. . . Winter 2003
By J. Christopher Hippler
With over 350 props, four digital projectors and a huge moving light rig, the Royal Shakespeare Company's performance of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a daunting theatrical production. But Jasper Gilbert, the new technical director of the University Musical Society, knows the spectacular show's staging challenges intimately. In London recently, he met with his counterparts at the Barbican Theatre to review tction details and recognized the documents instantly. "They were using the production plan that I wrote when I was with the RSC," he sheir produays with a smile. The son of a choreographer and a dancer, Gilbert comes from "an entertaining and theatrical stock." As a boy, he was forced to take ballet classes, all the while yearning to go out and play soccer with his friends. Performing on stage was not his passion. On a lark, he took a course in stage management in London after high school "until I had to take a real job." He was hooked. The RSC was Gilbert's real learning ground. Starting as assistant stage manager in 1984 at just 19, he steadily advanced to the top technical job. At the RSC, Gilbert worked directly with the script to plan productions. Collaborating with the director, he was charged with bringing the words to life. One of the last plays that he worked on was Midnight's Children. A production blockbuster, Midnight's Children is sophisticated and multilayered technically, requiring a surround sound system, a dramatic digital light curtain and more than 500 lighting cues. The six performances in March at the Power Center will surpass in pizzazz any live theater Ann Arbor has seen, and Gilbert relishes the chance to dazzle audiences. As the technical manager for touring, Gilbert journeyed from large-scale tours to Bombay, Santiago, Tokyo before arriving in Ann Arbor for the first joint UMS-RSC productions in 2001. He joined the UMS last September, moving from his home in Stratford-on-Avon to his new surroundings in Ann Arbor-on-the-Huron. But he didn't have long to get settled because the 2002-2003 UMS season was already under way. His UMS duties differ from those at the RSC. There, he planned performances from the ground up. With the UMS, he manages all technical aspects of live performances. With Hill Auditorium's current renovation rendering it unavailable, he has had to adapt touring shows to 11 different venues. Working with visiting companies, he does the prep work for staging, lighting and set design before the company's arrival"advancing," as it's known in the theater. "We got to know Jasper when he was advancing the first RSC residency in Ann Arbor," says Michael Kondziolka, UMS director of programming and production. "He had a wealth of knowledge, and a generosity of spirit that was very appealing." After the incumbent technical director resigned last year, Gilbert became a leading candidate. But it was strictly wishful thinking at the time. "We didn't think we would get someone of Jasper's caliber for the job," said Ken Fischer, president of the society, "We were thrilled that someone with that much experiencewhom we knew wellwas interested in the position." Months before this season's performances of the Rushdie play and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Coriolanus, Gilbert received the technical requirements: stage dimensions, rigging requirements, wardrobe needs, as well as personnel needs for sound and lighting. As the performance date draws near, his binder for the show grows thicker as reference photos, renderings and lighting blueprints arrive. The advance work for a show continues right up until the company's arrival. Through the local union, Gilbert hires and oversees carpenters, electricians, and sound technicians. Working on stage, Gilbert's good humor and easy-going manner instill an esprit de corps in the staging crew. All the while, he wears his cell phone on his belt like a Western gunslinger, ready to shoot down problems. No longer focusing on touring has freed Gilbert to implement innovations he's only contemplated before. "As Michael and I formulate the next season and the season after that," he says, "my knowledge of European theater allows me to suggest things that we might take a look at doing performances outside, or taking shows into non-theater spaces." One of his ambitions for next season is to convert the Michigan Union Ballroom into a set for Twelfth Night. In the tradition of Shakespearean theater, the audience will be on three sides of the stage, and will even see the actors change costumes on stage as they did in the bard's time. "It is an attempt to realize traditional theater in a modern setting," Gilbert says. Although he is quick to say he is "loath to influence artistic planning," he would also enjoy staging a production in Nichols Arboretum and other locales where the audience could be "very close to the actors." UMS outreach efforts appeal to Gilbert as well. In mid-March, he will demonstrate technical fine points to the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit. For schedules and ticket information, contact the UMS at (800) 221-1229 or at www.ums.org on the Internet.
J. Christopher Hippler owns Capital Letters, an Ann Arbor-based communications company. |
