Discuss the work of an area of

professional interest (small scale touring

theatre), together with the professional
organisation in which you undertook your
work placement (Saltmine Theatre
Company), making particular reference to
the production departments structure,
roles and responsibilities.

Matthew Peyton


3783 words


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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the staff and actors from Saltmine Theatre Company (particularly Rachael
Orrell, Andy Palmer, Jon Buckeridge, Miriam Buckeridge, Freddy Goymer and Rachel Benson).
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with you for 6 weeks, and for the opportunity to
develop the skills I have learned throughout my time at university in a real-world setting. Without
you, none of this would have been possible.

Matthew Peyton

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The beginnings of theatre lie with the Ancient Greek festivals to the god Dionysus (acknowledged
as the god of wine and fertility). Around the year 550 BC, a Dionysian priest called Thespis
introduced the first actor in addition to the chorus, which was already popular throughout
Dionysian hymns, also called dithyrambs. Dithyrambs are referred to in Aristotles Poetics, the
oldest surviving piece of dramatic theory (written c. 335 BC), so therefore can be seen as the
historical origins of theatre.

From the 5th century BC onwards, the Roman Empire expanded into territory previously occupied
by the Greek Empire. Initially, aspects of Greek theatre carried on into Roman theatre, including the
religious focus, specifically around the times of the Ludi Romani, religious festivals to honour the
Roman god of Jupiter. As the Romans moved into Britain, they built theatres across the country
(such as that excavated at the ancient Roman city of Verulamium, near St Albans). As time moved
towards the medieval era, we start to see the direct origins of Christian theatre, developing through
the mystery plays.

Mystery plays originated by developing the pre-existing liturgical worship or Biblical stories,
embellishing them with action and sets. These sets would be built upon pageant wagons, which
developed the bedrock for modern day touring theatre as we see it today. These pageant wagons
are believed to be two storey structures, where the lower storey would contain a space for the
dressing room, with the upper storey providing the playing space. These enabled acting companies
to tour their show around, however these tours would start in one position in the town and tell the
first part of the story, then moving on to another position in the town to tell the next part of the
story.

Mystery plays, however, began to die out towards the end of the 16th century, where they began to
be replaced by the theatre of the English Renaissance, such as the theatre of William Shakespeare.
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Theatre with a Christian message began to take a back seat, in favour of Shakespeares quartet of
tragedy, comedy, tragic comedy and history. This back seat change to a nil representation, when
Oliver Cromwells Puritan government outlawed most forms of popular entertainment. This is
evidenced in Histriomastix: The Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy, a criticism of theatre of the
time.



Christian theatre in the modern world presents itself in many different forms. One modern
incarnation of Christian theatre companies is local touring companies. One example of this is In Yer
Face, a theatre company from Manchester, that forms part of The Message Trust. They primarily
tour to schools, pupil referral units and young offenders institutions in and around the Greater
Manchester area. This fits in well with one of the aspects of the mission of The Message Trust,
which is to educate in the Christian religion and Christian lifestyle, minister to, counsel and
relieve young people who are excluded from educational establishments, suffering from
dependency, poor, disadvantaged, deprived, marginalised or otherwise in conditions of physical,
mental or spiritual need, hardship or distress. (The Message Trust, 2013). Their productions apply
Biblical themes to modern day situations, such as a recent production called A Town Called Malice,
re-imagining the story of the Good Samaritan as if it was told in modern-day Manchester.

Some Christian theatre companies build upon touring experience with a company-owned theatre
for performances, such as Riding Lights Theatre Company in York. They were founded in 1992, and
have since performed across the United Kingdom, taking workshops and theatre performances to a
variety of different audiences (such as schools, churches, prisons, and even military bases). Riding
Lights also impact their local community with four youth theatre groups, including one group
specifically aimed at young people with disabilities. They also are responsible for the delivery of
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drama lessons for The Minster School, York. One production of note was African Snow (marking
the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade), a co-production with York Theatre Royal,
culminating in a national tour and West End transfer. Another production of note was the York
Mystery Plays 2012, working in association with York Museums Trust, the City of York Council and
York Theatre Royal.

