GHOST THE MUSICAL (UK Tour) Behind The Scenes

After it's world premiere at the Manchester Opera House in 2011, Ghost The Musical has since wowed audiences in the West End and on Broadway. The original London staging will be sent across the globe for use on the Korean production due to open later this year. For the UK tour, a complete re-design (which is no way a scale down) travels the length and breadth of the country in 10 articulated lorries.

A team of over 110 riggers, engineers, electricians, carpenters, crew, prop makers, costume and wig staff, designers and production supervisors worked in shifts over 96 consecutive hours prior to the technical rehearsals at the tours opening venue - The Wales Millennium Centre. The get-in for the show takes approximately 50 hours just to set everything up in each venue and 10 hours to get back out.

A ghost's eye view! Image: Ghost The Musical

The truss suspended from the venue's grid can be seen on the photo above and weighs just over 21 tonnes. There are 86 intelligent lights in the rig which by the time of Oda Mae Brown's song I'm Outta Here are lowered into full view of the audience and blast out in every imaginable colour. 

Just as the set did in the original production, the tour features LED video screen walls that make up a significant part of the shows set. There are 7 automated video walls that are made up of 172,176 LED pixels in total. 17 computers control all of the set, lighting, sound and effects. Monitor screens backstage show the stage in black and white, colour and from all angles to ensure that the illusions can be successfully executed - there is very little margin for error. 

The stage is through there... somewhere!

In addition to all of that there are 5 projectors that are rigged front of house. Images of Sam and Molly are projected all over the stage area and every possible lead performer and understudy combination of Sams and Mollys have to be photographed and filmed together. Even the finest details on the show are carefully considered. All of the driving licenses and passports, record files have photos of the actual cast member playing the role on them, and change with each understudy. All of the sheets of paper in the show are American sized and all of the props were sourced and brought over from America. The vending machine in the Subway scene is full of authentic American candy. Props such as the polystyrene coffee cups are filled with expanding foam to make them last the duration of the tour. 

There are a total of 58 wigs used during the show that are washed, set and maintained by 3 members of the wig department. There are 65 quick costume changes and most of these take place in a Wardrobe Quick Change area at the back of the stage. In this area costumes such as Oda Mae's hideous pink leopard print suit are hung and ready to be fitted - the skirt is hung inside out for speed. The fastest quick change is only 6 seconds! The wigs table is carefully laid out in this area too and includes Sisters Clara and Louise, the Subway Ghost and many of the period costumed ghosts. In total there are 217 costumes in the show and 112 pairs of shoes. 

The view from the wings of downstage right.

As big as the production may be, the stage performance area is actually quite intimate and a purple floor surface is laid down over the existing stage. The stage floor features tracks in which pallets move across with pieces of set on, such as desks and sofas. In the London production there were moving conveyer-belt tracks and pieces of set that came up through the stage floor, but for the tour it's all reconfigured to come on seamlessly from above or from the wings.  

Combining every element of the show, it is clear to see the enormity of the production's scale. It is quite possible that Ghost The Musical is the most technically complex production to ever tour the United Kingdom. 

Just one final image, if you thought the wires at the back of your TV were complicated.... 

CATS (UK Tour) Cats Make Up - Becoming Coricopat with Richard Astbury

Coricopat is the male of the twins in the musical Cats. He shares very similar make-up and costume to the female - Tantomile. Throughout the show as the psychic cats Coricopat and Tantomile are always the first to hear and react to everything and when they do they move in perfect sync. Not only do they have a difficult job on stage but their make up is one of the most complicated too...

The show goes up at 7:30pm each night and I joined Richard Astbury in his dressing room a whole three hours before the show to begin make up at 4:30pm!

Richard begins applying the first base, an Oriental paint stick, which looks rather like a dodgy fake tan. Sponging it everywhere but his mouth area which he then fills in white. Coricopat's wig is quite high and the costume neck quite low so Richard has the most to paint including his ears and down to the bottom of his neck. After each different section or colour, powder is applied and brushed in to keep the colours dry and stop them smudging. During the show this also helps the make-up in its battle against sweat. 

