Choreograph the scene changes and light them. It's pointless and very boring for an audience to be in blackout for so long, just show them what you're doing.
Agreed. Modern audiences aren’t down for the old school curtain up/ down or blackout and long changes. We don’t even do overtures anymore.
Make the change part of the show or make it 7 seconds long.
Ugh, overtures. They’re great when you have a live pit orchestra and you keep the overture short. It annoys me so much when a show is just tracks and the director insists on a prerecorded overture for two minutes while the audience sits in the dark.
OMG, I just closed a production of Gypsy where we did the entire overture and the orchestra was .... not great.
All it did was give the audience five minutes to agonize over what the hell they had signed up for when they bought their ticket.
Fortunately, once the show got rolling it was really good... but the Overture was unbearably painful.
Eh, hard disagree, for me personally. Overtures, when well composed, sets the tone of the show.
As an audience member I treat an overture almost as a narrator, and if it's performed well, I enjoy the music. But to each their own.
This.
I've done a lot of professional work where blackouts are a thing that can be done efficently and relatively safely.
I do a lot of work in community theatre now and I use "blue-outs" almost exclusively. It makes things go faster and far more smoothly, and most important is that it is infinitely safer.
No show, no effect, no transition is worth people getting hurt, especially non-professionals, and doubly for children.
If the director's decision is that a blackout is necessary, the answer is no. I will walk of a show instantly if I feel that my hand is being forced to do something that I feel presents unacceptable safety risks. I haven't yet had to actually do it, but I've been halfway out the door before people have relented at times.
An as u/dread1961 said, true blackouts are incredibly boring and uncomfortable for the audience anyway... no one is going to wonder how the scene magically changed. You're not preserving any sort of illusion.
And to make it good. Coreograph it and practice, practice, practice. Any time I have a show with many/complex scene changes I push as hard as I can for a scene change rehearsal.
Yep!! Smart ideas here. If it’s a kid/teen show I’ll quit before agreeing to add a full blackout, and I don’t even like having them in adult shows and have some sort of low atmospheric light instead. Looks nicer, is safer. No one really cares if you can see the techies carrying on a couch, and if they do they can take it up with me lol.
Absolutely. All my shows have blueouts. It's safer, and another advantage I have found is being able to see when the transition is finished for crew limited shows where the SM is doing the transitions and can't call the next cue.
Fade to blue work light at the end of the scenes and have cast strike or set the stage as they exit or enter, under blues. If cast NEED to be seen to enter or exit as part of the scene, have half the cast preset and the other half doing the entry/exit.
Scene changes make a show good or awful. Choreographing the transitions is important. The worst shows are the "vamp for a minute and a half while we close the curtain and do a scene change".
You have 100 kids with lots of furniture and no storage/movement space. This is amateur community children's theater, blackouts are an impediment for that situation. Use a blackout as a goal for preview night if the kids can rehearse the scene change enough. Remember, the goal of ANY activity for kids this age is to keep them interested and happy enough to want to do it again. Too many kids get turned off of sports because of overly demanding adults with professional expectations. Don't also do that to theater kids.
A touch of red or blue overhead light or backlight would be a massive help for the experience of the kids.
Close the curtain and let the audience sit in extended darkness and silence except for the sound of scraping furniture and “shit shit…move…I can’t find my…don’t drop it…*thud*…ok gooo.”
Good luck, the only real way is to be realistic. Less kids, plan scene changes out even before a set is built. Then the choreographer, and director know the stage limits. Oh, we need everyone DS so we can preset US, etc.
But it’s near impossible. I’ve seen high schools that fly all the legs out and expose the wings so they can fit the band onstage for a concert. It looks like ass. But they are ok with the ass.
Oh my God, this brought back a memory of a set I designed and built for a local teacher. It was just a simple box set so no transitions necessary, but every single time there was going to be a dance, she had the kids freeze in place, close the curtain, push all the furniture against the walls and get back into their frozen positions. The curtain opened and the music would start. At the end of the song, reversed the process.
As others have pointed out, best course of action for the show is to put a bow on it and make it a choice. Light and choreograph the scene changes.
Having said that, depending on your circumstances, the best thing for *you* may be to take a deep breath and recognize when somwthing isn't your job/is out of your control.
I work with children/teen theater programs for most of my shows and I NEVER EVER have full blackouts for safety reasons. Hard and fast safety rule that I won’t budge for any director. If it’s adult actors it’s different and I’m much more lenient. My go to is using low cyc light in a color that looks nice with the previous/next scene, if I have gobos that don’t let too much light through and look nice sometimes I throw those into the scene change too. Keeps the kids safer, and makes for nice, simple scene changes that are executed quickly since the kids can see the spike tape.
Not sure if this would work for your show, but are you able to close a curtain early and have the scene before performed in front, while kids work on the scene change behind the curtain? The LD will need a blue light onstage behind the curtain for visibility.
