blog 2020 3 min read
Meet Mogzi
Meet Mogzi, who joined team disguise in June 2019 as Support Manager based at our London HQ, overseeing the busy HQ support team of eight. With over 15 years experience in event production, he brings a wealth of knowledge of programming and production from Theatre and the West End. Find out his take on the industry, what a typical day looks like for him and more…
Tell us a bit about your background, and what have you been able to bring to disguise from your experience of working in theatre and live events?
Over the last 15 years I have lived in London, being Production Engineer, Programmer or Associate on a range of plays and musical theatre, both in the West End and on tour. I have spent the last 5 and a half years as the Video Supervisor for the National Theatre prior to joining disguise. Working in this industry has taught me how to cope under pressure and work to the timescale of ‘the show must go on’, generally that night at 7.30pm with an audience who have paid a lot of money to be there... So finding solutions to issues on-the-fly is a very important skill.
What does a typical day look like for you managing the support team at HQ?
Every morning we look at what has happened overnight, as we support all of our customers all over the world we need to be up to speed with any issues currently being seen. It is our job to reproduce these issues at HQ and then work with the developers to get them fixed and get the productions back up and running as quickly as possible.
What do you like most about working in the Theatre industry and how has that translated to working at disguise?
One of my favourite aspects of working in the theatre is the 'live' aspect of a show environment. If you make a mistake or indeed if anyone makes a mistake you can't say 'cut' stop and have another go, you have to roll with it and see what else can be done to recover the situation so that an audience member is none the wiser. As a support team, we are on hand for our customers when they are going through the same issues so being able to relate to that is really important.
What have been some of your favourite shows/projects that you have worked on during your career?
Obviously all the big shows are fantastic to be involved in as you have the budget to do pretty much anything, but I think my favourite show which I have been involved with was ‘The Majority’. It was staged in the Dorfman Theatre in London, in the round, and its heart had been conceived during The Scottish Independence Referendum and staged after the EU Referendum. The show involved the audience voting on what the character should do next which directly altered the course of the play - this made programming the show a real challenge as there needed to be several timelines the play could take, and the voting system needed to be reliable to ensure the show didn’t suffer.
What do you like to do outside of work?
We have a 17-month-old daughter so all my time outside work is playing with Peppa Pig & going into ‘The Night Garden’, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
