A rather quiet Tuesday :)

Evenin' tweeple!

There isn't a great deal to blog about today because unfortunately, our understudy read through got cancelled, which was quite frustrating, but what are you gonna do?!

Instead, the guys worked on a scene whereby Creon (Chris) announces he is to take over the throne of Thebes as the previous King (his nephew) died in battle. They worked on it for a good 3 hours - broken up by lunch - and at the end it looked really, really good, so was well worth missing the read through for to get that result.

Instead, we're going to do some work on it tomorrow with Drew, the Associate Director, and I'm really excited about that. Due to the fact that it's only Jo and I who are called (2.30pm - 4pm - lovely!), it won't be a read through, except maybe our scenes. So I'm really looking forward to find out what else we'll be doing. 

What the others have been doing in their rehearsals with Polly, is "actioning". This is scoring the text with a transitive verb for each line. For instance, one of my lines as Antigone is:

"Don't be frightened for me, fear for yourself."

If I were to action this line, it would be "I override you", or something similar to that. It's really useful for some actors; I for one find it quite difficult, but then I haven't actually done it since I was at drama school in 2008. I didn't have the best experience, but I'm sure being at the National will be a whole new experience actioning-wise, and I'm well up for it!

Anyway chaps, must dash! Speak tmrw :) xxx

Better late than never...

So, first of all, I have an apology to make...

SORRY!!!!

(for this being a super tardy blog post)

Ok, that's done. Now on to the good stuff :)

Week 2 of rehearsals ended last week which means we are two down and four to go (three until we move in to the Olly to do tech and dress runs - which is bloody scary!). 

Last week, we began to get stuff up on its feet & it was so nice to do so! All the exercises we've been doing will no doubt be really useful, but it was really great to start doing some stuff that we'll definitely be using in the show. As an understudy, we watch most of the time rather than actually do stuff. Jo and I will be on-stage when we're not understudying, but not doing a hell of a lot, so what Polly's doing is getting the scenes on their feet with the rest of the cast first and then slotting us in after.

On Friday we were sat at the side watching for the day and to be completely honest, I got goosebumps watching everyone, especially Chris. You genuinely can't take your eyes off him when he's working. It's an honour to be sharing the stage with such an incredibly talented cast.

I wish I could show you some pictures of the rehearsal room and the rehearsals themselves but I'm not really allowed. The set's been put up in the room so we can map our movements out easily, and even in that room, without the lights and sound etc., it looks incredible. It's just so exciting, every bit of it! 

Also, I started learning my lines as Antigone, and I think I've just about nailed the first scene - which is really long, and Antigone has about three monologues during it so I'm glad I've got that one out of the way. I ran lines a few times this week with Jo and Ross (who's covering Chris as King Creon), and that was interesting to see how it would sound as up until now, we've only heard Chris, Jodie and Annabelle speak those lines together. 

I had the day off today which was nice, as it meant I had the chance to run a few errands I'd been meaning to run over the last two weeks. However, after the first few were run, I was seized by the most crippling cramps I have ever had (bloody typical). Coupled with the fact that it was a bit of a crap day weather-wise, I lounged on the sofa watching movies all day! Lovely.

Back to work tmrw, where we're having a read through with all the understudies, which I'm really looking forward to! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Nighty night!

xxxxx 

17th April

Hey guys!

Hope everyone's had a good Tuesday :) Mine was pretty good too...

At present, I'm being a bit of a chav and watching Made In Chelsea after having had a slightly piggy dinner of spicy chorizo pasta - nom nom nom!!

Today was a pretty standard day in rehearsals. We started off by doing some warm-ups, which included the dreaded CIRCUIT TRAINING!!! Eeeshk. I think we all came in this morning praying for no circuit training but it just wasn't meant to be. Having said that though, we all felt miles better for it - refreshed and wide awake. Which was a nice feeling seeing as the weather this morning was absolutely gross and walking across Embankment Bridge was bloody horrendous, with the rain face whipping you every second. Grim.

