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Celebrating the Millennium DramaticallyDateline:12th September, 1999 Amidst all the hype surrounding the Millennium Dome, its cost, its organisation and the central statue, one important series of events has had very little publicity at all- which is rather strange as it is sponsored by McDonalds, a company not noted for its reticence! This is the McDonalds Our Town Story which will involve thousands of children performing in the Dome throughout the year 2000. Education authorities and library boards throughout the UK have been invited to have a day the Dome, performing a twenty minute show three times in their day in the superbly equipped 500-seat theatre. These shows will be relayed to other points in the Dome on huge plasma screens and will take place between performances of the Millenium Show in the central arena. Our Town Over 200 authorities are taking part and each will be telling the story of their local area through whatever means they choose. First off will be Stirling (Scotland): its presentation will be on 5th January. Lincolnshire, Walsall, Lewisham, Merthyr Tydfil, Argyle and Bute, Bath and North East Somerset, Northamptonshire and South Tyneside are amongst those who are already planning their participation. Jean Nicholson, a member of the Opera and Music Theatre Forum, sums up the aim of the project: Within the fabric of every town there are stories waiting to be discovered. Lingering in the brickwork and growing in hidden gardens are jewels of information which bind the ghosts of a town's past to the people of the present. But how do we make them known? What's needed are the services of the magicians and wizards who know how to translate the stories of the past into the ways of today: music, dance, drama, design, writing, singing are the essential skills for such spell-making. There are guidelines for the performances:
The Theatre Seating in the 500-seater auditorium is raked, and, for the performers, a backstage area which includes dressing rooms, toilets and showers for up to 100 people, a green room and a wardrobe area with irons, ironing boards and steamer. The stage is 18m wide with wing space of 3m on each side. It is 7m deep and is covered with a black vinyl dance floor over a steel deck. There is a 19m x 4.9m cyclorama. It has a most impressive lighting rig, with 20 profiles (12 with scrollers), 28 fresnel (all with scrollers), six four cell batterns for the cyc and a follow spot. The desk is a Wholehog 2 - most impressive! Sound equipment is equally impressive, and includes a Soundcraft 32-channel desk, AKG 800 series radio mics, JBL speakers, minidisk, CD and cassette decks and ten mics and stands. Your Guide's involvement I have been asked to direct South Tyneside's performance - if you're in the Dome area, drop in and see us on 7th July! - and I'll be updating you on what's happening, both in terms of our contribution and the progress of the whole McDonalds Our Town project, on a new page which will go online shortly. The new page will be announced on the main page and in our Newsletter. There will be a full diary about South Tyneside's show on the School Show Page, starting in October. You can find support materials for the project on the Web: All of these are in .pdf format, so you'll need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to read them.Articles Indices: |
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