My tutor at Northbrook made me aware of an opportunity for an ASM on Brighton Family Pantomime, and it was a great chance to get into the world of panto and gain some experience.

We rehearsed at BHOS Community Arts Hub for a day before making the move to Roedean School for a final rehearsal. When we moved to the Doubletree by Hilton Brighton Metropole, the first task was turning the conference room into the Jason Sutton Theatre. This was chiefly handled by the local crew, while myself and the rest of the stage management team turned our attention to the dragon costume we had been provided, which looked a little too silly for what we were aiming to achieve, as well as being far too heavy for the dancers to operate safely. We made the decision to forego the ‘body’ of the dragon, and have the dancers do a more abstract version, each holding a piece of the costume. I went out to source the necessary materials for making a tail, which included hula hoops, broom handles, and a large amount of spray paint and glue. I assisted the other ASM in putting together the dragon tail, while also adorning a large amount of props with glitter, marking up the tables backstage, and assisting in testing the integrity of the dragon head.

When the performances began, I made myself a running list in my notebook in order to manage my track, in addition to adding the small things I would do in downtime, such as helping Carabosse with her costume changes, tidying away props to gradually preset for the top of the show, making tote bags of goodies for children, and trying to remove glitter from various props.

My work on the show consisted largely of setting scene changes behind cloths, though my preset was much more interesting. It consisted of filling water pistols, counting bras, making goodie bags for children, and maintaining the increasingly troublesome dragon head, with daily surgeries of superglue and duct tape. 

The best part of the show was the 12 days of Christmas, which entailed flinging various implements on stage as fast as possible, and executing rescue missions for those which didn’t quite make it back into the wings, and sweeping all of the props out of the wings in time for the entrance for the children brought on stage for the singalong.