Burn/The Gate
Production Manager
Central School of Speech and Drama
January 2009 – March 2009
Burn/The Gate was a double bill of two very different short plays (The Gate was the premiere of a piece of new writing by Michael Bhim) performed by 3rd Year Acting students in the Central School of Speech and Drama’s Embassy Studio, a medium sized studio theatre space.
As Production Manager I was responsible for coordinating the work of all the departments of a production team that included a mixture of professionals (the Director and two of the Heads of Department) and students working in role and managing a relatively small budget of £1500.
My responsibilities included:
- Effective Production Scheduling
- Chairing Production Meetings
- Efficient Budget Management and Negotiation
o Coming in slightly under budget after more than halving the initial requests that came to around £3500, whilst retaining the artistic and aesthetic integrity of the Designers’ vision
- Team building, management and conflict resolution
- Collaborating closely with the creative team to arrive at appropriate, satisfactory and practicable solutions
- Coordinating, managing and mentoring a smaller team of two Technical Managers and an Assistant Production Manager from the year below me
- Compensating for the lack of a Scenic Construction department on a show with two fairly complex builds by persuading a skilled carpenter to help on the production and negotiating workshop time
- Sourcing much equipment, materials and delivery for free or at a heavily reduced rate
“I think you did a fantastic job. Throughout the process I always felt confident that everything was going to get done. That is a very reassuring feeling for a director, it allowed me to get on with my job… The production team always seemed happy, relaxed and confident and I’m sure a lot of that was down to you.” Angie Langfield Director Burn/The Gate
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