SINGIN' IN THE RAIN New Zealand, Asia's Richard Blacksell Talks How To Create Rain On Stage

Wellington, New Zealand--2012 Olivier Award nominee SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, a stage adaptation of the 1952 musical comedy film of the same name, which was co-directed by and starred Gene Kelly, will tour Wellington, New Zealand (April 15-April 26); Auckland, New Zealand (May 1-May 17); Singapore (July 9-July 26); and Manila, Philippines (August 20-September 6), where Visa cardholders can avail of 10% ticket discount until April 12.

Direct from London's West End and its UK and Ireland Tour, the show features performances by Grant Almirall ("Jersey Boys") as silent film leading man Don Lockwood and Bethany Dickson ("The Sound of Music," "Grease") as the aspiring actress Kathy Selden, plus a big tap dance number across a rain soaked stage during Act One.

Richard Blacksell ("Sister Act," "Saturday Night Fever"), the show's technical director, recently guested on Radio New Zealand National to mainly talk about how SINGIN' IN THE RAIN creates rain on stage. (To listen to the radio guesting, click HERE.)

Concertus Manila, the promoter of the show in the Philippines, has also provided the interview transcription below:

What's involved in making it rain on stage?

Essentially, we have two large tanks of water in the wings, which we heat close to an acceptable level. There's a series of pumps and manifolds and half a mile of hosing which we use to transfer the water to where we need it.

We actually flood the stage from underneath at the same time we rain down from the top, just to get it deep enough, quickly enough. Just for it to be a really magical special moment and frankly, for everybody to get a bit wet! Not just the cast get wet but if you're in the first few rows, I would say.

So it's not just the cast but the audience as well?

They can, absolutely! The cast get truly, truly soaked. We drop 12,000 litres of water in the show. So that's 12 tons of water that we drop on them over the course of 2 numbers--the first one being the iconic SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, as done by Gene Kelly and they see it again in the finale because it would be such a shame not to. But yes, frankly in the first couple of rows, you may get a little wet.

Well, I suppose you wear it as a badge of honor?

Absolutely! People do. I mean, you watch from the back of the stalls and at the interval, they're all talking to each other like they're comparing war wounds just to see who got the wettest. I'd say people really, really love it.

And what about the actors? They're dancing while they're being wet, and on a wet stage! Surely, it's a little bit slippery.

Strangely, the amount of time that we put into making the rain work was nothing compared to the amount of time we put into getting the right flooring. We hired a warehouse in Central England and we had so many different floors. It was over this period of a month; we would bring dancers in, test it out, send them away again, and make alterations because we needed a floor that was safe when it was dry as well as safe when it was wet. You could find a lot of things that was safe when it was wet but didn't have enough grip when they were dry. So it needed to do both of those. And also, there are some fantastic tap dancing numbers in the show so we then had to go on to finding something that had a noise, had a sound good enough to recreate the tap. So we actually probably spent more time choosing the floor than we did making it rain!

And where did you get the floor from eventually?

In the end, we imported it from the States. For the West End, we brought it in from the States. We've stuck with that floor ever since because it really is the only thing we have found that does the job. It's a sort of recycled

plastic that looks like timber but it's got a really lovely, clear, ringing tap sound. And they stay on their feet! That's quite important.

Well, it sounds as though this was a system developed over time because SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is one of the more venerable productions. It's been around for a while.

It is. It has. It's obviously a classic film, a classic show. But what everybody was looking to achieve this time was sort of pushing the edges of what had been done before. It wasn't just a rain curtain or a series of rain curtains, it literally rains. There isn't a square inch of the stage that you could stand on and remain dry. It really covers the whole area.

When it went into the West End, we needed to make sure we spent the time to get it right. So we certainly were in development for quite a while.

Oh yes, because you imagine-if something were to go wrong or if you couldn't control the exact amounts of water you're dealing with, things would get messy!

Yes, I mean. In the show, if we use 12,000 litres of water, you only need to lose a tiny percentage of that before you're getting into trouble, and that's cumulatively, over a number of shows. But thankfully, we haven't yet destroyed any theatres around the world!

And yes, the whole health and safety aspect of it. Well, all of the water is UV-treated, sand-filtered, and chlorinated. Essentially, it's the same machinery you would have in a swimming pool, except we've got it in the air.

And this is a point: it's recycled. You use it again and again.

Absolutely, yeah. People were asking questions about it when it was in the West End because we were having a bit of warm weather in the UK, which is quite rare. And it was 2012, it was the summer of The Olympics and I was looking at the numbers. We would've had to run for 40 years to use the same [amount of water] as one Olympic-sized swimming pool. So we're certainly, relatively, environmentally friendly.

And what are the logistics of moving all of these around, because not only do you have the tanks of water but the floor as well.

Yes, the whole set, it's actually got bigger, more complex and more technologically advanced since the West End. We're sort of having miles of LED. Even away from the rain, it's a real spectacle. It's a lovely show. Yes, it's certainly a challenge but thankfully, there's a fantastic team working on it--both from the UK and South Africa and locally, in New Zealand. Everybody will come together to make it work. We toured extensively in the UK and it's been in Japan, and now, it's coming to New Zealand, which everybody is really looking forward to. So it's certainly a challenge but it's one that we relish.

And we've mentioned some other productions you've done--Hairspray and Sister Act. But SINGIN' IN THE RAIN would certainly be the wettest!

Yes, absolutely! My job is quite different every day but yes, that was a good call that morning. But it's great! Different challenges, but genuinely when you see and hear the audiences reactions to it, it really makes it all worthwhile. To be honest, even when you see the cast's reactions to it, the first time the cast stepped from rehearsals onto that stage and we turned the rain on, everybody becomes 6-years old again. The joy that comes from that stage is quite remarkable. And that comes through night after night, I have to say. Audiences love it, it ticks all the boxes off into the show.

Final question: How does one become a rainmaker? What was your vocational path to this?

Largely by accident, it must be. I never set off to do this intentionally. I trained in stage management and technical theatre in London, then I worked on shows for a number of years. Then I got into setting up shows and working as a production manager and technical director, which is fantastic. I have a family which means that I'm not away every night but still get away for good chunks of time and go and play.

Can you make other kinds of weather? Can you make it snow, for example?

Well, I worked on The Snowman for 5 years, the Raymond Briggs cartoon--the dance version of that. So yes, we can do snow. The only thing that is yet to be achieved perfectly is clouds! They're very hard to do. But yes, we can snow!

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's New Zealand and Asia Tour is produced by Stage Entertainment and Chichester Festival Theatre, in cooperation with David Atkins Enterprises, Michael Cassel Group, Concertus Manila (in the Philippines), Dainty Group, and Lunchbox Theatrical Productions.

For tickets to SINGIN' IN THE RAIN in New Zealand, visit Singin.Co.nz; in Singapore, visit Sistic.Com.sg; and in Manila, visit ticketworld.com.ph.