Every time the San Diego Symphony steps onstage at The Rady Shell there are so many people working behind the scenes. Like an anthill, where you only see a percentage of the colony, backstage at The Shell is alive with hustle and bustle.
Over the course of several issues we will explore some of the roles that make our performances possible. Today is an interview with Nicole Houghton, Production Manager for the SDSO. She’s giving us an overview of her job, which serves as a good jumping off point for discussions about the other professionals who work to make productions happen.
What do you wish musicians knew about being our Production Manager?
There are so many small details that have to be planned out for each and every single one of our performances at the Shell or at any performance venue that the SDSO uses. Every day I face new challenges for upcoming programming, whether it is figuring out the ideal riser setup for Mahler 1 or making sure we have the correct drum set for a visiting artist.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in bassoon performance at Carnegie Mellon (at the same time as SDSO percussionist Erin Dowrey) so it is always an incredible feeling to be a part of every performance at The Rady Shell. I have at times acted as a score reader for William Zauscher, our video director, or advanced supertitles for certain Masterworks performances which has made me feel even closer to the artistic product. My job also requires collaboration with many other departments including artistic, personnel, library, and facilities. All of these departments work extremely hard to make sure that the performances are at their highest possible artistic level!
What can you tell us about the stagehands, the lighting people, the sound people – all the people who make magic happen?
The musicians aren’t the only unionized workers onsite – we also have members of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 122 who work at The Rady Shell every day. We have five house stagehand positions: Head carpenter, head electrics, head properties, head audio, and head video. The union steward, Evan Page, places calls to the union office for any additional stagehands that are needed on any given day. The stagehands have their very own collective bargaining agreement that is negotiated every few years.
The main person that works on the lighting for the Shell is our technical director Jason Rothberg who started working for the SDSO in February 2020. Sometimes guest artists bring in their own lighting designers, other times we will have one of our stagehands that specializes in lighting work on the lighting design for The Rady Shell.
For opening weekend, we had a special team of projectionists to work on the designs on the outside of the Shell.
Everyone is talking about the sound system at The Shell – what can you tell us?
The Shell has a system that people across the country are excited about – a complete L-Acoustics package that includes 114 separate speakers plus supporting technology. L-Acoustics is a French company and one of the world leaders in professional sound systems for live events. They are known for pioneering the modern “line source array,” which is the term for the big columns of speakers at the top of the stage.
There are all kinds of rules about how long, and for how loud the music/sound can be. Needless to say a lot of thought has gone into minimizing the acoustic impact on Coronado and downtown.
Who else is at The Shell every day?
We have a huge team of volunteer ushers that help make the performances run smoothly for the audience. They each need to attend tours and training every year, and some have been working with us for years. At The Shell it takes dozens and dozens of ushers for any large concert event. The staff member in charge of the ushers is our Director of Customer Experience, Mel Stark.
We also have the company Elite Security who provide on-site security 24 hours a day. For concert nights there are a variable number of guards working, but it’s more than you might think.
There are also four restaurants that have full staff on site for every concert day, with prep starting sometimes early in the morning since all the cooking happens in the professional kitchens at The Shell.
By Julia Pautz