Knox Academy

Drama Department

J Naples-Campbell
 The Casting Process - Timing Is Everything

The time line for work here at Pitlochry Festival Theatre begins much
earlier than most people realise. As the 2007 season is opening we are
already solidifying the programme for 2008.

In any given year the Artistic Director will normally direct 2 of the season
plays whilst the remaining 4 are directed by invited guest directors.

The team of Directors will create a breakdown of the characters involved

in all 6 plays and the types of actors they will need to play them. This is
released to agents across the UK and actors are invited to submit their
CV’s.
The company is usually made up of between 18-22 actors depending on
the shows and the character breakdowns, in every season we will receive
many thousands of CV applications.
The CV’s are then processed and a short list of actors is invited to audition
in London or Edinburgh over the winter.

To give an indication of just how many applicants we have, lets look at

one run of characters from this season. (Remember there are 18 – 20 of
these each season) One actress was required to play the following roles:
Mirren (Passing Places) Dinah (Philadelphia Story) & Beatie (Magistrate)

Over 400 CV’s were received for this one place!

(The light grey boxes behind this text)

24 actresses were short listed and auditioned…

...and just one was finally chosen!

At any one time

There are over 80% of them
60,000 actors in will NOT be
the United working as an
Kingdom. actor!
This process is repeated for most of the cast runs, although a few familiar
faces to Pitlochry are given personal invitations to perform in the season.
The selected company arrives in Pitlochry in March to begin rehearsals of
the first four shows.

The actors are expected to learn multiple parts at once -

sometimes rehearsing two different plays in the same
day and, later in the season, performing two different
plays on the same day. We try to balance the workload
so that an actor who is a lead role in one play will be a
smaller role in another.

To make sure we are ready for the opening night our

cast work up to a six day week any time between 10 am and 10pm –
usually working 43 hours a week. This does not include time spent at
home learning lines and working out character histories for all there roles!

Rehearsals Begin
The rehearsal process is very complex and depending on the demands of
the production, the Artistic Director can employ a number of specialists to
assist him.
Passing places rehearsals required the following staff:

Director - Ken Alexander

Drives the vision of the piece, directs actors and guides the team to
realise his vision.

Stage Manager - Nick Trueman

Provides all materials required for the rehearsal process including
rehearsal props & furniture and oversees the stageing of the production
when transferred to the stage

Deputy Stage Manager - Maggie Lyndsay

Co-ordinates the book for the performance –
assisting in rehearsals, providing prompts to
actors and notes to the technical and production
teams then running the show from prompt
corner when transferred to the stage.

Assistant Stage Manager – Gillian

Marchbank
Assists the stage manager and “runs” (is in charge of props and actors in
the wing when transferred to the stage.

While rehearsals progress, the design process is also in full swing.

The Design Process - Working in Repertoire

PFT runs a Repertoire system of performance. This means the theatre

presents a season of plays, with a different play on stage each day.
To this end, our production team have to reset the stage each day with a
totally different floor, set, and lighting design– this is called a turnaround.
There are also turnarounds between the matinee and evening
performances every Wednesday, Saturday and various other weekdays
throughout the season. During these two turnarounds the team of 6 – 8
production staff have only 2 hours to complete the task.

To enable us to work a repertoire system we have to take many elements

into consideration at the design stage:

• Design concept/Directorial vision

• Budget
• Storage space
• Materials and expertise required to build
• And, most importantly can the finished product be built or dismantled
in the space of 1 hour for the matinee turnarounds?

Design Team :

Set Design - Charles Cusick-Smith

Visually realise the ideas the director has about how the play should look
and be represented.

Costume Design - Charles Cusick-Smith

Designs costumes in keeping with the set and the ideas of the director. As
is the case with Passing Places, the costume designer and the set
designer are often the same person.

Lighting Design - Ace McKinnon

Creates the Lighting plan for all lights used in the
entire season.
Uses lighting effects to visually enhance the set
and costumes and create the atmosphere required
by the action and content of the script.

Sound Design - Ronnie McConnell

The creator of the musical/ aural elements of a
production, helping create the atmosphere
required by the action and the script and compliment the live effects
performed by the acting company.
Set & Costume Design :

The production design process is a lengthy

one, starting at least six months and often as
much as 10 months before the production
starts.
This process begins when the Designer is
engaged.
Discussion between the Director and
Designer take place about the artistic
concept. The Head of Production & Resources advises the Designer about
the budget and resources available at the theatre.