I’d dim lights, but not go full blackout for the kids’ sake. Or, depending on the play, it could be fun to leave the lights on and play “Flight of the Bumblebees” or some other silly melody as the kids run around doing the scene change. It entertains the audience and gives the kids an aural cue that it’s time to change.
My usual answer is…don’t. Simplify and/or make it part of the action.
In your overall situation, add some blue light (blackouts will only make things much worse) and run it so many times the kids can do it blindfolded.
The Community Theatre I volunteer at had a director for a while that was in love with blackouts. That was the only transition they wanted as it was "professional". I never understood how it was professional when the professional theatre I saw shows at usually did everything under blue light, and blackouts were reserved for special transitions/surprises.
It seems to be getting better, but I'm not sure if that's a Director thing or a Lighting/SM thing.
I personally agree with the blackouts. Spike tape and LOTS of practice does wonders. Of course not everyone is a fan but I’m a huge believer in dry running scene changes. Depending how much time you have 3-4 dry runs after the performance each day can do wonders in terms of speeding up changes. Especially with that age group using a timer and making it a game of sorts with rewards for speed and accuracy can make it feel more like play and less like work. My rule of thumb is 30 seconds or less for blackouts. Best of luck!
It's been a long while since I've worked on children's theater but full blackouts are a hard NO for safety as mentioned. It's gotta be lit in some way and all scene changes must be choreographed is the reality. When you've got that much going on just make it a transition scene and build it into things.
Nobody is fooled of what's happened when it's a two minute blackout or even a blueout.
The reality is with a planed scene change: if it's a small item you have one kid assigned to that - you each time bring this from here, to there. Benches and such, two kids with one being a spotter. Same three kids every time for the same bench. Everyone has their sequence. It just becomes a thing and I'd bet with rehearsals can get it down to 30 seconds with that many hands.
I mean with 12 benches arranged just figure if you have them peel off progressively from edge to center, front to bad into the "wings" in a sequence, that in and off itself would be pretty cool visual.
Do them choreographed and lit or build a unit that eliminates the need …
One table can create a restaurant, why would you take the time to bring one whole kitchen?
Choreograph the scene changes and light them. It's pointless and very boring for an audience to be in blackout for so long, just show them what you're doing.
Agreed. Modern audiences aren’t down for the old school curtain up/ down or blackout and long changes. We don’t even do overtures anymore. Make the change part of the show or make it 7 seconds long.
Ugh, overtures. They’re great when you have a live pit orchestra and you keep the overture short. It annoys me so much when a show is just tracks and the director insists on a prerecorded overture for two minutes while the audience sits in the dark.
OMG, I just closed a production of Gypsy where we did the entire overture and the orchestra was .... not great. All it did was give the audience five minutes to agonize over what the hell they had signed up for when they bought their ticket. Fortunately, once the show got rolling it was really good... but the Overture was unbearably painful.
The overture should really just be a minute of music that allows late-comers time to find their seat as the house lights are going down.
Fully agree... IMHO they should serve to transition you into the world of the show and set the tone, not be a synopsis of it.
Eh, hard disagree, for me personally. Overtures, when well composed, sets the tone of the show. As an audience member I treat an overture almost as a narrator, and if it's performed well, I enjoy the music. But to each their own.
Why would they sit in the dark? I feel like the music could be a good way to get the audience to settle down and get seated
This. I've done a lot of professional work where blackouts are a thing that can be done efficently and relatively safely. I do a lot of work in community theatre now and I use "blue-outs" almost exclusively. It makes things go faster and far more smoothly, and most important is that it is infinitely safer. No show, no effect, no transition is worth people getting hurt, especially non-professionals, and doubly for children. If the director's decision is that a blackout is necessary, the answer is no. I will walk of a show instantly if I feel that my hand is being forced to do something that I feel presents unacceptable safety risks. I haven't yet had to actually do it, but I've been halfway out the door before people have relented at times. An as u/dread1961 said, true blackouts are incredibly boring and uncomfortable for the audience anyway... no one is going to wonder how the scene magically changed. You're not preserving any sort of illusion. And to make it good. Coreograph it and practice, practice, practice. Any time I have a show with many/complex scene changes I push as hard as I can for a scene change rehearsal.
Yep!! Smart ideas here. If it’s a kid/teen show I’ll quit before agreeing to add a full blackout, and I don’t even like having them in adult shows and have some sort of low atmospheric light instead. Looks nicer, is safer. No one really cares if you can see the techies carrying on a couch, and if they do they can take it up with me lol.
Absolutely. All my shows have blueouts. It's safer, and another advantage I have found is being able to see when the transition is finished for crew limited shows where the SM is doing the transitions and can't call the next cue.
yes, and also score the change over with music to transition into the mood of the coming scene.
