Tech Under Pressure
What is the most important quality to have as a theatre technician? It's not your technical skill. It's the ability to keep calm under pressure, and to prioritise what needs doing with limited time and resources.
Tech Under Pressure is not a masterclass in creating the world's best lighting, sound, video or stage management. Rather, it's a pragmatic guide to how technical theatre is done most of the time: with very little time, trying to juggle many different priorities at once, trying to translate an artist's lofty ideas into a messy and imperfect real world, and all the while trying to keep your cool.
Who could benefit from this course?
This course is for theatre technicians and self-producing writers, performers, directors, and designers; anyone who works on Fringe-scale projects when there is little time, money or resources, and who wants to learn more of the basics of lighting design, sound design, video design and stage management.
How does it work?
Tech Under Pressure provides a unique combination of technical training and meditative techniques, helping you to remain calm within the pressurised environment of technical theatre and create the best work that you can within those limits. There will be hands-on work with The Cockpit's technical systems where you will get to create lighting, sound and video designs on the fly, and even scenarios where you have to diagnose mysterious tech issues quickly. Overall, it's a fun and ironically low-pressure introduction to tech, with as much emphasis on mindfulness as on good cable coiling.
What do you gain?
- Learn how best to structure and approach a very short amount of tech time for a Fringe project or at a festival
- Learn workflows for how best to diagnose technical issues and quickly resolve them
- Develop skills for remaining calm within the pressure of tech rehearsal
- Learn how best to communicate technical ideas with artists and actors to allow for a more painless tech
Dates, Times & Cost
Saturday, 1 August 2026
11:00am - 4:30pm
In person in The Cockpit's auditorium
£80 early bird (book by 20 July 2026)
£90 regular price
Instalment plans are available for courses £75 and above.
Check out the other workshops in our Theatre Maker programme, and save 10% when you book 2 or more.
Teacher/Creator Biog
JAMIE RYCROFT
Jamie is a freelance technician and producer who has provided lighting and sound design for venues including the The Cockpit in London, Town and Gown in Cambridge, Kino Elektronik in Poland, Kidzfield at Glastonbury Festival, Wellfleet Preservation Hall in Cape Cod, Hautlieu School in Jersey, and many other theatre and non-theatre spaces across the UK, Europe and USA. For many shows he has produced (including Michael Rosen's UK tour NICE! and the two-hander musical The Sound Collector), he has designed and operated the tech.
Testimonials
"I'm amazed by Jamie's ability to walk into a new venue, look at a technical system he has never been before, with only a couple of hours to tech a whole show, and calmly manage to create a whole show from scratch." Nick Cohen, Writer/Performer, Life With Oscar