Venue 13: A Day in the Life of a Stage Manager
Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009
Every summer RWCMD students travel to Edinburgh to
manage Venue 13, the College’s very own theatre space, during the
world famous Fringe Festival. Stage Management student, Angharad
Jones takes us backstage.
Sunday 9th August, 2009
7:00 - Morning fix: tea, toast and cereal for
breakfast and I’m ready to go. Thank goodness for comfy shoes; a
typical day involves a 
thirty minute walk to
the venue followed by fourteen hours on my feet!
9:00 - On arrival we begin setting up for the
first performance of the day.
11:00 - Still running on adrenaline, we have
been here for a week already and boy has it been a demanding one!
With a crew of eight, we have transformed a once well-lit
chur
ch
hall into a black box theatre space. We have two venue/stage
managers, four technicians and two Americans who are here on work
experience. We are putting on eight shows in total, four from the
US and four from Wales.
13:00 - There’s a great buzz on the streets of
Edinburgh, crowds are overflowing on the streets of the Royal Mile.
We are becoming regulars at a great café called Fresco that’s five
minutes away from the venue. A ham and cheese Panini goes down a
treat!
14:00 - The weather is absolutely gorgeous
today. I am out on the lawn writing my diary. Life is good!
16:00 - I’m stage managing The Dawn of
Quixote, a musical adaptation of the first chapter of the
classic Don Quixote; I Like It to be a Play and
Every Afternoon by Gertrude Stein; The Opposite of
Waiting by Lisa Wells Turner; and Burton, a play
which follows the life of Richard Burton, from his humble Welsh
roots to international stardom.
In the turn around between each play we have to re-focus and
re-gel the lights, and clear the set for the next performance -
quite a feat in just half an hour! I feel like a Welsh miner with a
head torch as I venture down into the storage pit.
19:00 - After two days of tech and dressing, we
have six shows up and running. We head home for a well earned bite
to eat.
21:00 - Tonight we are going to a country music
gig at the Forest Café. The night is young and we are raring to go,
eager to make the most of all the Fringe Festival has to offer!
