Research a Potential Venue for Our Showcase

Research a Potential Venue for Our Showcase

I have decided to choose the Central Theatre in Chatham to research in order to locate a venue for our showcase. I feel as if the Central Theatre was the most suitable venue due to its proximity and size.

Our showcase revolves around the harsh, unforgiving and dangerous times of Victorian England. Throughout, we have tried to create a dark and suspenseful atmosphere to really bring our characters, Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper, Edward Scissorhands and Sherlock Holmes, to life which is why the 960 all seated, thrust style Central Theatre is perfect for our performance. We are very confident in our idea which is why performing to a reasonably large crowd is perfect for us. 

The stage is enormous and stretches out an incredibly long way forward, compared to what we have been practicing in, so there should be no problems in terms of space, apart from the fact that such a large performing area may throw our timings off due to not being used to performing in a larger space. Fortunately the stage is maneuverable as instead of seats, there are stalls on the ground in front of the stage so we can move our performing area around to suit our liking, or possibly perform in the audience, to really make them feel part of the action and as if what we are performing is real and happening right before their eyes. As the stage stretches so far forward, we can place curtains over the space we need to use as the backstage area, and as there are only four of us, space is not an issue whatsoever. If anything, we have too much space!

However one problem I have noticed is that, although most of the seats are near the stage, a large chunk of a good 200 seats seem to be a long way away from the stage, which may spoil the mysterious and evil atmosphere we have spent so long trying to create, and spoil the performance in whole.

In terms of technical facilities, a lighting bar is already in place, so as long as we have control of that lighting will not be an issue. However, we would have to bring our own speakers and DJing set with us. Other than that, no other technical facilities are needed and if they were needed, we would have to bring our own or pay for use of equipment already owned by the theatre company.

Thankfully, there are very little health and safety issues that arise in our showcase. As our showcase does not involve the use of water, we do not have to worry about slipping on water. But blood packs do feature in death scenes. In order to overcome the issue of a slippery surface we can either, avoid the use of blood packs altogether, or use them at the end of our showcase to prevent injury to performers. For our death scenes, we hoped to be able to fly our characters of to give the impression that their spirits remained to haunt the streets where they died. However, the Central Theatre does not seem to have the facilities to allow us to fly around. However, this is not a major problem as we feel that without the flying and ideas of spiritual beings, a more realistic style will be incorporated and lends our performance a sense of normality and a fair portrayal of Victorian England.