Moments before the curtains go up on any number of international acts appearing on Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre’s stages, Ian Ashton can be found in the wings.
Wearing headphones, he waits for the green light from the front of house to cue the artists entrance with a spotlight and preset soundtrack.
The technical operations director of Ductac, who spends the week before a big show working out the technical requirements with crew flying in from around the world, he has also in those final moments, unofficially, assumed the role of a level-headed backstage appeaser.
He was a part of the production team on Harry Connick Jr's concert in 2010, The Jacksons in 2012, Tom Jones in 2013, and Othello: The Remix and Trevor Noah – Live in Dubai this year.
“When artists come in screaming and shouting, demanding this and that, I say: ‘Hang on, just calm down,’” says the British national, who joined the small Ductac team in 2014.
“I put them in their place and I think they understand that I don’t need any divas in here,” he says with a hearty laugh. “Sometimes you get amateur groups and you think, let’s get things into perspective. You’ve just started out.”
Ashton’s no-nonsense attitude comes from years of experience working with theatre companies that are run like well-oiled machines. Before deciding to swap the view of mountains from his home in Wales for Dubai’s high-rises and sand in 2007, he had already amassed 28 years of large-scale production knowledge with the Welsh National Opera.
He initially joined the Sharjah Theatre Group, set up by Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, along with nine other expatriates hired to resuscitate the emirate’s ageing theatres and upgrade them to European standards.
The financial downturn in 2009 slowed down that effort and Ashton’s team was among the staff who were let go. Determined to continue to contribute to the fledgling industry, he stayed on. “I just wasn’t prepared to give up,” he says, “and I saw the UAE theatre scene developing.”
The job of heading technical operations at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre came next in 2009, after which Ashton ventured into freelance work with different promoters around the Middle East. Last year, he was approached to fill the position at Ductac.
During his time with the WNO, Ashton worked with German opera director Peter Stein on Pelléas et Mélisande, English director Katie Mitchell on Kát'a Kabanová, the late Swedish director Göran Järvefelt on La Bohème and the late Joachim Herz on his version of Madama Butterfly.
“I began in the theatre business in 1977 and started on the bottom rung, bumping around on sets. I was the stage manager, doing the rigging and lighting,” says Ashton.
“As I moved up the ladder, I became their production manager. We produced our own shows and we also sent our shows to different parts of the world. My job involved the conception, realisation and taking these shows to foreign countries. I did that for many years.”
Ashton was always on the road, touring with shows at prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the Bunkamura concert hall in Tokyo and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
“These were multi-million-dollar productions on my shoulders. I was working with some of the best directors, costume designers, learning everything about the business.”
Not wanting to live out of a suitcase for the rest of his career, the director decided to take on a different challenge in the Emirates, nurturing the “theatre egg” that had just hatched.
“There is a world of difference between working for WNO and here,” he says.
“Working in the Middle East is quite challenging. Dubai being such a metropolis, with so many different nationalities, we have to cater to them all. We have to bring shows that target different audiences.”
Ductac’s largest theatre hall has a 12-metre-wide stage and can seat 543 audience members, a far cry from what some of the international touring shows that make a Dubai stop are accustomed to.
That’s where Ashton’s negotiation skills come into play.
“We can’t always accommodate their requirements,” says Ashton. “It happens all the time. Then we have to sit down with the client and designers to discuss it. We say: ‘Look, you have this fantastic lighting design with hundreds of lights hanging up there, but we don’t have the infrastructure to accommodate all that.’ So we suggest a cut down or a different approach. We reach a compromise.”
Ductac serves as a receiving house for these companies, which fly in with their own technical crew. Usually, months before they arrive, Ashton, and the in-house sound and lighting technician, receive the technical rider.
“A day or two before the show we do a pre-rig, we test the focusing, lighting and sound as they want it and put the set in. Then they come in the next morning for a rehearsal and we do a soundcheck before their performance.”
He says they have a substantial amount of high-tech equipment but their infrastructure needs upgrading. “I’m actually upgrading the flying system, which is partly motorised, adding flying bars to hang the lights. This will give us the capacity to bring in better shows.”
Each production is approached with a specific lighting and sound design.
“Ballet performances use the entire stage, so they have very little sets, but have soft hangings, such as drapes and curtains. The lighting generally involves a flood spot for the principal dancers.
Then you have dramas with big sets and a lot of physical elements that you have to move around. When you have a set like that, the lighting is different because you have different scenes and characters.”
Ashton says that working behind-the-scenes to put on a show is often neglected.
“Not many understand that if you have bad lighting or set design, that’s a bad show,” says the director, who also worked alongside late English conductor Reginald Goodall and theatre designer Maria Björnson.
“At the moment, people with that technical knowledge are being brought over from Europe. Additionally, because this isn’t a profession many care about, the pay structure isn’t appealing.”
Ductac has run backstage workshops to get teenagers interested in behind-the-scenes jobs and plans to continue offering internships to young people.
“It’s difficult to find the right staff for this particular kind of entertainment,” says Ashton. “And it all comes down to education, and we are seeing a lot of schools that offer drama classes now, encouraging children to learn the technical aspects of putting up shows, too.
It’ll take a few generations before people here are attracted to this business.”
aahmed@thenational.ae
