Grease pencils and rheostats
School drama productions in the 1960s needed several people to cram themselves into a small space in the wings to do the prompting, lighting, and sound effects. Actors entering/leaving from stage left had weave their way through the bodies keeping a low profile - indeed at times even prostrate on the floor.
The lights were controlled with large black knobs and levers.mounted on grey Hammertite painted panels. They had lots of ventilation as the dimming technology was just very large wire-wound variable resistors known as rheostats.
The large reel to reel recorder was on the floor. A tape of sound effects had been commissioned - with grease pencil marks on the mylar to show the alignment point of the next sound. In the open wings only a small light was permitted for the prompter - so a dim pencil torch had to be used to see the marks. After each sound was used the tape had to be carefully aligned at the next mark with the transport in "pause" mode. On the cue in the script the tape would be started playing.
Being a boys' school the plays selected were all-male characters - until a new headmaster allowed the Shakespearean tradition of casting pretty boys in women's roles.
One year the play was Arnold Wesker's "Chips with Everything". The lead role was given to a budding thespian who was always in trouble with teachers for having what appeared to be a permanent grin on his face. A perfect casting - but for the fact that he was very cavalier about his lines. Whole chunks of dialogue would be unpredictably skipped - and the backstage crew would be frantically turning pages to keep up.
In one scene "Smiler" was supposed to be trying to thumb a lift from a passing motorbike. The audience was suddenly treated to his vehement cursing of a bike that hadn't stopped - followed after a frantic pause by the distant doppler sound of it approaching then roaring past.
Scene changes used the sound of a band playing The RAF March - but unfortunately the "theatre professional" who had supplied the sound effects tape had only included a few seconds of it. Consequently a record player with a 78rpm record had to be cued at the appropriate points - while the tape was manually wound on to the next effect mark.
To this day the opening bars of that tune automatically take me back to that production.
My godchildren love my Halloween computer controlled electronic SFX - but I spare them any repeats of the Goon Show imitations we spent our teenage years producing on my affluent pal's reel to reel recorder.