Over the last few years I have been working as a Lighting Technician in a variety of black box theatres and larger producing houses across London. At the National Theatre, I had the pleasure of meeting Lighting Designer Josh Pharo, who invited me down to the depths of Cornwall to be part of Team Lighting for Wildworks’ recent site-specific show, Stranger Beasts.
I had never worked on any outdoor site-specific theatre before, but it was definitely an education to spend September of 2024 in one of the most weathered parts of Cornwall. Located in Pendeen, Stranger Beasts spanned across the old Geevor Tin Mine site, sitting on a cliff face with the waves of the Atlantic sea nipping at your heels. Four weeks running, clambering and scrambling around setting out lights on top of soil heaps, in the nooks and crannies of old ruins – and in and around muddy puddles – were some of the most mentally and physically challenging, but rewarding shows I’ve worked on.
Co-lighting designers, Josh Pharo and Sarah Readman, designed the look of the show itself, creating lighting rigs that spanned the four different stages/locations. They also designed the install of the different electrical systems we used to power and control everything. We used a combination of mains power distribution which ran down the hill from the Tin Mine Museum and large portable power banks and battery powered lighting units.
This portable battery-powered equipment was exactly that, portable. A day in the life of Team Lighting throughout the run of the show would involve: starting in the afternoon, we’d collect all of our power banks and battery lighting units that were put on charge the night before, load them up in our van, travel down the hill, unload all of the necessary kit for each stage, power everything on to check it all works, and position and focus all of the lights to make sure they would be pointing in the right place when it comes to the show. Then we operated the show via a Mac Mini, a Wireless DMX Transmitter/Receiver (which communicates wirelessly with the lights), a Stream Deck, and a portable power bank, all of which were built into a small shopping trolley on wheels that I wheeled about the cliffs. Once the show finished, we started the de-rig, where we packed up everything we set up in the afternoon and put it on charge, ready for the next day.
Ensuring the lights were focused correctly was especially tricky, considering that the natural lighting conditions prescribed by the weather in mid-afternoon, would be very different from the performance later that evening. It was a slight battle against the sun, which is one huge expansive light source, making it difficult to focus lights to specific places. Despite having everything planned out and using lots of reference photos of which specific lights sit next to specific rocks, not knowing exactly what everything was going to look like until we had an audience was equally scary and exciting.
But what was more exciting than this, was the sun often upstaging everyone by creating the most magical, colourful sunset backdrops to the story we were telling. Every night was a different combination of different shades of pink, lilacs and oranges. It sort of timed itself so that the sun would be descending into the horizon throughout the first hour of the show, meaning that when the audience travelled to the 2nd/3rd locations that were nearer the land’s edge, they could see the sun sinking away; leaving everyone in darkness as the show neared its end. Performing during September and into early October also meant that the show looked very different at the beginning of the run to at the end.
The turning of the season from summer into autumn meant that we were met with a variety of downpours, huge gusts of wind and classic Cornish mizzle. One of my favourite nights of the show was a day where it was so rainy during the day and then so intensely misty in the evening, which made any beam of light look really thick and powerful; no haze machine could ever recreate it. It filled the sky to such heights that the 4 big LED wash lights we positioned on top of the larger gravel mound looked like a mini northern lights display. (See pictures below)
Working outside also meant that time was particularly precious during our week of technical rehearsals. There was only a small window of each day where Josh and Sarah could plot the lighting cues, set levels, and mix colours, etc., in the actual show conditions at dusk. This was probably my favourite part of the entire process: practically figuring out how to logistically organise the rig in order to uphold Josh and Sarah’s artistic work, maintaining the look and vibe of the show, despite the relentlessly ever-changing nature of nature.
Working in theatre is both joyous and frightening because, no matter how many shows you’ve worked on, you are starting anew. Here, working on the cliffs, it felt like everyone started completely from scratch, and all we had was each other to figure it out and hold everyone together.
It takes a village to make theatre, and Wildworks pulled together a very hardworking, supportive and windswept village to make Stranger Beasts happen.
Huge thanks to the entire Stranger Beasts company and crew – a few special thank yous to:
Josh Pharo, Sarah Readman, Dom Weeks, Mike Jones, Louie Roberts, Luke Stockbridge, Izzy Wilkinson, Gwen Scolding, Nathan Jackson, Tina Dézart and Mydd Pharo.
In 2023/24 Wildworks invested in technology to reduce the environmental impact of our productions (e.g. portable battery-powered equipment). This investment was enabled with funding from Arts Council England.
Stranger Beasts was directed by Mydd Pharo and written by Mercedes Kemp and Mydd Pharo.
Photo credits: Zoe Beeny.
