5 minute read
OC Profile
Ben Stevens (P06)
The thing about Charterhouse is that it’s not just about the education, it’s about everything else. I think that was me – I did ok academically but the opportunities I had at Charterhouse really shaped what I’ve gone on to do with the rest of my life. I was a Music Scholar, playing five instruments, and did Music A Level alongside Theatre Studies, English and History AS.
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Roger Bart as Doc Brown with Ben Stevens (P06)
Ifirst became involved with the BTT with The Music Man. I made the Ensemble, somebody didn’t turn up at rehearsals and suddenly I found myself playing a named character thinking: ‘This is much more than I expected!’
The next big show we did was Les Misérables; I think we were one of the first to do the Schools’ Edition. It was during this show that I became aware of the backstage stuff and that’s how it kind of started. Over the years I did various backstage roles and ran the box office and front of house for a time, so it gave me an all-round knowledge, albeit on a smaller scale, of the running of a theatre.
When I left School, I didn’t really know what to do. I had been involved with Godalming Theatre Group who performed their shows at the BTT, I was still interested in theatre, and it was my sister who suggested Guildford School of Acting. I applied and got a place, luckily on a Dance and Drama award which covered all my tuition. Without this grant, or my scholarship and bursary at Charterhouse, I couldn’t have attended either institution.
At GSA the ‘Graduation Show’ is run like a professional environment to prepare you for going out and getting a job! You apply for a role, interview with the technical tutors, and are allocated a role. Just ten minutes
© Sean Ebsworth Barnes
before allocations were revealed, I was asked to go to the Production Office where they told me that they weren’t going to put me on ‘Graduation Show’. Instead, they wanted me to production manage the 2nd Year Musical Theatre shows, working with the 1st year production students.
After these two shows, an Academy came in, wanting to use our studio theatre and looking for someone to provide technical support to their production. Following this, a partner at the Academy said, ‘I’m doing a production of Cats – it’s fully licensed but it’s a new set, not the normal – would you be interested?’ And from there off we went. So by not doing my graduation show I picked up my first bit of work! About four years later, the Stage Manager from Cats rang me looking for another role to be filled, and then I met the next person who gave me the next job and so on...
After Cats, I joined my first West End show, Phantom of the Opera, one of the most famous shows in the world. It was the original set whilst I was there, and it used all of the techniques that may seem quite ‘old school’ now but when it opened in the 80s were state-of-the-art! Whilst I was there, we had the 10,000th show and the 25th Anniversary Concert at the Albert Hall, both incredible landmarks in the show’s history.
I met my wife when she was Sound No3. on Billy Elliot the Musical, where I was Technical Assistant Stage Manager, and it was her who first introduced me to Back to the Future as a musical. She was mixing one of the initial workshops, and I went along to watch the presentation of it. It’s crazy – you’re in a black box, with no set or costume, just cast and a small band, and you’ve got producers and investors who are about to chance a huge amount of money on a new show, and I’m at the back thinking: ‘I can see this show in my head’.
I rang up the Production Manager, who I’d previously worked with on Bat Out of Hell the Musical, and I said I’d just seen the workshop, and I wanted to do the show. The show went into development and in the meantime, I went onto the first UK tour of Matilda the Musical and then came back to London to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at The Palace Theatre, a venue steeped in theatrical history.
Whilst there I got the phone call saying ‘Back to the Future is happening; we’re opening in Manchester, then transferring to London. Given your experience and what you do we want you to be Head of Special Effects’. This is quite a unique role for a musical and not one that you would find on most shows.
I also had the opportunity to work with the Illusions Designer Chris Fisher, a member of The Magic Circle and the International Illusions and Magic Associate for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Together we created, rehearsed, and taught the illusions to the cast and crew and Back to the Future is trick after trick after trick! I can’t be too specific as to what illusions we create or how we do them, but sufficed to say, the audience is wowed every single show, especially by the Finale!
On some shows it’s a bit frowned upon to be a ‘fan’, whereas on Back to the Future they want you to be a massive geek! The original writer and
© Sean Ebsworth Barnes
Fourth Form 4ap
author, Bob Gale, will sit with you for hours talking about the original concept, the filming and how the DeLorean was originally going to be a fridge(!).
Alan Silvestri, the film’s original composer and Glen Ballard, the writer of Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror, wrote the music for the show and we also had Huey Lewis come to see the show. Then on press night, Christopher Lloyd, the original Doc Brown, came to see the show. That’s a fair bit of pressure, but very special to be part of their legacy! I was also incredibly lucky to work with Tony Award winner and Broadway legend Roger Bart playing the role of Doc Brown in the show.
What next after finishing on Back to the Future? I’m production managing two shows at the Unicorn Theatre in London Bridge, a place renowned for bringing theatre to children and from March will be joining The Grounded Events Company, delivering worldclass mass sporting events including the Brighton Marathon, Brighton Trail Weekend and Ragnar Relay UK.
