Community Theatre latest

Following an explosion of public indignation over the situation at the Lamlash Community Theatre, where no member of the community was allowed to touch any of the technical facilities, a partial resolving of the problem has been arrived at. Following a meeting at the school on the 8th of February with John McMillan of K A Leisure, Mary Young and Fiona Crawford (Chair and Secretary of the Drama Association)and John Baraclough, it was agreed that people involved in productions would be allowed to move lanterns etc and that any accidental damage would be covered by K A Leisure’s insurance.

John Baraclough has had written confirmation from John McMillan as the ‘landlord of community hires’ that this agreement will be honoured. A question remains as to whether other persons standing in for John are equally covered by the necessary insurance, but at least the deadlock has been resolved. A monitoring system has been installed which enables anyone in the control room to know what is happening on the stage. Although it is not possible to tell what the levels are on the loudspeakers, this can be checked by asking someone on the floor of the theatre to report on the sound level.

The inductive loop for hearing aids is partially working in that it has been connected to the output of the sound mixer desk. However it will only reproduce whatever is going through the mixer so, if no microphones are being used in the auditorium, no voices will be heard on the induction loop.

There also seems to be a lack of clarity about who is supposed to be maintaining the lanterns in the theatre and who pays for the replacement of blown lamps, but it is good to know that constructive communication has been established.