Behind the scenes Building a festival
SOMETIMES, at work, Nick Kyle gets asked for gallons of fake blood.
As the New Zealand Festival’s head of technical and production, working to bring the world’s most brilliant and quirky stage shows to life, nothing is really out of the ordinary for Kyle.
On his desk are piles of neatly stapled riders – detailed wishlists from the circus performers, playground builders and surreal stage show producers from all over the world.
Kyle’s job is to make these riders a reality. One example is the freight, repair and build of the set for Cineastas, a split-stage theatre where two worlds play out simulatenously on top of one another.
As organised in the rider, an old set, in need of repairs, will be sent over from Buenos Aires in pieces.
The journey involves it being sent to an address in Argentina, then freighted to Auckland and driven to Wellington.
‘‘Then we’ll put it in the workshop and fix it, paint it and send photos of it to the director until we get it right, then break it down, then when they come take it out again and put it up again in the right place on the Opera House stage, and then they’ll do rehearsals and there we go,’’ Kyle explains.
Cineastas is one of the easier ones. As New Zealand has some of the toughest biosecurity laws in the world, Kyle is constantly having to remind performers what they can and can’t do.
There was the time in 2008 when an Irish dance company wanted to bring special peat from the motherland.
‘‘We opened it and there were six bags of Irish peat with a whole ram’s skull on top with horns and all, and just behind that was a whole bag of birds’ feathers.
‘‘Some shows turn up and say we need two horses heads, two gallons of blood,’’ Kyle said.
Next year will be his 30th year doing production, and his fifth time working on the New Zealand Festival.