We were lucky enough to be invited as a cohort, both theatre and costume students, to see backstage of Hamilton in the Victoria Palace Theatre. Chris Boone the technical director for all the Delfont Macintosh Theatre's spent his morning giving us insight into the tech side of the production, whilst we had this talk in the circle of the theatre there were lighting and sound checks occurring on stage which is something I have never witnessed before. We were also introduced to queue sheets and listened to an example of the instructions given to the lighting and sound technicians to make sure these aspects match up with everything happening on stage. The tour of the stage was very exciting, I have been on stage on previous trips but with this one Chris was able to point out every technical design aspect which we may not have noticed otherwise, things such as speakers in hooks incorporated into the set and props hidden in parts of the stage.
Once we had this talk and tour we were free to visit any exhibitions or museums around London, I headed for the Tate Britain along with the majority of the course as we attended a lecture by Aicha Mehrez the day prior where Aicha talked us through her exhibition at the Tate; 'Sixty Years: The unfinished conversation'. Throughout her display she covers decades of British history relating to black people, but there is a few key focuses: movement and memory, Britishness and belonging, faith and ritual and finally community, kindship and representation. Whilst we were at the Tate there was also an instillation made by British sculptor Hew Locke called 'Procession'. It was spread out down the whole of the main corridor, the aim to show the cycles of history, the ebb and flows of cultures and peoples relation with finance and power. It reminded me of a carnival, not just with the procession layout but also the brightly coloured and interestingly shaped costumes. The rest of the gallery is a 'walk through British art' beginning in the 1500s and continuing all the way to the past century. The day was filled with various, differing activities and I learnt a lot, especially with our private talk from Chris Boone.
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