The Citizen, 2013-08-29, Page 22PAGE 22. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013.House technicians keep Festival shows on cue
House tech
Courtney Pyke is one of two house technicians that served
at the Blyth Festival this year. She took care of the remount
of Dear Johnny Deere, Yorkville: The Musical and Prairie
Nurse and will serve as the house technician for Falling: A
Wake, which officially opens Friday night at the Phillips
Studio. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
Designing light
Remington North is one of two house technicians that
served at this year’s Blyth Festival. North’s house technician
duties are coming to a close, but he is the lighting
technician for Falling: A Wake, which officially opens on
Friday night at the Phillips Studio. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
As house technicians, it’s up toCourtney Pyke and RemingtonNorth to make sure that all of theirshows’ cues are always perfect.North has served this season as thehouse technician for Beyond TheFarm Show and Garrison’s Garage.
Pyke worked on the remount of
Dear Johnny Deere, Yorkville: The
Musical, Prairie Nurse and Falling
A: Wake, which opens this Friday
night at the Phillips Studio.
As a house technician, North says
he’s responsible for the upkeep and
operation of lighting and sound for
his productions. He is also the
lighting designer for Falling: A
Wake , which is being staged at the
Phillips Studio.
This is not North’s first year in
Blyth. He worked at the Festival last
year as the assistant head of
carpentry.
He had travelled to Blyth two
years earlier with his partner who
was working in Blyth and he
realized that he knew over half of
the technical crew and thought it
would be a good place to work, so
he applied in 2012.
North spent his early weeks at the
Festival taking an inventory of
lighting and audio supplies,
readying them for rehearsals, which
would start soon.
For work on the lighting side of
things, North has been working with
Festival regular lighting designer
Rebecca Picherack.
Once he and Picherack have
worked out the lighting and sounds
cues and levels for the shows, the
pair will run through what’s called acue to cue, where the technical crew runs through a show at a snail’space to ensure that all of the cues are set correctly and in the rightplace. This process can take several days for a single play, Northsays.As a young man, North said healways wanted to be an actor. When
he reached college, however, he
went on a different path, studying
web design and “hating” it.
North said that while he may have
tried to fight it, he had a passion for
theatre that he knew he had to
pursue. He then attended
Etobicoke’s Humber College and
knew he wanted to be a lighting
technician going forward.
Once he was out of school North
worked on shows at the Factory
Theatre and the Randolph Academy
for the Performing Arts in Toronto.
One of his first jobs out of school
was on The Toxic Avenger: The
Musical, a theatrical run that took
place in 2009 at the Danforth Music
Hall.
The play premiered in Toronto on
Halloween. It’s based on the Lloyd
Kaufman movie from 1985. The
musical’s world premiere was in
New Jersey in 2008.
North learned an appreciation for
Huron County early when one of the
first plays he ever saw was The
Drawer Boy, is based loosely on The
Farm Show of 1972. The Michael
Healey play takes place on a farm
near Clinton.
He says Blyth reminds him of his
hometown of Brockville, Ontario,
with a population just over 21,000.
“I love the closeness of this
community,” North said, “itsbeautiful simplicity.”Pyke also knew she wanted to beinvolved in theatre early. Shedecided at the age of three that shehad to choose a real career path andit was going to be theatre.“I’ve known I wanted to beinvolved with theatre since I knewabout careers,” she said. “As soon
as I knew I couldn’t be a dinosaur
when I grow up, it was theatre.”
She was involved in the world of
theatre very early, doing her first
work as an assistant stage manager
at the age of nine. She just kept
studying from there.
Originally from northern Ontario,
Pyke attended the University of
Guelph where she took theatre
studies. She continued to work in
the worlds of music and theatre
while going to school and continued
in the world of professional theatre
after graduation.
While continuing her journey in
theatre, Pyke spent a lot of time
working on lighting designs for
dance companies, which, she says,
offers an entirely different set of
challenges.
With dance, Pyke says, lighting is
more emotive than it is in theatre. In
theatre the main focus in ensuring
that actors are well lit and that
they look natural, where as
dance lighting can be more abstract.
This is Pyke’s first time in Blyth
and she was tipped off to the
position by one of last year’s house
technicians Charles McWilliam,
who is now working with the
Randolph Academy for the
Performing Arts.
She says her first time in Blyth has
been great and that has a lot to do
with the beautiful theatre at the
centre of the Festival and the great
group of people she has been
working with.
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By Shawn LoughlinThe Citizen