Saltmine Theatre Company fits into modern day Christian theatre as a (predominantly national)
small scale touring theatre company, where it accompanies several different Christian theatre
companies, such as Riverside Performing Arts, Oddments Theatre Company, Rhema Theatre
Company, and Ten Ten Theatre. All these companies (and others) produce touring productions, to
combine to an estimated total audience of around half a million people a year.



Saltmine Theatre Company is a small scale touring theatre company, committed to making a
difference in society and delivering high quality creative performances (Saltmine Trust, 2013). Their
vision is to be a centre of excellence, releasing, empowering and equipping faith through the
creative arts.

The company was founded in 1994, and produces around 18 different productions a year, totalling
around 460 performances to 82,000 people. Saltmine is comprised of eight core office staff, twelve
actors (including four actors on a year long internship programme) and two technicians.

Saltmines funding comes from several different avenues. The main area of funding comes from
personal and corporate charitable donations, which for the 2012-13 tax year totalled around 300k.
Another aspect of Saltmines funding comes from external organisations buying a performance
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from Saltmine for a fee, which for the 2012-13 tax year totalled around 125k. Other financial
support comes from ticket sales (85k), sponsorship (35k) and merchandise sales (2k).

The primary audience for Saltmines productions are churches across the United Kingdom, who will
principally use the productions as evangelistic events. Saltmine will often collaborate with other
organisations to create these productions, such as a recent production called Three Witnesses (in
partnership with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship), and an upcoming production
called Between The Lines (in partnership with Arab World Ministries). These productions are
mostly written in house by one of the actors, however sometimes they will perform productions
that have been written by external people.

Another audience of Saltmines is schools, through a wide range of theatre in education. This is
either from dedicated productions that will tour to up to 4 schools in one day, or from productions
where churches will book a show to offer to local schools. While sometimes this can be for the
purposes of entertainment (usually approaching Christmas or the end of the academic year),
Saltmine also offers productions that can complement the National Curriculum, through lessons in
Religious Education (focusing on Biblical stories) or Citizenship (focusing on contemporary issues
such as knife crime or binge drinking). One particular production of note was In Their Shoes, a
co-production with Ulfah Arts (a Muslim theatre company), commissioned by Dudley Metropolitan
Borough Council, promoting equality and diversity throughout primary schools in the Black
Country area. Another production of note is Escape V2.0: The City (a production focused on
internet safety for secondary schools), which was taken on a tour of Northern Ireland in 2013, with
the support of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and media coverage by BBC Newsline.

A final audience of Saltmines is conferences and festivals around the United Kingdom and Europe.
For example, every year Saltmine take a production to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where in 2013
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they received a five-star review from Broadway Baby for their production of Love Struck, focusing
on the issue of human trafficking. The review described their production as an unforgettable
performance and an incredible piece of theatre. (Fleet, 2013). Saltmine also take part in Spring
Harvest (a national Christian conference taking place at different venues across England), where
they take part in seminars, workshops and performances.

Saltmine are a relatively small company, however despite their size they usually have three tours
out at once. One of these will usually be a schools tour, which will include performances and
workshops, in up to 4 schools in one day. More often than not, the other two tours are generic
venue tours, performing in a mixture of churches and theatres, including certain venues that are
regular bookers of Saltmine shows (for example, every Saltmine tour performs at the Goldmine
Centre at Walsall). These productions will only perform in one venue per day, usually with one
performance per day (although sometimes two).