The Designer makes an initial scale model of the set known as a “white
card” model, modifying this as the design progresses.

The final version is an exact full colour, scale miniature of the set complete
with furniture and props, rather like a doll's house!

Once the Director and Designer are happy with the model it is passed to
the Production Team, who calculates how much it will cost to build.

The Production Team has to work within very tight budgets set at the
beginning of the year.

If the set proves too expensive, the Director and Designer will have to
make changes so that the set comes within the budget.

Once the design is

finalised the Designer will
produce a full colour
model and working
drawings.

The carpenters, scenic

artists, stage
management and
wardrobe department can
then begin work on the
set, props and costumes.

The full colour scale model (Ratio 1:25)

Set Design:
Charles Cusick-Smith designed the set of Passing Places to encompass Alex
and Brian’s whole journey from Motherwell to Thurso.

The initial visual impact of the set reflects

the sometimes claustrophobic urban
landscape.
By using a combination of hatches, flaps and
sliders the action can flow from scene to
scene very quickly.

As the boys’ journey progresses,

the world around them opens up,
as does the set, revealing a
glimpse of open space and sky.
The further North the boys
travel, the “wider” the open
landscape becomes.
To make this concept work visually, the Set designer and Lighting designer
had to work closely together to create the full backdrop for the cast to
populate with the many colourful characters Alex and Brian encounter.
 The Build :

All our sets are constucted from scratch in our Workshop, with each set
taking on average 1000 man hours to build and paint although some are
decidedly more complex than others.

In an average season we use…

£800 worth of screws & Nails
300 Sheets of 8x4 ft plywood & MDF
6km of 3x1 inch timber!
50 Litres of paint

A whole host of materials ranging

from motorbike parts to Builders
insulation foam, carpet, corrugated
cardboard to motorway conduit can
be used.

Once the sets are built, they are

passed to the team of Scenic Artists,
who then employ many skills and
techniques to create many different
styles and effects.
Passing Places-
The scenic artists have to work before painting
closely with the carpenters as they
are jointly responsible for making a set look exactly like the designer’s
model, only 25 times larger!

They use a many different techniques and effects

like stencilling, dry brushing, spraying, carving and
sculpting to get the exact match to the model.

One technique used regularly on set and costume

is “Breaking Down” This involves making things
look old, dirty or worn out: usually achieved on the
set by painting on “grime and dirt.”

All staff in the workshop have to wear appropriate

protective clothing when using any materials which
may be hazardous. This means that every single
material and substance, every painting & sculpting
process must go through a rigorous series of
Safety checks and risk assessments before the
scenic artists can even start on the set!
Passing Places-
Spray painting in progress
Music & Sound Design :

The director works with the sound team

to select music and sound effects which
are then pieced together to create the
sound-scape for the play.
From scene change music to explosions,
each sound is there to help set the scene
for the audience – to immerse them in
the boys’ world.
With digital recording, and editing,
Computer based sound mixing for shows
is a very high tech art. However we still
need the human element to press the
right buttons at the right time!

Lighting Design:
Pitlochry is unique in UK theatre as the lighting design is made for the
whole season, not just one play, in other words all six plays are considered
at the same time.
There is a general “rig”(The term used for all the lights that are used and
where they are positioned) which covers all areas of the stage for all plays,
then a special “show specific” rig with lights & effects set for each
individual show.
In the same way as the set design is created well in advance, so to are the
lighting designs which are given to the Chief Electrician (Chief LX) and his
team who prepare the lighting “rig” for the forthcoming season.

To ensure all production requirements are met, the

Lighting Designer attends production meetings with
the Directors, Designers and Heads of Department
and regularly attends rehearsals, particularly towards
the end of the rehearsal period when full runs are
being rehearsed.

In the last week of rehearsals the final “tweaks” are

made to lighting rig. During the production week the
Lighting Designer will have a specific period of time
with the finished set on stage to plot all effects and
cues with the director and lighting (LX) operator.
 This is carried out in great detail : how
many seconds the fade out will be, lighting
focused on a set area to within an inch,
This attention to detail is essential to allow
the LX team to reproduce every effect
exactly, in the repertoire season.
The designer fine tunes this during the
technical rehearsals and will attend a
number of performances during the run to
make sure all is as it
should be – which it
invariably is!
The lighting in
Passing Places is
essential, not only to
set the scene & show
the passage of time,
but also to reflect the
mood and
atmosphere of each
scene.