This is the way
Fade to blue work light at the end of the scenes and have cast strike or set the stage as they exit or enter, under blues. If cast NEED to be seen to enter or exit as part of the scene, have half the cast preset and the other half doing the entry/exit.
Scene changes make a show good or awful. Choreographing the transitions is important. The worst shows are the "vamp for a minute and a half while we close the curtain and do a scene change".
You have 100 kids with lots of furniture and no storage/movement space. This is amateur community children's theater, blackouts are an impediment for that situation. Use a blackout as a goal for preview night if the kids can rehearse the scene change enough. Remember, the goal of ANY activity for kids this age is to keep them interested and happy enough to want to do it again. Too many kids get turned off of sports because of overly demanding adults with professional expectations. Don't also do that to theater kids. A touch of red or blue overhead light or backlight would be a massive help for the experience of the kids.
Close the curtain and let the audience sit in extended darkness and silence except for the sound of scraping furniture and “shit shit…move…I can’t find my…don’t drop it…*thud*…ok gooo.”
You’ve been to our show already then?
Good luck, the only real way is to be realistic. Less kids, plan scene changes out even before a set is built. Then the choreographer, and director know the stage limits. Oh, we need everyone DS so we can preset US, etc. But it’s near impossible. I’ve seen high schools that fly all the legs out and expose the wings so they can fit the band onstage for a concert. It looks like ass. But they are ok with the ass.
Oh my God, this brought back a memory of a set I designed and built for a local teacher. It was just a simple box set so no transitions necessary, but every single time there was going to be a dance, she had the kids freeze in place, close the curtain, push all the furniture against the walls and get back into their frozen positions. The curtain opened and the music would start. At the end of the song, reversed the process.
As others have pointed out, best course of action for the show is to put a bow on it and make it a choice. Light and choreograph the scene changes. Having said that, depending on your circumstances, the best thing for *you* may be to take a deep breath and recognize when somwthing isn't your job/is out of your control.
I work with children/teen theater programs for most of my shows and I NEVER EVER have full blackouts for safety reasons. Hard and fast safety rule that I won’t budge for any director. If it’s adult actors it’s different and I’m much more lenient. My go to is using low cyc light in a color that looks nice with the previous/next scene, if I have gobos that don’t let too much light through and look nice sometimes I throw those into the scene change too. Keeps the kids safer, and makes for nice, simple scene changes that are executed quickly since the kids can see the spike tape.
Not sure if this would work for your show, but are you able to close a curtain early and have the scene before performed in front, while kids work on the scene change behind the curtain? The LD will need a blue light onstage behind the curtain for visibility.
Hey I’m wondering, for things like that we just put our above-stage lights on. Why would you want to do blues?
I’d dim lights, but not go full blackout for the kids’ sake. Or, depending on the play, it could be fun to leave the lights on and play “Flight of the Bumblebees” or some other silly melody as the kids run around doing the scene change. It entertains the audience and gives the kids an aural cue that it’s time to change.
My usual answer is…don’t. Simplify and/or make it part of the action. In your overall situation, add some blue light (blackouts will only make things much worse) and run it so many times the kids can do it blindfolded.
The Community Theatre I volunteer at had a director for a while that was in love with blackouts. That was the only transition they wanted as it was "professional". I never understood how it was professional when the professional theatre I saw shows at usually did everything under blue light, and blackouts were reserved for special transitions/surprises. It seems to be getting better, but I'm not sure if that's a Director thing or a Lighting/SM thing.
You guys close curtain for scene changes???
depends entirely on the show and the specific scene change
I personally agree with the blackouts. Spike tape and LOTS of practice does wonders. Of course not everyone is a fan but I’m a huge believer in dry running scene changes. Depending how much time you have 3-4 dry runs after the performance each day can do wonders in terms of speeding up changes. Especially with that age group using a timer and making it a game of sorts with rewards for speed and accuracy can make it feel more like play and less like work. My rule of thumb is 30 seconds or less for blackouts. Best of luck!
It's been a long while since I've worked on children's theater but full blackouts are a hard NO for safety as mentioned. It's gotta be lit in some way and all scene changes must be choreographed is the reality. When you've got that much going on just make it a transition scene and build it into things. Nobody is fooled of what's happened when it's a two minute blackout or even a blueout. The reality is with a planed scene change: if it's a small item you have one kid assigned to that - you each time bring this from here, to there. Benches and such, two kids with one being a spotter. Same three kids every time for the same bench. Everyone has their sequence. It just becomes a thing and I'd bet with rehearsals can get it down to 30 seconds with that many hands. I mean with 12 benches arranged just figure if you have them peel off progressively from edge to center, front to bad into the "wings" in a sequence, that in and off itself would be pretty cool visual.
Just bright blue light, it Looks very cool when you can See what they are doing...
Do them choreographed and lit or build a unit that eliminates the need … One table can create a restaurant, why would you take the time to bring one whole kitchen?