Mia Sortino tells us about her experiences as a Fresher Technician on one of the biggest student theatre projects of the year - ETG!
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 60 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 24 tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, and finish the tour with a home run at the ADC Theatre in January. ETG provides a chance for strong actors, directors and designers to showcase their creativity, but also takes four fresher technicians (affectionately known as frechies) on tour to learn about theatre tech with no prior technical skills needed. Mia Sortino (a frechie on ETG 2025: A Comedy of Errors) shares her experience:
“ETG was the highlight of my first year and my experience thus far doing theatre at Cambridge. Not only was the show itself incredible, but the team behind it were amazing, and the tour provided an amazing opportunity for me, as a Fresher Technician, to learn about tech, touring a show, and working on a student production.
Before coming to Cambridge, I had never done any technical theatre. I didn't know my powercon from my trucon from my DMX, let alone what they did or how to use them.
ETG was a brilliant crash course on tech, especially due to the lovely team who patiently answered questions and showed us how to do everything. This helped me feel more comfortable and confident helping in get-ins and get-outs, learning more about tech, trusting my instincts and taking initiative, and applying to other tech roles - not only because I knew more and had more experience, but because I learnt about other people's journeys through Cambridge Theatre and realised that experience was rarely a limiting factor as long as you had the interest and a willingness to learn. The range of roles we were able to try, from operating sound and lights to calling cues as the Deputy Stage Manager, gave us a little taste of so many different departments and so much support when trying something new.
ETG was also great in that it essentially provided you with 20 ready-made friends - spending 24/7 together and travelling to new countries with people who are relative strangers can sound a bit daunting, but everyone was so friendly that it went smoothly and was just incredibly fun. This made it much easier to integrate into the wider student theatre community back in Cambridge too. And of course, we got to visit some amazing, beautiful places, including a multitude of Europe's best Christmas markets.
ETG taught me so much, about touring a show, about technical theatre, and about Shakespeare; before working on The Comedy of Errors, I had never seen Shakespeare performed live, let alone in yellow raincoats, goggles, and Hawaiian shirts. I gained a greater appreciation for his works and what can be done with them, as well as how all the different parts of a show, from set to blocking, costume to lighting, can come together to create an entirely unique take on a piece, and make it more accessible. I am so grateful to have been given this opportunity to be a part of such an incredible show and tour and with such incredible people. It was the perfect experience as a theatre fresher to learn, gain skills and experience, and make new friends.”
If this sounds like something you want to be part of, ETG will be opening auditions to join the cast and recruiting new fresher technicians in October for ETG 2026: Anthony and Cleopatra via camdram. Tickets are also on sale now for the home run 19-23 Jan 2027!
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra chronicles one of history’s most passionate and reckless love stories. At face value, it traces the dichotomy between Rome and Egypt. Yet, these parallels are beyond geography, extending into the tensions between: love and sacrifice; hedonism and duty; affair and matrimony; myth and man.
The ETG 2026 production highlights the political aspects of the play by setting our production at the teetering edge of the Great Depression. Cleopatra’s kingdom becomes a self-indulgent dinner party that deals long card games and dances into the dusk of the Jazz Age. Rome is the domain of terse board meetings, senate hearings and negotiations by those seeking to withhold financial and political systems from utter collapse. With a musical landscape that calls back to the 1920s and 1930s, we ask the question often left amiss in considerations of the play: How much can we defend in the name of love?
Antony and Cleopatra
by William Shakespeare
Tuesday 19 - Saturday 23 January 2027
ADC Theatre
Click here to book your tickets!