Great use is made of the sky cloth or Cyclorama (cyc for short)– this is a
huge white cloth that is tightly stretched around the entire back of the
stage to give the illusion of open sky.

For Passing Places

this was then spray
painted to give the
effect of clouds and
with the use of
different lighting
effects can indicate
clouds floating by,
the sun setting,
stormy weather
and so on.
The Wardrobe Team : Wardrobe Supervisor - Julie Carlin
In charge of all aspects of costume making from research to fittings,
material purchase and Budgets to staff hours.

Deputy Wardrobe Supervisor - Iona Bollington

Assists the Supervisor, buys clothes and makes and
alters many of the costumes

Assistant Cutter - Sophie Toulouze

Drafts a pattern to the actor's size and cuts the
material for each costume.

Dressers - Shiela Napier & Helen Walter

Clean, repair and maintain all costumes, wig
dressing, preset all costumes & assist with quick
changes during shows and.

Costumes

With 18 actors playing over 80 characters between them (many of whom

have 5 or 6 costumes in each play) there is somewhere in the region of
400 costumes in this season alone. Every one of these is either created or
altered in what we call our Wardrobe department.
With costumes ranging from modern day in Passing
Places to the 1700’s in Flouers o’ Edinburgh by way of
wartime Berlin in Taking Sides, the Wardrobe Team has
a huge workload.
Depending on the style, requirements and budget of a
production, the Wardrobe department will use or adapt
costumes from our extensive stores, hire or buy
costumes or make an entire costume from scratch.

Before a costume is started, the supervisor will

research, in conjunction with the designer, information,
pictures and materials relating to the style and period
required.
The cutter will draft a pattern to the actor's size and cut
the material and the team will then sew the costumes
together.
During this process the actor will be continually fitted
with their costume to make sure that it is going to be
comfortable for them to move and act in.

Most of the costumes for Passing Places were easy to find as it is a

contemporary piece set here in Scotland.
The Story behind the Lada:

A large part of the action in Passing Places takes

place inside a car – the LADA.
It therefore seemed likely that the one thing
the designer would definitely need was .........
a LADA!
So when the chance to “acquire” one came
along, just after the play list for the season
was announced, we jumped at it.

After designer Charles Cusick-Smith began to explain his ideas for the set
however, it became obvious that the LADA was not going to be needed
after all.

So what to do with an old clapped out wreck of a car?

The marketing Department decided to use it as a focal point for advertising
the play.

It was parked on the grass outside the theatre overlooking the river,
beside a Passing Places sign and covered in advertising posters.

Then someone came up with the idea of setting up a website for it .

“www.ladacam.com” was born! On this site you can watch a time delay
image of the LADA and anyone who investigates it!

Making the LADA a “happy” car!

Within the course of the play, the boys’ LADA is ”made happy” with a new
paint job by Serge.
So midway through the season we decided to reflect this with our own car
and asked pupils from Pitlochry High School Art class to come along and
“customise” our LADA, the results of which can be viewed outside the
theatre and on www.ladacam.com, and “You tube”

The Future of the LADA:

By registering online at www.ladacam.com anyone can have the chance to

win the LADA at the end of the season, so who knows what journeys lie
ahead for the LADA on the lawn!
Did You Know ?
• The production team have only one technical
rehearsal of each show before it opens.

• Each set takes on average 1,000 man hours to

construct and paint and on average only 1 hour to
build or remove from the stage before each
performance!

• This season, over 200 metres of fabric have been

used to create the dresses in The Flouers o’ Edinburgh alone!

• Every costume has its own hanger- that’s only 400 hangers!

• Our 18 actors wear almost 150 pairs of shoes between them as they tred the
boards this season.

• Stage management pride themselves on doing it in the dark!

• The PFT rehearsal process begins with the first 4 plays all being worked on at the
same time. – actors can work a 6 day week, and up to three sessions a day from
10.30am till 9pm, on 4 different plays.