In comparison to the wider industry (setting the focus on Christian theatre aside), Saltmine is not
alone in its status as a small-scale touring company. Indeed, the British Council website lists over
one hundred different theatre companies that have less than 20 company members on the road,
with the Independent Theatre Council listing almost 300 touring theatre companies amongst its
members, most being small scale companies. An article from 2012 in The Stage said But even in
modern times it [small scale touring theatre] has often been seen as theatres poor relation.
Companies of a few actors and props driving themselves about in a van to wherever they might
find an audience had a boost in the mid-20th century through the theatre-in-education movement.
But it was where you started your career, and was the kind of job you moved on from as soon as
you could. This is true, and from my research and personal experience, it is almost impossible for
larger scale companies to use the adaptability that smaller theatre companies possess, whereby
they can travel, set up, rehearse, perform, set down and travel back in less than one day.
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Saltmine, being a fairly small company, has to spread the traditional separate roles that would be
assigned to different roles amongst the members of the company. Starting with the technical side of
the production department, the roles usually assigned to multiple people would need to be merged
into one role, as while on tour I was the sole technician.

As the show I was working on was a revival of a previous production, this did make life slightly
easier for me, which meant that the pressure of having several different roles of the production
department would not all be bearing down on me. In particular, this production had the majority of
the sound files already pre-made (I did, however, have to create some and adjust some others).
However, as I was simply given the sound files (and no way or recommendations of how to play
them), I had to demonstrate the skills attached to other roles within a generic production
department, such as sound engineer and sound programmer.

It helps at this point if I describe the format of rehearsals for the production. The rehearsals for this
production took place over three weeks, however we only rehearsed the show for 10 days in a total
of 15 available days to rehearse (as no rehearsals or show-related work took place on weekends).
While the non-acting aspects of the show were primarily in place before rehearsals, there were
still some tweaks during the rehearsal period that had to be made, which would be made during the
off days of rehearsals. If Saltmine revives a show they have previously done, it is usually done with
some of the company from before (such as the tour creative director and tour logistics director),
but some other members of the company that have not previously worked on the show before.
While this can fill up the time allocated for show tweaks during rehearsals quite quickly, it also
provides the company with a newer, fresher approach to the source material, so that if any persons
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that saw the previous incarnation of the show book a ticket to see it again, there will still be new
aspects of the show that they will enjoy. There is also the problem of costume alterations that need
to be made (especially if roles are re-cast to different actors), which may not necessarily be
essential for at the start of rehearsals, but are necessary before dress rehearsals start (we had two
days of dress rehearsals before taking the show out on tour), and definitely necessary before the
tour actually starts. I was not the member of the company having to perform such tasks, as my
skills lied more in the technical side of things (and the creative application of such), therefore any
costume tweaks required were given to a member of the acting company possessed a greater
aptitude at costume tweaks than I did. This ensured a professional approach to the finished
production, providing a higher quality production overall.

The more senior roles of the production department were shared between the senior members of
the tour company, and the core office staff. It would be inappropriate for me to undertake any more
advanced roles, as I was only working with Saltmine for six weeks, on a voluntary basis, and
possess limited professional experience. If, having increased my personal level of professional
experience, I decided that I would like to work for Saltmine in the future, then I would probably go
back in at a relatively junior level, however combining the increase in general professional
experience plus specific experience working with Saltmine, then it is not unreasonable to think that
I would be able to work at a more senior level. However, speaking with Saltmine during my
placement, it became apparent that they will not take on full-time technicians that do not possess a
full driving license, which I do not presently possess. This would be another aspect that I would
have to acquire in order to work with Saltmine. Carrying a full, clean driving license is a
requirement for most, if not all, technical positions for small scale touring companies, therefore it is
an important skill for me to obtain, without which I will find it difficult to obtain work.

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While on tour, our roles differed from those during rehearsals. For example, while I was not having
to do any more sound or lighting design, I would now have to allocate a greater period of time for
sound and lighting tweaks, as well as designating time for technical maintenance, such as replacing
lamps and fixing other broken equipment. For instance, we were using socapex to connect our
lighting rig together, but one had developed a broken connection, meaning that two of the channels
were broken. As we were on the road for a large period of time, unable to go back to Saltmines
base in Dudley, I would have to perform maintenance on the cable to get at least one of the
channels working again. Another example was due to the varying show times we would be
performing at, we would need differing light levels throughout the show. As part of the extended
tweaks time I had allocated, I would need to establish how the lighting looked on the actors faces,
how the ambient lighting looked, and what levels our lighting needed to be set at in order to create
an effective atmosphere. This was also true for the sound levels and equipment, where I was
required to adjust the sound levels depending on the characteristics of the venue we were
performing in, as well as repairing any equipment (in particular, one socapex cable had broken in
transit so I had to repair it.



