Stage struck

A sneaky blip of the auditorium in the Chichester Festival Theatre. This morning, I accompanied a small group of students and their drama teacher on a tour of the theatre - I drive the minibus. Like Edie McCredie, for any Balamory fans amongst you ;-)

After getting a potted history of the theatre, which was built in 1962 for a little over £100,000, we were encouraged to step on stage, on to the opulent set, complete with ornate chandeliers and mirror-like textured walls and flooring that had been designed for The Way of the World. The Head of Drama couldn't resist spouting a few lines of Shakespeare as we turned to follow our guide to the backstage area. Just to check her projection for the theatre's acoustics...

Entering the rabbit warren of passages, we were shown the green room, the wig room - where a multitude of wigs were already being re-dressed for tonight's performance - and the dressing rooms. The theatre has five 'star' dressing rooms that have en-suite facilities and a window, then a few others for more lowly cast members/ensemble. The latter is much more like I'm used to in community theatre! Though apart from the luxurious description of the stars dressing rooms, it all seemed very familiar. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did, for a moment. Seeing good luck and thank you cards above the mirror, boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine, lucky charms and personal effects left there presumably for the duration of the run, it looked no different to a dressing room used for a week's run by a local company. There were even some fading flowers in the sink...

Maybe there's not much difference between the different categories of luvvies after all...