Behind-the-scenes with Giovanni Harris, Production Stage Manager of Quick & Bold Festival
First of all, what's your role in the Quick & Bold Festival?
Hello! My role in the festival is called the Production Stage Manager. I believe most of you have heard of Stage Managers and Production Managers. Well, basically, my role is a combination of the two! My responsibilities include knowing the basic layout of the performing space, knowing the set and props, scheduling the rehearsals and the whole production and monitoring the multiple performances to ensure smoothness throughout the festival. And during the run of the festival itself, I have to ensure that the cues run smoothly and for the festival to run successfully!
What intrigued you to join the Quick & Bold Festival?
Well, firstly, I have done a few festivals and one that can be noted is the Gentarasa Festival, which was a celebration of Malay Culture. And since I had experience working on festivals, I believe that Quick and Bold is a challenge that I was ready to take on. And as excited as I am to work on this festival, I was told that there will be a collective of Local Artists that have devised multiple pieces to be performed in the festival itself. And that made me even more intrigued as I believe there's a lack of local performances and more westernised pieces, and I truly believe that this festival is a great platform for these artists to have creative freedom to produce fresh local content and venture out of the box that the general audiences have put them in. Overall, I am having such a great time working with Khairul and Kristina and the different performers, writers and directors at this festival, and we can't wait for all of you to catch us performing soon!
What do you find most challenging as their Production Stage Manager?
Being a Production Stage Manager for theatre productions is already difficult, now what about being one in a Festival. Well, one thing that was difficult is basically communicating with a bunch of people as there is more than one performance and there were about 4 to 5 people working on one performance. And since it's a festival, I had to communicate to these different groups to get a hold of different information. But as time goes by, it had gotten easier and having the skill of multitasking, patience and communication, it is very important to have those to go on with the festival to end up with a smooth production as a whole.
Other than that, this production isn't the most difficult I have worked on as the people here are very cooperative and we seem to go hand-in-hand when going through the difficulties that were brought up. We create solutions easily and we always made sure that the end result will be a great one for the audiences that will come to watch us.
What do you look forward to at Q&B?
I can say this one thing, the only thing that all of us are looking forward to is the performances. We have worked so hard over the span of 2 months and more, and that we are excited for all of you to come and watch it. The 4 performances will range from comedic performances to dramatic movement pieces. It will showcase some of the best local artists we have here in Singapore, and even if this festival isn't held in huge spaces like a Black Box theatre or any of the usual performance spaces, I can promise you one thing. The creativity of these performers and artists will make use of what they have with the short amount of time to blow your mind! So why wait longer, come watch us during the last 2 weekends of July at 8 PM, only at Bold Moment Theatre! Get your tickets here! See you guys there!