• Patterned wallpaper on sets is often hand stencilled, with up to 4 different hand

cut stencils & colours and 5000 repetitions!

• There are more wheels under this season’s sets

than there are seats in the auditorium

• Last year we had an actual heated swimming pool

on stage containing 12 tonnes of water, we filled
or emptied in just 20 minutes! (that’s about 2
household bathfuls every minute)

• From the stage every seat and audience member

in the front section can be seen clearly, so yes the actors can see when you are
eating…talking…or sleeping!
 General Information

Setting
• A large part of Scotland is covered, from Motherwell to Thurso via Skye,
Ullapool and Tongue.
• An unusually large number of locations are specified, indoors and outdoors, in
a car, etc.
• The characters sometimes provide a description of the scene, either from
what they are seeing in front of them or from the guide book and map.

Set, props, lighting, sound, costume

• The sets present the director and designer with a major problem.
• There are so many scenes that the temptation is to avoid being
representational at all costs. Yet certain pieces are essential – the shop
counter, the car, Tom’s office, etc.
• Some props are more than just dressing, they are essential parts of the plot –
the car, the surf board and the gun, for example.
• Lighting could make up for a lack of scenery, particularly in scenes where it
will create mood and atmosphere – the camp fire, the ceilidh and the Thurso
beach, for example.
• Sound too is used to set the scene – the shop door bell, the seagulls, the car
engine, the jet plane and the off-stage ceilidh.
• The larger than life characters demand appropriately outrageous costume.
Serge is described as ‘Eric Cantona dressed by Salvador Dali’ and similar
inventiveness would be required to dress Diesel, Shaper and Binks at least.
• Visual effects are important, for example the car’s new paintwork and the car
on fire.

Language
• The language is basically realistic – that of contemporary young people.
• Most have the dialect of the western Central Belt in Scotland.
• Some have traces of their ethnic origins – Serge has a few, not very
convincing French phrases; Iona has an occasional Americanism; Diesel is
English.
• The swearing is used for both realism and for comic effect.
• Brian sometimes sounds as if he is quoting from a book, the little bits of
knowledge he has gleaned from the library: ‘Mr. Binks is subject to a bizarre
paranormal phenomenon…’.
• Some passages (Scene 30, for example) have a poetic quality, even though
the vocabulary is still that of the lad in the street. The poetry comes from the
rhythms and the pictures created in the mind rather than from any use of
poetic or picturesque language.
• Stephen Greenhorn gives his characters an awareness of language and its
significance: Alex can’t say ‘beautiful’ at first, but he can say ‘chudovyj’
because he doesn’t know that it means ‘beautiful’.
Comedy, wit and humour

• This is a predominantly comic play.

• Much of the comedy lies in the bantering, cynical views expressed the
characters. Often this hides an emotion that they can’t express any other way.
• The play offers numerous types of comedy.
– Puns (the ladder/Lada confusion); the unexpected (‘he’s my father’);
– Stating a familiar truth wittily (‘The library! Hang out for pensioners
who can’t pay their gas bills.’);
– Twisting a familiar idea (‘wearing flowery shirts, chasing birds grass
skirts, drinking Buckie out of half-coconuts’);
– A ludicrous situation (Alex hands a baseball bat to a youth who wants
to assault him);
– Bizarre images (a man carrying a surf board while riding a
motorcycle);
– Mad logic (Binks won’t pay Alex the wages due to him because they
were in the stolen till);
– Insults (‘Saw you dancing with Brian … Any broken toes?’).

Acting style/techniques
• It is important to capture a realistic, naturalistic quality in the acting. These are
ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.
• This naturalism must be maintained against non-naturalistic settings.
• Even the monologues (Alex’s morning walk in Thurso; Brian’s computer
disaster) have a naturalistic sound and feel.
• Dialogue is often brisk and witty, like a stage routine.
• The actors address the audience sometimes, setting the scene.
• Occasionally two scenes run simultaneously (Brian’s computer monologue
intercut with Alex and Mirren’s conversation; Tom and Brian in the office
intercut with Alex and Mirren in the kitchen).