The way Saltmines production department operates is not uncommon throughout the world of
small scale touring. However, it is first important to identify what can be classified as small scale
theatre. At the lower end, we could be talking about fringe touring shows which will perform to
around 50 audience (or potentially, even less). At the higher end, we could be talking about
professional companies taking shows on tour, for example Scottish Operas 2012 tour of La
Traviata, which while performing to larger theatres and audiences that most small scale companies
could dream of, can still be classed as small scale when compared to, say, audiences that Scottish
Opera could expect at their home theatre, the Theatre Royal in Glasgow. The definition of small
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scale touring theatre that I will be using is still fairly fluid, however it boils down to a limited
number of members of the company (usually around 5 actors and 1 technician), performing in
non-traditional theatres (such as churches and schools), where all set, props, costume, and
remaining equipment (both technical and otherwise) could fit into the back of a van.

Most small scale touring theatre companies abide by a similar performance schedule, with
approximately one and a half hours to perform the get in, five hours to set up (including rigging and
any on-tour maintenance required), one and a half hours to rehearse, two hours to perform,
followed by one hour for the strike and approximately one hour for the get out, totalling a twelve
hour day. This is the rough daily schedule that Saltmine would adhere to, and is generally a standard
schedule in the industry. With regards to a long term touring schedule, most touring companies
(including Saltmine) could be looking at anywhere from 3 days on tour to 9 days on tour without a
rest day, followed by either one or two days off. As before, this is not a schedule solely for
Saltmine, it is a typical schedule for all companies.

Pertaining to the matter of staffing, most small scale touring companies will be looking at having an
on the road company that has a very small staffing level, usually with no more than 5 or 6 people.
This includes the acting company (which forms the majority of the on the road company), leaving
only one technician. It is very rare for small scale touring companies to have more than one
technician. In this case, technical support will usually come from the members of the acting
company, who (either as part of their acting training or through their time at the company) develop
an understanding of the technical elements required for the get in and fit up. Occasionally, some
venues will provide some element of technical support. When on tour with Saltmine, every so often
we would come across a venue that already has some form of technical equipment in place. In these
cases, the venue would often also provide a technician, who would be on hand to ensure that the
technical equipment we would bring into the venue would co-operate with their equipment, and
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that the two systems would not cause problems with each other. I encountered this problem at
some venues that did not provide technical support, where they would have (for example) their own
radio microphone system, and our radio microphone system would be set to the same frequency,
causing problems between the two systems. Luckily for me, this problem was a simple job to fix,
which only required changing the radio microphone frequencies, making sure to steer clear of
Channel 69 (following the digital switchover), and also remembering to change the frequencies back
to their original settings after the show had finished.

When pertaining to more practical matters (such as transport and accommodation), in some cases
Saltmine operate how the rest of the industry does, but differently on others. Referring to
transport, Saltmine operate in a similar way to the rest of the industry, where the set, props,
costume, technical equipment and other important paraphernalia (such as marketing materials and
administrative paperwork) are all transported in the back of a van, and all but one or two of the
company travel in an accompanying vehicle.

