Stage Managing ‘The Dylathon’

In 2014, Dylan Thomas would have celebrated his 100th birthday. A year-long festival of events celebrated the life and work of the Welsh writer, from acclaimed revivals of his most famous works to BBC TV programmes, and the event culminated in a one-off, non-stop, 36-hour Dylathon at Swansea’s Grand Theatre, with an eclectic cast of readers and performers including Sir Ian McKellen, Sian Phillips, singer Katherine Jenkins, comedians Jo Brand and Kevin Eldon, writers, broadcasters, politicians, and Welsh sporting heroes.

Sebastian Noel, currently in his final year at RWCMD, worked as the designer on the event, while stage management students Lucie Watson and Sam Griesser (pictured above) joined a stage management team made up exclusively of RWCMD graduates. “It was a completely new challenge for everyone involved, but especially for me and Lucie because our background is in theatre, where most of the work is done in rehearsals,” said Sam. “The Dylathon was completely unrehearsed and there were cast changes every five minutes so we had to stay on our toes.”

“I was on the graveyard shift starting at 10pm on Sunday,” said Lucie. “By the early hours of the morning, everyone was struggling with tiredness and becoming a bit disorientated. People were actually asleep in sleeping bags backstage. It was a bit surreal – at one point I had to wake up a cast member for their call.”

“It was fantastic to work alongside seasoned stage managers and to get first-hand experience of how they deal with all sorts of unexpected situations. We’re always taught to be like swans – calm on the surface while paddling frantically underneath. Working in the professional stage management team was a masterclass in doing exactly that.”