When I started to work on SIX, the first thing I did was read through the script so that I understood the show and the emotional pacing of the show. Next, I researched other performances of the show to get a basic understanding of the show and to find ways we can adapt what others had done to make our show better. The main places that I found research from was North London Collegiate School who were the first people to put on the Teen edition for SIX and the official SIX performance.

 

North London Collegiate School

 

Based off the school’s website I found out and interpreted a variety of information. The first relevant info I found was that “all six remained on stage for over 70 minutes.” which is a long time to stay on stage. They also state that they use over 300 cues which based on the size of the show is on the low end but based on images on the site they only seem to have 1 or 2 moving lights in their rig and mainly rely on generics to light the show which makes the low cues more reasonable. The images also show that the cast used handheld wireless mics in their show. For set and props they only appear to use mic stands and paintings of the queens hung from the back wall, they also use confetti at some point in the show.

 

SIX

 

The official show of SIX used a variety of moving lights and LED components which “were used in innovative ways to provide more flexibility and control and to evoke a concert feel” according to one source. I also found a quote from the sound designer for SIX “I wanted to use working microphones, not just props, so I was looking for something that was super clean and pop-y sounding and didn’t colour the actor’s voices”. Based off images of the stage, the design was small and semi circular that draws you in to the middle.

 

Influence

 

Since both the shows that I researched appeared to make the stage look smaller we wanted to emulate that feel while also trying to bring the audience’s focus to the centre. Both shows also played with level by having the back of the stage raised. Unfortunately, we couldn’t replicate this because we didn’t have enough decking, and the decking we do have wouldn’t be able to hold enough weight. So instead of having the back of the stage raised we had 3 pieces of decking at the front pointing into a central point to draw the eye. Another similarity between both shows is the use of handheld mics, but since we don’t have enough wireless handheld mics, we would use lapel radio mics for the show and use fake handheld mics to sell the ruse. The only problem we would have when we use the radio mics is that we can’t put them over the head because of the costumes so we would use headsets and tape them to the side of the casts faces using either micropore or transpore tape. Micropore tape is a paper tape and transpore tape is a transparent plastic and both are good on dry and wet skin which is good for us because it will prevent the tape from coming off the cast while they are sweating from exertion. One of the main points of interest for SIX is the LED Strips they have around the back of the set to create scenes, but we wanted to go a step further, so we thought about hired 6 LED walls which were counterbalanced by a 150Kg weight. The 6 LED walls were arranged to create a tunnel effect, but we had to ensure that the stage would manage to hold the weight of all 6 screens. Before we could confirm that we would hire them, so I checked the Evolve Theatre Technical Specification which states that the floors load is “5kN/m² distributed load (including hoist floor when static), 3.5kN point load/300mm x 300mm” which means the stage can take roughly 500Kg per squared metre or 350Kg in a 30cm square and as the screens had a 1m base plate they would have plenty of leeway regarding weight according to calculators.