Oak visit Mayflower Theatre
Oak Class enjoyed a fascinating trip to the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. We were met by Silve and Holly who were our guides for the morning.
We enjoyed listening to the history of the theatre, which was built in 1928 and was originally named The Empire Theatre. It was bought in 1950 and re-named The Gaumont. Southampton County Council bought the theatre in 1986 and there was a public enquiry to prevent it becoming a bingo hall. It re-opened as The Mayflower Theatre in 1987. We also learnt that the theatre could seat 2,271 people in the auditorium and present productions including musicals, dance, opera, ballet and comedy.
Our backstage tour included the wardrobe and the laundry area. We were amazed to find out that each costume has to be washed and ironed after every show. Sometimes there is only 1.5 hours to achieve this. Imagine how many costumes that is for the large productions!
We moved on to the wings where the performers congregate before they are due on stage. This is also where all the microphones are managed from including sound checks. Although it was a sizeable space, we tried to image what it would be like if a large show was running and performers were on and off stage and having costume changes. This area was also the loading bay where travelling productions would drop off all the staging and costumes for their shows. The Lion King had 22 trucks!
We moved onto the main stage where we looked out to the auditorium in awe. It seemed enormous and could only imagine how the performers feel when the seats are full.
We were fortunate to be able to go into a large dressing room where we found out that the performers need bright lighting in this area to mirror the bright lights on stage. Performers would wear very heavy make up to be seen and so not to look washed out by the lighting.
The fly rig is the highest point in the theatre and this is where a crew of ‘fliers’ control the backdrops. Each is controlled by a manual lever which has a sticker on to tell the fliers how far down to drop the scenery.
It was incredible to think of all the things going on in the wings and up on the fly rig during a performance. How quiet, fast and focused everyone need to be from performers to backstage staff.
Our interesting tour came to an end and we moved on to our workshop with Silve and Jess. After a warm up with Jess, we had fun mimicking animal noises and movements. This led to us learning our own moves to ‘I like to Move It’ from Madagascar.
We all came away having learnt so much which we believe we can incorporate into our end of year show.
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