The first detailed part are the eyes and Richard begins with the black detail. It takes extreme concentration, particularly to match the left side with the right. In the very beginning Make Up Supervisor Maria Cave provided each member of the cast with the original designs, she would paint one half of their face and they would have to copy it on the other side. Each member of the cast has to do their own make up and some of them, including Richard are understudies for other cats and have to learn their make up too! Richard covers for Rum Tum Tugger, Macavity and Skimbleshanks. 

Once the black flecks above the eye are done, white and brown is then added in, flicking it upwards. Richard's eye design differs very slightly to the original design, the flecks are slightly bigger so that it matches Tantomile's (who has a smaller forehead) and the eye make up meets the wig which sits quite high. Even at this far into the process after half an hour, there is still no one else in make up. There's no else even around yet, apart from Barry... making a cup of tea. He's a swing, he covers the older male Cats and wasn't on that night. 

Next are whiskers, and luckily these aren't symmetrical. First they're painted on white and later black is added to accentuate them. The first black paint added to the mouth area is to create a nose, painting the underside around the nostrils, a black line down the the philtrum and then out across the lips. At this point it's important to put the powder on immediately to stop the black upper lip and white lower lip from merging and becoming grey when you close your mouth. 

Once the black detail around the whiskers has been finished it's time to head into the wig department. Richard's wig cap is fitted by the deputy wigs mistress Jess Bishop. All of the cast come here to get their wigs and to have them fitted but first Richard has to take his back to the dressing room for the next stage of the make-up. The colours in Coricopat's wig are the same as the make up, but have to line up on the face so the fusion between hair and paint isn't obvious from the stage. 

The neck is painted black, all down the sides, into the hairline and completely covers the back of the neck. Flecks of black extend from the back of the neck into the orange colour at the front. Other flecks of white and brown are added too. 

After 90 minutes it's time for physical and vocal warm up. For the cast who have all now begun their transformations there is still a lot to do afterwards. The wig room is very busy after warm up, microphones are fed through the wig caps and fixed into place at the top of the head. For Richard, once his wig is secured there are a final bits of make up to touch up on before costume. The amount of powder required dulls the colours of the make up and so this is the time to make it all stand out again by going over the bits that have faded. 

As Mister Mistoffelees would say - "PRESTO!" the make up is complete. It's now only 15 minutes until showtime, and Richard is ready for costume. Shoes, tails and accessories are kept together in individual boxes for each character, after collecting these and putting them together with the catsuit itself.... we have Coricopat!

You can watch a time-lapse of Richard's lengthy transformation in under 3 minutes... If only it really took that long!

Richard is one of a 28 strong cast for the UK/Europe Tour of Cats so his lengthy transformation is actually only a very small part of the overall daily preparation for the show. Here is a little glimpse at what else goes on behind the scenes at Cats! (As with all of the pictures, click on them to view them larger)

Joanna Ampil who plays Grizabella first appears on stage for the opening as a kitten, her make up looks like this until she later adds the tears and wrinkles required for the ex-Glamour Cat Grizabella. (Production photography by Alessandro Pinna). 

Cameron Ball plays Admetus at the beginning of the show (left) but transforms mid show into Macavity (right) which requires some alterations. 

Will Lucas begins his make up for Bill Bailey and James Darch uses a close up mirror to add the finishing touches to Alonzo. 

The wigs on one of the tables include Skimbleshanks, Old Deuteronomy, Munkustrap and Gus (left), Lily Frazer's Demeter wig and Dawn Williams' Jemima sit on the top shelf (right) and the costumes are all stored together and brought up to the dressing rooms to put them on. 

There are some extra backstage pictures taken during the get in for the show on the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre's blog which you can read here. 

Cats continues in Wolverhampton until Saturday 30th March and tours the UK and Europe for 14 months through into 2014 - more details of the tour can be found on the official website.