After the dreaded CIRCUIT TRAINING (yes, that's right, it's capital letters worthy), we tried to get the uniting done and we so nearly finished before lunch - we had one more page left - but I think everyone's hunger got the better of them and we weren't really agreeing on certain things, so Polly thought it best to break for lunch and come back to it after, which worked a treat. After lunch, we finished the last page and a bit in 15 minutes.

Once uniting was done with, we read through the whole play again for Ben Power, who is the Associate Director of the NT. At one point during the read, I got a searing pain in my head and had to go to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. It bloody hurt!! Ben seemed to really enjoy the read, which was great. And after having united everything, all the intentions seemed a lot clearer and made more sense. Even though I don't have any lines unless I'm covering Anitgone, I love listening to people as it's an opportunity to learn a hell of a lot.

We finished the read through and got a well deserved cup of tea! After this, Polly set us a task, about which I will go into more detail another time because it's not completed yet and I want to be able to tell you about it properly. The last thing we did before finishing for the day was show some of our research. Only the two of us did it today. Tim's research product was about surveillance in the Stasi (the Military for State Security in Germany) and mine was a woman's role in Ancient Greece. Both went really well, and Tim's project was particularly interesting.

Well, that's all folks! That was all the fun we had today. Tomorrow night I'm going to an art show of H's flatmate's. His entire debut collection has just been bought up by Charles Saatchi, which is a-mazing, so we're going to support him. We probs won't get home till fairly late but if I can, I'll blog, and if not, I'll be sure to do it Thursday! 

Love love love, fnar fnar fnar (specifically for theemi1y xxxx

An eerie afternoon

Evening campers,


Today was a bit of a strange one. We started the day by meeting outside Stage Door of the NT to catch a coach to our second day trip out! We were all on a bit of a high because our director Polly's show "Svengali" (yes the one with Derren Brown) won an Olivier last night, so we were all really happy and bouncing around offering her our congratulations.


We eventually all piled on the coach and Jo and I plonked ourselves down in a roomy area of the coach (Jo is the other member of the Ensemble and Ismene's understudy). Here we all are:

We were off to Kelvedon Hatch Secret Bunker in Essex. It's not so "secret" anymore obviously, but it was a very special thing to be able to see it in all it's glory. The first thing we did was get a cup of tea. Standard. The canteen was an interesting place. No natural light or windows at all which made the whole thing quite claustrophobic but I suppose that was the point...?

Anywho, we then started the tour. Seeing as we didn't have a tour guide, we were given what were called "wands". Because we're a hilarious bunch of actors, we joked that because of this, we were going on a Hogwart's tour. Fnar fnar.... This was the first thing to greet us when we walked in:

It was just so quiet and empty. Really, really creepy. But pretty amazing at the same time. Here's a bit of history for ya...

Kelvedon "Secret" Bunker was built during the height of the cold war in 1952-1953. It was built to house around 600 important members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, in the event of a nuclear attack. To protect from such an attack, it was obviously really far below ground, about 120 feet. The claustrophobia kept comin', I tell ya!

There were so many contraptions and machines dotted around, I didn't catch what they were all for. Here's some pics of them:

This dummy above scared the SHIT out of me! Look! She's got no arms. None at all!!!

As I said before, the bunker has a creepy feel about it - I'm hardly surprised there are ghost tours that take place there or that it has featured on "Most Haunted". At one point, we were all doing our own thing when looking around and I went off to have a look at what was known as the medical wing. This is what greeted me:

Let's just say I wouldn't let this guy operate on me!!

There were also various dorms with loads of bunks - some of which had dummies in and some of them didn't. There was one bed that housed Thatcher:

Completely surreal. The dorms creeped me out so much that I powered through them and ended up back in the canteen sharpish along with Chris. So the two of us sat and grabbed some chow whilst we waited for the others who soon began trickling in.

We got back to the NT at about 4 and then spent the rest of the day uniting. Everyone was pretty tired, especially Polly & Jodie who had attended the Oliviers the night before. So at 6, I think we were all pretty glad to be going home to a bath, food and bed! The last of which I'm going to do now.

