First night...

...could have gone better. As one of the audience members said, "The actors were marvellous, the set was marvellous, the lighting technician should be shot."

Harsh, but fair I think, the cast were pretty unhappy with a number of technical issues which put them off and spoilt the performance. Simply bad timing or inattention meant that lights disappeared a couple of lines of the end of a scene, didn't come on when they should or generally ballsed up. The smoke machine failed to produce smoke at the appropriate time. The cast were pretty much at the point of revolt and probably with good reason.

My own personal failure was that a rake fixed up in the barn set was knocked down when during the course of a scene there was a scuffle (in the script, thankfully), and ended up forcing an exit open and blocking it. It would have looked worse to try and pull it offstage so it stayed there, thankfully not too visible from the audience but I'm beating myself up about it. There were enough technical issues without the set fighting against the actors. Probably not a big deal for anyone, it just seems it to me.

Mainly the lighting was the issue, though, and when the technical assistant came up to me after the show and said "That wasn't bad for a first night," I wanted to shake him and point out that it WAS. It's not like the first night is somehow less important. The audience pay the same that night as every other night. They shouldn't get second class performances.

Anyway, the audience DID seem to enjoy it. There was a rather disappointing 70 people in the audience, but they seemed appreciative of the material, the cast and the set and were pretty vocal. Hopefully technical hitches didn't dampen their enjoyment. It didn't seem to and I got a number of positive comments afterwards. But it's hard to be too enthusiastic when you have an unhappy cast and as stage manager you feel responsible, even if really you aren't.

Le sigh.