CASE STUDY: Blood Brothers with the Taieri Musical Society

Venue: Coronation Hall, Mosgiel, Dunedin

Gravity Services Provided:
Lighting
Sound
LED Screen

Taieri Musical’s Production of Blood Brothers tells the gripping story of two twins separated at birth, with a tragic self fulfilling prophecy. A story of love, family, sacrifice, class division, illness, despair and desperation. Set in 1960’s Liverpool, Gravity was able to help transport the audience back by providing full sound, lighting and a LED screen.

Director Russell Dixion, who had performed as multiple characters professionally overseas, was excited to finally direct a show that was very close to his heart. Russell had the vision of not wanting to make the show too clean/high production value - everything had to fit into the scene naturally, without stealing the show. There was some hesitancy on using an LED screen versus using projectors however through working with multimedia designer and creating some careful lighting design, we were able to make the LED screen look like it naturally fit into the scene by paying extra attention to the screen’s brightness.

The cast of 14 and 8-piece-band were all amplified with Gravity sound. A double mic was placed on the lead character, Mrs Johnstone, meaning that even if her main microphone failed during the show, we could immediately swap to her second microphone. This was important because not only was she leading the entire show, but she didn’t have much time off stage, so if her mic did have an issue, it is unlikely there would be time to solve it. This show had a lot of vocal effects in it, including the use of very heavy and light reverbs throughout, along with precision timed delay throws. This show was mixed on an Allen and Heath SQ7, with the multiband compressor expansion. An SQ5 was also used backstage to provide the mic team with an easy way to test if a microphone was working throughout the show. These were linked over Slink. 

This show saw great success being performed at the Coronation Hall in Mosgiel from 17-26 October 2019 with 5 extra shows added before opening night. At the end of 2019, Taieri Musical’ production of Blood Brothers received 12 nominations from the annual Otago Southland Theatre Awards (OSTAS) including nominations for Best Sound, Best Lighting & Vision, and more. The show received awards for individual cast members/direction and the Gravity team were stoked when Blood Brothers and our Gravity sound designer was awarded “Best Sound”. 

Congratulations to all the cast and crew on a great show! Gravity was honoured to help make this award-winning show a success!