Actor/audience relationships
• The actors sometimes speak directly to the audience.
• The filmic nature of the play’s structure may make the audience feel cheated,
thinking that they are missing out on the greater impact a film or television
production could bring to certain moments – the shop window being smashed,
the mountains, the sea and the car. In a play produced in a bare, non-realistic
style, audiences accept, for example, that four chairs represent a car. But
then what about the dramatic revealing of Serge’s paint job?
• Audience laughter in a play that is constantly funny helps to shape the flow of
the action.
Stage directions
• Stephen Greenhorn leaves most decisions about staging to the director and
designer.
• He gives indications of how scenes should be paced – ‘A beat’, ‘Pause’, ‘Boy
swithers’ and ‘Binks schemes’.
• There are few descriptions of the physical appearance of the characters.

Relevance to Scottish society

• The play is all about Scotland and Scottish society.
– The juxtaposition of beauty in the landscape and ugliness in the towns.
– The juxtaposition of new technology and primitive living conditions.
– The poverty of many young people.
– A lack of employment.
– A lack of purpose, even in well-educated young people.
– Violence and crime.
– Ambition, inventiveness and poetry.
– The isolation of young people.
– New social groupings.
– Multi-ethnicity.

Target audience
• The play is clearly intended to be of interest particularly to Scots,
• especially to the young, the unsettled and the unemployed,
• and to those who are interested in the developing Scotland – the diversity of
influences from the past, the conflicting pressures in the present, the changing
relationships within society, the changing expectations regarding education,
employment and life-styles.

Overview

• The play progresses chronologically. It represents a rite of passage for

several of the characters, particularly Alex, Brian and Mirren.
• There are fifty-four Scenes, giving the effect of a cinematic structure. This
technique pushes the storyline on quickly. It builds up a sense of tension.
• There is a dramatic tension, too, created by the inter-cutting between the
Binks scenes and the others. Binks is in constant pursuit, getting more and
more agitated. The other characters have frequent breaks, voluntary or
otherwise and become less and less agitated.
• The play has numerous descriptions of places, comments on historical
incidents and stories about the past which all contribute to a sense of
Scotland’s place in the world – geographically and historically.
• New characters are introduced throughout.
• Some interesting characters make only a brief appearance.
• Six different nationalities are involved – Scottish, English, Canadian, French,
Cornish and Ukrainian. The fact that Mo is specifically Cornish rather than just
English underlines the impatience many Scots feel about being lumped in with
the rest of Britain as if they were all one race. The Cornish and the Scots are
ethnic minorities in Britain. The unseen Ukrainians were ethnic minorities in
 the USSR. They are also a reminder of the contacts Scotland has with the big
outside world as well as providing a useful foreign word, chudovyj.

For the exam!

Social, political and religious dimensions

Social background and conditions.

• Brian is out of work, Alex in a dead-end job because of the poverty of
Motherwell.
• Only the criminals, like Binks, make a living.
• Alex thinks education is a waste of time. Brian has more hopes of it.
• Comfortable housing, good food and material comforts are not generally
available.
• American and Australian influences are replacing Scottish culture.

Nationalism.

• Brian and Alex have an ambivalent attitude to their native land, defensive of it
but ashamed of much that is done in the name of Scotland.
• They mock the ‘shortbread tin’ image.
• They are ignorant of their history.
• They are surprised by the diversity of cultures within Scotland.

Industrial relations and the workplace.

• The only employee in the play is Alex, and he was only that for five Scenes.
His relationship with his boss was based on terror.
• Most of the other characters have found happiness by opting out of the work
ethic.
• The most successful worker, in economic terms, is Tom who has achieved his
success by keeping away from workplaces and relying on himself and the
new technologies.
• The industries that have been successful in the past have let Scotland down –
coal, steel, ship-building and nuclear power.
• The new industries are oil and tourism.
• Oil has brought material wealth but little happiness, as Iona testifies. Now
even the wealth is disappearing as the oil industry hits hard times.
• Tourism thrives on a distortion of the real Scotland. Visitors are led to expect
bagpipes and heather, lonely hills and empty glens, medieval castles and
monarchic deer. The reality, which tourists don’t see, is decaying town
centres, poverty and the worst health record in the civilised world.
Political theatre as entertainment

• The play is very entertaining but this does not detract from the clarity and
power of its political statement.
• There is a minor area of entertainment in the ceilidh, especially Iona’s song. It
makes the political point that much of Scotland’s cultural heritage seems
foreign to her citizens.
• The major area is the comedy much of which is directly aimed at political
targets: poverty, city centre blight, etc.
• Binks’s scenes have a farcical quality, combining knock-about humour with
real violence.
• Binks’s stupidity is funny but it is frightening too because he is the character
wielding most power.