With regards to accommodation, however, Saltmine operates on a widely different basis to the rest
of the industry. As Saltmine could be touring in radically different areas of the country from one
day to the next (my tour with Saltmine would perform from as far south as Portsmouth and
Eastbourne to as far north as Hull, with many different venues in between), the usual method of
paying the members of the company a flat subsistence fee and leaving them to arrange their own
accommodation would not be an acceptable option, as most housing opportunities falling in the
subsistence fee allowance (currently set for Subsidised Repertory theatres by Theatre UK and
Equity at 151.00 per week), require at least one week continued booking, and not the single day
stays that Saltmine require. Instead, as part of the booking process, companies booking a
performance of Saltmine (who are outside a 50 mile radius of the base in Dudley) have to provide
one nights accommodation to the members of the company on tour, at their own cost. As most
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Saltmine productions are hosted by local churches, this is usually provided by volunteers in the
church community. In the event that this is not possible, then companies booking the productions
will sometimes book hotels for the members of the company (when I was on tour with Saltmine, this
was only a requirement for one night).



As a whole, Saltmine fit into the primary category of small scale touring theatre, while also fitting in
to the category of Christian theatre. While there are many different small scale touring theatre
companies across the United Kingdom, the fact of the matter is that there are a relatively few
number of Christian theatre companies, despite the 2011 Census showing Christianity to be the
largest religion in the United Kingdom (with 33.2 million people - 59.3% of the population -
professing a Christian faith) (ONS, 2012).

Saltmines production department operates on a similar basis to most production departments
across the country, whereby the department (limited in its staffing as it is) operates on a split basis,
sending its members on simultaneous tours across various ends of not only the country, but also
the wider world. Saltmine is probably unique in not leaving any technical representatives back at
their base during the time spent on tour, however their differences pale in comparison to their
similarities with other small scale touring theatre companies across the country, whether those
companies profess the Christian faith or not. The back office methods of operation that Saltmine
use are similar to those used by most small scale touring theatre companies, no matter in what
areas they operate (be they theatre in education, religious theatre or otherwise).

The similarities that Saltmine have with the wider industry of small scale touring theatre will benefit
me for when I step out of the world of education and into the world of work, as the level of adaption
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required to adjust my skills into a real life setting will be less than if I had obtained a placement in a
different area of the entertainment industry, or if I had not obtained a placement at all. The
differences, however, can prove to be a benefit to my learning experience as a whole, diversifying
the skills that I have achieved over the three years of my degree.
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References

The Message Trust, 2013. Annual Report & Financial Statements Year Ending 31 August 2012. [pdf]
Charity Commission. Available at: <http://goo.gl/DP5O80> [Accessed 11 May 2014]

Saltmine Trust, 2013. Financial Statements Year Ended 31 March 2013. [pdf] Charity Commission.
Available at: <http://goo.gl/jFfeck> [Accessed 11 May 2014]

Saltmine Trust, n.d. About Us. [online]. Available at: <http://goo.gl/YwqX9r> [Accessed 11 May
2014]

Fleet, A., 2013. Love Struck. [online] Broadway Baby. Available at: <http://goo.gl/MUJy6t>
[Accessed 11 May 2014]

ONS, 2012. Religion in England and Wales 2011. [pdf] The Office For National Statistics. Available at:
<http://goo.gl/TEIOsh> [Accessed 13 May 2014].

Bibliography

Klar, L. S., 2006. Theater and Ampitheater in the Roman World. [online] The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Available at: <http://goo.gl/MbW05U> [Accessed 12 May 2014]

Faculty of English, 2002. Mystery plays. [online] University of Cambridge. Available at:
<http://goo.gl/nx6xZJ> [Accessed 12 May 2014]

Encyclopdia Britannica Online, 2014. Mystery play (dramatic genre). [online]. Available at:
<http://goo.gl/eVW5xY> [Accessed 10 May 2014]

British Council, n.d. Small-scale Drama. [online]. Available at: <http://goo.gl/e6fYmk> [Accessed 11
May 2014]

British Council, n.d. Middle-scale Drama. [online]. Available at: <http://goo.gl/bzE22n> [Accessed
11 May 2014]

Flyman, 2012. Small-scale touring makes a comeback. [online] The Stage. Available at:
<http://goo.gl/AZuFAP> [Accessed 11 May 2014]
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