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For the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I worked at Miss Libertine. The same two shows were played every night. One was ‘The Talking Vagina’ which was one long play and the other was ‘Barry and his Mantastic Manship’ which was improvised a little every night but was also the same story every night. ‘The Talking Vagina’ did not need any help from us, so we only did the house lights for the show. For ‘Barry and his Mantastic Manship’, we got to use the sound board, lighting board and laptops for SFX and video projection.

Introduction:
This report outlines my Melbourne International Comedy Festival experience at Miss Libertine. This report is written to discuss the skills that were obtained from this venue and can be used to judge whether it would be valuable for students to continue working there for experience.

This report will also include a technical review of the venue to explain what you would be working with at Miss Libertine and if it worked effectively.

For the comedy festival, I was given work experience at Miss Libertine who were hosting two shows, ‘The Talking Vagina’ and ‘Barry and his Mantastic Manship’. These shows ran every night except Monday (and ‘The Talking Vagina’ was not played on Sundays). I worked four or five times a week, giving me ample time to experience all of the different technical aspects of the show and time to learn the shows and how they run from memory.

Skills/Learning Experience gained
‘The Talking Vagina’ didn’t give us any learning experience as it didn’t using lighting effects or microphones. It used a laptop to play sound effects but the Director was in charge of that.

‘Barry and his Mantastic Manship’ had many more things for us to do. We learnt how to set up the microphones and test them before then show started, including plugging them in and setting up stands to try and achieve maximum sound output without getting in the way. The microphones were run off a mixer board and the volume for the backstage microphone had to constantly been adjusted because the actors projected their voice differently continually. The mixer board also controlled the volume of the sound effects and video running from the two laptops which also constantly had to be changed because the music and SFX were on the same channel but had different volumes on the laptops.

The lighting was very simple. There was lots of fading in and out of scenes and one scene with a colour change. The only thing we could learn was the speed in which to fade, how to change colours (which was pushing a labelled button) and what a lighting board looks like. It was a very small lighting board though, and I don’t think bigger venues would have had anything like what Miss Libertine had.

Technical Review
Both shows were very technically simple. There was a sound mixer, lighting board and two MAC laptops. One light was used for ‘Barry and his Mantastic Manship’ and two other small lights were used for ‘The Talking Vagina’. The lighting board had 12 different colours to choose from, but only blue and white were ever used. The board had about 8 other buttons, but they were never used so we never learnt what they did.

The Sound mixer had lots of knobs and level adjusters, but we didn’t really touch anything. We only used the things that adjusted the levels the sound came out of the two speakers above the stage.

The laptops were both externally plugged into the sound mixer, and the mixer had two channels just for external devices.

Conclusion:
Miss Libertine only has very basic technology for their shows, and therefore isn’t an ample learning experience for students who want to experience a more full on theatre layout. Miss Libertine is really just a bar with a small stage for bands to play. While we did learn the basics to a sound board, lighting board and setting up a stage, a bigger venue would have been much more beneficial.

Recommendations:
Before assigning students to Miss Libertine, find out what shows will be playing and find out what equipment will be used. If the shows have more complex equipment to learn about, or if the shows have more cues and effects, it still could be a good learning area for others. Otherwise, it would be better to go to a bigger theatre to learn how they are set up.

Report by
Matthew CW
Holmesglen – Certificate IV in Live Production, Theatre and Events (Technical Management)