Distribution of wealth.

• Apart from Binks, Alex and Brian meet no one who has wealth.
• Iona had a good living in Aberdeen but she has rejected it.
• Mirren could earn a high salary in the electronics industry but she has
rejected it.
• Tom has a good income but he chooses to live where he can spend little.

Relationship between the individual and the establishment.

• Those who might be expected to be part of the establishment, the educated

(Tom, Mirren, Brian), have chosen to be outsiders.
• The organised life of society appeals to none of the characters in the play.
They have all rejected urban life in favour of the freedom of rural living.
• They are all living on a stratum of society which appears to be unaffected by
the instruments of the establishment – the police, the social services, shops,
the church, the media. Only Binks has any contact with organised society –
the lollipop lady, the petrol pump attendant, a tourist.

Devices used to communicate social and political messages.

• The various stations along the route are places of happy noncomformity: the
travellers’ camp, Skye, the Ullapool ceilidh, Tom’s house and the Shaper’s
workshop.
• The people Alex and Brian meet all have a message to impart.
• The evils of society are represented by the violence: Alex’s mugging, Binks’s
ferocity and the destruction of the car. Even Alex is part of this culture at first,
smashing the shop window and stealing the surf-board.
• The ways of life rejected by the characters they meet represent areas that
limit personal freedom – the army, industry, education and employment.
Binks’s single-minded stupidity reveals the dangers and weaknesses inherent
in a society based on greed and selfishness.
Use of history, nostalgia and popular tradition

Historical accuracy.
• Stephen Greenhorn scatters little items of information about he history (and
geography) of Scotland throughout the play.
• They are never obtrusive but their accuracy gives the play a solid basis for the
arguments built on them.

Growth and decline of industry.

• Always in the background of the play are the failures of Scotland’s industries:
coal, steel, ship-building and nuclear power.
• Oil has been growing but is now likely to decline.
• Tourism is a growth industry at present but is it doing harm not only to the
physical countryside but to the soul of the nation? It depends upon
broadcasting a false image of the country and its people.
• Electronics, the home office and teleworking may offer some hope for the
future but our expectations, based on historical experience, are that these too
will decline in their turn.

Romanticism.
• The image of Braveheart lurks round every rock in the Highlands.
• The scenery encourages a myth of the splendid savage hiding in the hills.

Use of Scottish music, song and dance.

• Iona’s song, Scene 35, performed in a language the Scots cannot understand,
by a girl born and educated abroad.
• The off-stage ballad in the same Scene provides the backing for Mirren’s
dance with Alex, an important stage in their relationship.

Variety, pantomime and farce.

• Binks’s behaviour frequently recalls the techniques of variety theatre (the
ladder/Lada routine, for example).
• The theft of the ice-lolly borders on farce.

Satire
• Binks is made a figure of ridicule, even though he represents a genuine evil in
society.

Celebrations, rituals, social gatherings.

• The ceilidh in Scene 35, though off-stage, creates the mood that helps Alex to
relax.
• It also provides a credible setting for the songs
Issues of gender

Relationships.

• Alex and Mirren take most of the play to move from outright hostility to a hint
of friendship. There is, even at the end of the play, nothing sexual in their
relationship.
• Diesel ends his relationship with Mirren gently but firmly because he knows
that she has nothing more to learn with the travellers. She has her own
journey to make.

Women and power.

• Remarkably, almost all the ‘gurus’ are male – Serge, Diesel, Tom and Frank.
The only woman in the same category is Iona.

Men and masculinity.

• Alex begins the play with an archetypically male-behaving badly outlook –

work if he must, drink when he can and never look to the future. Over the
length of the play he becomes less aggressive, more thoughtful and more
sensitive. He can now say ‘beautiful’ and he would even like to learn to say it
in other languages.

REMEMBER TO GO THROUGH THE TEXT AND GET AS MANY QUOTES AS

POSSIBLE FOR YOUR ESSAY!!!

This play could be linked with Black Watch or Women of Lockerbie through use of
Social, political and religious dimensions.