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Setting The Stage: How to Prepare a Non-Performance Location to Become a Performance Location

Setting The Stage: How to Prepare a Non-Performance Location to Become a Performance Location

When it comes to performing (especially burlesque) on an island, one is limited in their pick of venues. Cabaret and Cocktails recently held our first show in my newly opened dance and aerial studio! That meant that we had to transform a dance and aerial studio space into a performance location capable of hosting our performers and a live audience. How does one ready a stage-less space for a performance? Continue reading to find out!

First, you must decide where your venue’s best possibility for a performance location will be. In order to figure out what area of your space may work best, it helps to know what types of performances will be featured in your show.

  • Do you need enough area for someone to move around the floor and dance?
  • Do you need ceiling height for a juggler or aerialist?
  • Will your contortionist be seen if she is on the ground?

Knowing a little about your performers’ acts will help narrow down which areas in a space might work best for your show.

Next, decide where your audience will be. In many cases, the audience is placed across from the performance area, but this can vary depending on the venue and the types of acts that will be featured in a performance.

For example, if a performer will spend a lot of time on the ground, it may be difficult for the members in the back of an audience situated across from the performance space to see the performer. It may be better to opt for an audience that encompasses or surrounds the performance space, so that the acts can be visible to the entire audience.

Tech. Now that you have an idea of where your performers and audience will be, you have to figure out how your performers will be seen and heard! Ensure that your space has adequate lighting, and if it does not, add some!

It would be a huge bummer for a performer to put hours of time into the details of a costume only to have a lack of lighting to show it off in their act!

Have a singer? Will they be heard without a microphone? Will a performance require music? You have to ensure that both the performer and audience can hear it! Make sure that you have everything you need to ensure that your performers can be seen and heard!

Additional people can also be needed to assist in an act. Does your burlesque performer remove articles of clothing? Who will pick them up? Your show can only run smoothly if you are able to have what is needed for each act to be performed and viewed as effortlessly as possible.

Armed with the information above, you are now ready to prepare any space for a performance! It takes a little planning and practice, but you too can transform a studio space, back room, or your living room into your very own stage!

Break a leg!

Miss F-Bomb, “The Hottest Weapon in the Burlesque Arsenal”, is smooth like Southern Bourbon, spiked with a tart calamansi. Don’t underestimate her feminine wiles for she is a firecracker within. With her sardonic smile and legs for miles she will make your heart (and other things) go BOOM! Miss F-Bomb has an extensive dance and theater background and is the lead choreographer, kitten wrangler, prop mistress, and PR rep for Cabaret & Cocktails.

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