As time goes by and personal situations gradually change with age, familiar habits and pastimes slowly change and morph into other things more appropriate to one’s current lifestyle. Such is the case with us all and it is happening with me. Commitments to my wife’s daily life and wellbeing take priority as, unfortunately, Danielle’s fight against MS is becoming ever more ifficult.
This means that my availability to be present at the many rehearsals required to bring every show to fruition is very limited and, as a consequence, this daft old Scotsman has reluctantly decided he can no longer commit to performances on stage. Heave a sigh of relief everybody – you no longer have to try to understand my Scottish accent.
But my life goes on within the ETC and I’ve realised that an immense amount of work happens, unseen, in the background. For instance, when you pick up your programme at the door you’re inevitably just looking forward to the show about to begin. And so it should be and so it was with me until last year when I volunteered to try my hand at designing the posters for our performances and, just recently, to produce the programme.
The first thing that happens is that I get an email from our secretary, Duracell Maggie, to inform the ETC in general what show we are going to perform next. Of course even this little nugget of information has taken several people months of work to obtain – licences, permissions, venues, scripts, director – you name it. So “Waiting for God” it is going to be.
Then my work starts. I delve into the internet to read a little of what the show is about.
Then a further search to obtain some initial ideas from posters that other theatre groups have produced. Then another search to see what appropriate images are available that we don’t have to pay for (more time consuming than it seems). I then cobble them all together, thin them out, chop, change, cut, paste and mask to produce a couple of rough designs. Then I chuck them out and start again and bit by bit a design starts to appear with sufficient space around it to include all the text required – dates, venues, price, contact details, credits, ETC logo. Once I’m happy with it I fire it back to Maggie for her approval and then I spot a mistake – doh! Just to annoy her I fire off a revised copy to her. It then goes to committee for their approval, or not. In which case the process starts all over again.
In the meantime I revise the poster design a bit to form the front cover for the programme.
By this time I’m really quite chuffed with what I’ve managed to produce.
Then, horror, all our good work comes to nothing as, for one reason or another we can’t manage to find enough acting volunteers to cast the play. Wait a couple of months.
So now, dear reader, start again from the 4th paragraph and substitute “Waiting for God” with “The 3 Musketeers-A Comedy Adventure”. I’m now working away on my new task; programme production. I really can’t comment upon this at the moment because it’s a new adventure. I’m working blind and who knows what is lurking round the corner. But, if you have a programme in your hands at our performances of “The 3 Musketeers” you’ll be able to judge my success or not for yourselves.