Sorry this started a bit late - things have been rather hectic. Thought this month we might try to be topical and so its

Ta da ........

Summer Holiday. Not one I know much about, so over to you .............................

Is it good fun, what range of parts are there, is it difficult to stage, etc, etc........

Dave Beattie lit it a year ago. It was great, the bus worked well and he had some movers to get some pace into the staging. In fact there was not too much onstage, mainly big moveable flats with different projections.

This musical was the first show that wasn't panto that I took my son to see - he would have been about 7 and at the end of act one (I think it is) when the girls cap falls off and she is revealed to be female he stood up and shouted at the stage to tell her that it had fallen off in true panto audience style. That was at the opera house in Blackpool. I enjoyed it and my lad laughed all the way through so I can't argue with that!

AT the risk of sounding totally stupid, how important is the bus? How much does it need to move - I must get a copy of this to read through - it might be a feasible choice for us next year.

Someone told me once - so it may not be true - that there are two versions of the script - one where the bus is used as a full moving all singing all dancing bus and the other written for amateurs or theatres that haven't got the capability for that size of set that uses flats or simpler technique. Might be worth having a look into though. Although I suppose the bus is the gimmick of the show like the helicopter in saigon, the flying in eastwick and the chandelier in phantom - I spose people would expect to see it.

The currently available script strongly de-emphasises the bus prop. There are some interesting notes at the front of the script about this. In the first professional stage version (Darren Day et. al.) the bus got a round of applause, and indeed was very impressive, but tended to just stick around clogging up the stage otherwise. If I remember rightly it was a genuine double decker prop with action taking place "upstairs" on occasion. The new version has been re-written to require a bus front for a couple of scenes and a lower-deck-only bus interior for a few others. In other words it's a lot easier!

I've done this show pretty sucessfully on a tiny stage (and have the bus prop to prove it, but we're ripping it apart if no one takes it off our hands this year).

It's a genuine joy to perform. Lots of singing and not much dialogue. Wafer thin plot, but it goes down well with audiences especially those of "a certain age". I saw a local school do it just a few weeks ago and it was excellent. The band had fun too.

Some of the scene changes took rather a long time and there are "shadows" instrumental tracks to cover them. That can be a bit dull, so you may want to be creative here. We did a series of animated postcards and maps projected from an LCD projector.

Recommended!

Details and pics now at:

http://www.beattiesnet.co.uk/index_files/SH.htm

Dave

I know it might sound daft, but are you happy publishing all you designs. Anyone could lift them and use them for another show in the same venue

I have thought about it and decided that there are two major parts of a design: what you put where and how you use it. Neither is of much use without the other. There are a few areas to the design:

1) General wash cover - not really worried about this
2) Specific spots/areas - these will be specific to the set and Director
3) Specials - OK some ideas here might need protecting, but realistically I am not in competition with anyone and would be glad to chat them through with anyone if they wanted to use them. This is best shown with the Varis for Summer Holiday, where I used a whole load of Rental Access Gobos rather than the standard ones. Without this selection, the efffects simply wouldn't happen
4) Colour selection - Again, happy to chat with anyone about this

I think that if you gave four designers the same rig to focus and use on the same show you would still end up with four different looks.

Putting the designs out follows the "Open Source" mentality. Hopefully it acts as a body of reference, it might prove helpful and it might stimulate some further ideas. I have put a copyright on each of the designs, but I am more interested in hearing from anyone that might like to re-use the ideas. It also acts as a bit of advertising

Dave

Nice one Dave. I love your site. I see lighting still spelt wrong on the left hand side

Yes, I am going to do another update this weekend to include the RTTFP stuff and I will correct a couple of typos then.

Dave

This is not meant to sound contentious, but even if that were true, would it be a problem? Obviously there are differences in approach between amateur and professional on this kind of point, but as an amateur I'd be happy to share experiences and designs.

That's my thinking exactly. In fact, someone might even ask me to do the same show for them!

Dave

Thats fine then !

I've been in Summer Holiday and really enjoyed it but was very unsure at first. Saw a production of it I didn't like much but found it a really really fun show to be part of.

A way of getting round having a big bus if you can't move it is having a remote control smaller version if there's someone that can make it. This was the highlight for quite a lot of people in the audience I think!!!

Unfortunately, this breaks one fo the gags. During the scene that the mother and the agent have a picnic, they see a bus go past. This is usually a very small scale model of the big bus and is a play on perspective (ie is is in the distance, so appears small). When we did this, the small bus got a round of applause every night, something that the big bus didn't manage.

After the production we managed to sell our big bus and cover the manufacturing cost. I believe that it was sold again after that production.

Dave

I don't think our audiences really minded the small bus being "overused", most of them laughed hysterically and clapped every time it was on the stage. Guess it just depends on how much you can move the big bus etc.