The Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone is owned by Maidstone Borough Council and, like all other departments of the council, has to take its place in a long queue for what small amount of money is available. A general re-fit was accomplished 20 years ago, but since then there has been no major injection of cash available to it.
Theatre manager, Mandy Hare, took the reins just over three years ago and set about raising the profile of the venue, putting in more events, a wider artistic base, a thriving youth theatre, a regular programme of workshops and a selection of outside events. Production and operations manager, Eric Lund, joined the team just over two years ago and soon realised that the existing resources just didn’t shape up. "I realised that the technical resources available to the two theatres at the Hazlitt were simply not going to be able to cope. With a combined technical budget of just £5,000 to last a year, we were barely standing still. Not only that, all the new equipment which had been put in 20 years ago, needed either major servicing or replacing."
Hare and Lund devised a cunning plan. Knowing that a single major cash injection was not going to be possible, they decided to split their requirements into several separate projects, each requiring only a (relatively) small amount of funding. They took their plan to councillors who, impressed with what they saw, approved a series of small injections of cash. When linked together, these began to show a significant improvement in technical facilities.
Lund cites one example of the plan in action. "Our existing 12-channel mixer in The Exchange (the second venue) came to the end of its life, refusing to carry power along the buss. We decided to replace it with the Allen & Heath 16-channel desk in the Hazlitt. We then asked for a budget to replace this and, in so doing, to upgrade to 24 channels (which were desperately needed). This was approved and we went for a Studiomaster Live 42 desk. We specified that it must be delivered by a certain date, which the suppliers (The Music Company) confirmed would be honoured. Two days before the due date, we got a call to say the desk wasn’t ready, but Studiomaster had a 32-channel version of the same desk available. Would we like that instead? As you can imagine, it was a tough decision!"
When Lund then turned his attention to the dimmers in the Hazlitt, he discovered a hand-written note on a piece of electrical tape which read ‘Warning, lives and neutrals may not correspond.’ He also discovered how easy it was to put two phases of power on the same lighting bar. This raised all sorts of Health & Safety issues and a bid was made to replace the dimmers and IWBs. Again councillors and officers backed the plan and the theatre closed for two weeks to allow a new lighting infrastructure to be installed by Stage Electrics. All the wiring was replaced; 60 channels of Strand analogue dimmers were replaced with 72 channels of LD90s, three lighting bars were replaced, new patch panels went in, and DMX was brought in to replace D54 throughout, with break-out points on every bar. Last summer the job was completed by The Stage Lighting Company who added a new advance bar complete with another 12 channels of dimmers, a 125A socket for incoming lighting equipment, plus a splitter box providing 63A, 32A and 13A alternatives, and extra sockets in the footlight troughs. 12 assorted second-hand lanterns were purchased to service the new advance bar.
Flying at the Hazlitt involves the old-fashioned ‘brute force’ hemp technology. There is no space in the wings for counterweight flying and no budget for motorised flying. However, very little can go wrong with a hemp system, but the motley selection of flying bars was another matter.
