Official Website for HEADSET A View From The Light Booth, A
farce about technical theatre. A comedy about technical theatre. A farce about
technical theatre. What does on
back stage!
HEADSET
A View From The
Light Booth
A Comedy By William Missouri Downs
Photo by Don Turner
Headset is a farce about technical
theatre. The entire play takes place in the light booth of the
Chicago-Ensemble-Repertory-Group-Theatre-Project on the final night of the company's
doomed production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Running the light board are Hammet
and his stepfather Claude who, just like Hamlet and his stepfather Claudius,
have a lot of issues to work out.
As stepfather and stepson attempt
to repair their troubled relationship they must deal with one catastrophe after
another: The cast of Hamlet is hit with food poisoning, Yorick's skull goes
missing and the police arrive to shut down the production because the producer
hasn't paid the rent. To make things worse a bit player named Garry Cooper
keeps interrupting Hammet and Claude to get advice on his acting, to give
advice on father/son relationships and show off his ever-growing codpiece.
During all of this, the audience gets to listen in to what really goes on over
headsets during a production as Amelia, the assistant stage manager, and Dick,
the union light board operator, offer constant comic offstage banter.
Things go from bad to worse when the critic from the
Chicago Tribune shows up. Faced with total humiliation, the techies decide
there is only one way to save their reputations - the critic must die. All
Hammet has to do is "accidentally" drop a Fresnel on him from the
grid. As the production comes to its hilarious end, Garry Cooper gets to act out
his life dream; he will play Hamlet in the final scene. It's no wonder that
Headset has been called the Noises Off of technical theatre.