Hair - Hope Mill MCR / National Tour

Lol

Tonee! Tonee! Tonee!

I would think theatres like the Lowry’s Quay theatre or the Liverpool Playhouse and Everyman would be ideal NW venues. Small auditoriums to give you that similar Hope Mill intimate setting which is probably lost in the much larger venues.

Sorry guys, my phone died and I couldn’t reply back last night.
So after 25 mins some music started to play and hippies walked up the side of the stalls and onto the stage standing in a line. Then another hippy came on from the wings and told everyone to leave the stage. Cue another 10 mins of waiting and then the show actually started again with the music but the hippies just walked once from the wings. From what I could gather, the fault was that the house lights in the Empire wouldn’t go off.

All the cast are really good. Jake quickenden was impressive as Berger but I feel like he lacks the manic craziness Berger needs, he is just a little too reserved and controlled for my liking. Daisy as Sheila was gorgeous and o enjoyed her performance. Was very impressed by the girl playing Dionne, she and the Jeanie were my faves! Marcus Collins -pffft. Don’t like him, that’s just a personal thing.
Wil actually buy a programme for £2 on Thursday when I return. And as a side note, wrap up warm in the Empire theatre, it was bloody freezing!

Disgraceful behaviour from the audience members concerned. 

I have just looked at sales for Oxford (end of June)

and they are very, very low

I am talking under 100 seats sold in a 1800 capacity theatre for most performances (at a quick glance)

Somehow can't see it making it here.

Think I know how this happened.

So house lights at pretty much every venue have a a few ways of being controlled (so that they can be switched on from being on stage, auditorium entrances but also controlled by a lighting desk for the actual show). You have to give control of house lights over to let the lighting desk do it (default being on switches to make easier for cleaners, front of house setting up etc). But before you open the house you'll do a black out check which is essentially where the lighting operator turns off all the lights under his control to ensure they all actually go off (thus proving he can control them). Sounds like house tech hadn't given lighting control of the house lights but they had no time for a black out check so it didn't get picked up. Not having time to do that suggests they are struggling to get the show in in the time allowed. Or maybe someone just messed up. Funny though. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Due to circumstances beyond our control, tonight's performance of Hair the Musical has been cancelled. All customers are currently being contacted directly by telephone to be given a chance to attend either performance tomorrow.

I’ve only just got to Sunderland and seen the email saying tonight has been cancelled! Not amused, I was counting on buying a programme today. Might see if the box office is open, and get my refund in person. Damn!!!

Both performances cancelled today.

This does not sound good!

Well, they have a cast of 14, all on stage, with some doubling up as musicians.

I'd say 10 are the main roles and 4 are really on-stage swings. So, in theory, they could go on with up 4 people being absent, so long as they were the right 4.

I remember they had a few problems in London as well with the sparse coverage and sometimes had to cut songs if the wrong people were absent.

But, I guess the producers have decided that it's most cost-effective to have to cancel a few shows than to pay for extra cast who won't be needed most of the time. The run isn't long enough to worry about staggering cast holidays (and there are some weeks off already in the schedule).

Well, that's the calculated risk with these things. They'll have worked out how many shows, on average, they will have to pull throughout the whole run. I've just mentioned the main acting cast, but they also only have a small band of musicians, I've no idea how they cover those roles when musicians are sick.

Without running through the maths, there will be a number of cancellations where it's profitable to have less cover. Bear in mind that many shows do this, never have to cancel and this ends being a smart business move.

Now, there will always be a threshold number of cancellations (or percentage) where this strategy didn't work. The challenge is where to set that threshold. The producers will set that threshold (for mathematicians, we're basically talking about confidence intervals here).

A high cost West End show might set this very low, say 0.01% (i.e. on average, they it still be cost-effective if they had to cancel 1 in 10,000 shows - in reality, this will practically never happen).

For a bare bones tour like this, where they don't expect to sell out, they could set that much closer to 1%. Obviously I don't know the exact figure. After all, for the odd cancellation they can move customers to another night or even (as other shows do), run a concert version instead.