warm on circuit A, cool on circuit B, both at about 70% for general dance. This is the default state.
- Special 1 - the Kathakali-inspired entrance: both back profiles at a steep angle to model the face and body, and the wash held down for the 40 seconds. A true side light is not rigged, so this is the honest approximation; announce the compromise rather than pretend.
- Special 2 - the solo poem-dance: one profile focused on a taped spike, at a tight iris, with the wash at 30%.
- The folk piece: full wash on both circuits at 100%. Fast spins need even, bright front light; effects here cause dizziness and strobing, not atmosphere.
- The finale: everything up, no special. Sixty performers need coverage, not modelling.
The blackout request: decline a full blackout. With no follow spot, a blackout leaves the dancer lit only by the hall's emergency lighting and exit signs - a dim grey, not darkness, and it flatters nobody. Offer instead a dim to 30% under the profile special, which achieves the mood and keeps her visible. Explain this to her directly rather than letting her discover it on stage.
2. Plan the 25-minute technical rehearsal, minute by minute, and justify the order.
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0–3 min: rig check with the operator - circuits, focus, gels, cables, and the desk's channel list taped to the desk. Faults found now can be fixed; faults found at 6 p.m. cannot.
3–6 min: block the finale's entrances and final positions. Sixty people need the most walking time and the most correction, and they are all present and fresh first thing. Doing this last is how finales end up at the edge of the light.
6–10 min: the Kathakali-inspired entrance - cue 1 down, cue 2 up; walk the 40 seconds with light only, then once with sound.
10–14 min: the solo - set the profile on the spike, check it does not cut her feet, confirm the dim-to-30 moment and the cue number.
14–18 min: the two set-change items. Rehearse the change with the crew under a mid-stage wash, so nobody works in the dark, and time it. If it exceeds the music, plan a two-dancer cover downstage.
18–22 min: cue-to-cue for the four items that need anything other than the wash. For the remaining ten, check only 'wash up, wash down - no cue inside the item'. Do not cue those ten; it burns time and invites error.
22–25 min: run the head of the show and the tail, then hand over a written numbered cue sheet in item order, with the next cue visible in a column.
3. Identify the three biggest risks on the night and give a concrete mitigation for each.
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1. The operator freezes or loses the place. Mitigate with a numbered cue sheet carrying item names and first lines, a 'next cue' column, a rehearsal on the actual desk, and a second voice - stage manager or runner - calling 'standby cue 5 … go'. Give the operator a default: if lost, bring both circuits to 70%. A plain wash is never wrong on stage.
2. The set change runs long and the whole 90 minutes overruns. Time the change in the technical rehearsal and again in the dress. If it cannot be done in the music available, either simplify the set or stage a two-dancer cover downstage under the wash while the crew works upstage. A hard rule helps: the stage manager calls the change, and the light state protects the crew.
3. No follow spot, so a mis-set special leaves a performer in the dark - the solo dancer drifting off her spike, or the finale's sixty spilling into the unlit edges. Mitigate by taping the solo's position, focusing the profile on that tape during the technical rehearsal, and setting the general wash wide enough to cover the whole stage rather than a flattering narrow one. Also check the electrical load, keep spare lamps and gels, and confirm the hall's emergency lighting will not come up mid-show - that single call has saved more school performances than any cue.
Run the risk list as a five-minute conversation with the stage manager before doors, not as a document nobody reads.