Night night!! xxx

Little outing

Happy Sunday everyone!

Sorry I didn't blog on Friday but as I was totally pooped at the end of last week and just didn't have the energy to think! All I wanted to do was flump in front of the TV and have a pizza (which, you'll be pleased to know, I did).

So Friday! Friday was a brilliant day for us because we all went on a little research to Churchill's War Rooms. It was absolutely amazing and we were lucky enough to have our own personal tour with our own personal tour guide! But I'll get to that in a moment...

We spent the whole morning on Friday going through the script and uniting. I've just realised that when I write "uniting" it looks like I'm writing that we "united" together, but for those of you who have read my previous blogs will know what I mean! We got a fair amount done before lunch, which was just as well because the plan after the war rooms was the pub!!

It was a beautiful day so after lunch in the canteen, the girls and I walked across to Westminster to meet everyone and begin our journey back in time...

The first thing we saw was the Cabinet War Room where Churchill would sit with his men and come up with strategies. It was absolutely incredible. Here's a picture:

Almost everything in the room was original from the ashtrays down to the blotting paper and pencils. Churchill's actual chair (the one at the back behind the red box and in front of the map) apparently has 2 marks on either arm: one for when he had scratched it down with his ring, and the other for scratching away with his nail - it's a stressful business, this strategy malarkey!

After this, we went to the map room:

  

Again, everything here was original from the telephones, the maps with tens of thousands of little pin pricks in them and the various documents lying around labelled SECRET. It made me laugh to think that these were the things Churchill was so secretive about and yet here they were everyone to see. The dummies in these rooms were pretty lifelike (the one facing us bore a striking resemblance to Steve Carell actually...)

This is a picture of the same room but taken from the other side of the room in the 1940's:

After that, we went along the corridor to Churchill's bedroom. Now, he apparently only slept in the bed a grand total of 3 times but it's pretty damn cool nevertheless, what with seeing his desk, various maps etc.

It had a tendency to get quite claustrophobic seeing as were a fair bit underground and there was no natural light or windows, so after nearly 2.5 hours I was glad to see daylight (and a glass of wine, yes). But before we went, Jo and I managed to get a look at the women of this place to get a sense of what we'll be doing on stage when we're not understudying. The women who worked downstairs in the war rooms were typists, secretaries etc.

We've got another trip tomorrow to the Kelvedon Secret Bunker in Essex. The most exciting bit? We get to go on a coach!! DAY TRIP!!!

Hope everyone's had a wicked weekend. Speak tmrw :) xxx

Day #3

Hello hello hello lovely people!


First of all, I just want to say a huge thank you to those of you who read my last two blogs - I was a bit overwhelmed by the response I got so thanks, sincerely.


Right! Today was mainly about going through the script some more. However, the first thing we did this morning was a voice session in the Olivier Theatre (or "the Olly" as it's known at the NT), which is the theatre we will be performing in, in a little under 6 weeks! This is the view from the stage:

I couldn't quite get far back enough (due to "She Stoops To Conquer"'s set being on stage) to take a proper pic so here's one from the side which gives you a better idea:

It's absolutely massive! I believe it seats something like 1600 - gulp. This last photo is taken from a side set of seats (you can see an identical one on the other side). 

The voice lesson was fantastic, we did all kinds of exercises and my voice felt a heck of a lot better for having done it. After the lesson, we went back in to the rehearsal room and carried on uniting the script like we were doing yesterday. This is a pic of our work station:

Those are my scruffy bags you can see under one of the tables! At some point over the next few weeks, I'll get a proper pic of the rehearsal room. It's massive so as to accommodate the Olivier space so hopefully I'll get my camera in rather than just my crappy phone!

After lunch, we did a bit of movement, but nothing like the circuit training we did yesterday. With it being straight after lunch, I'm pretty sure a few of us would have up-chucked! We played a few games, a few concentration exercises etc. It loosened us up and got us ready for the rest of the afternoon which was spent uniting. 

Near the end of the day, we made a timeline of the immediate circumstances leading up to the beginning of the play, so what happened in the hours before the play starts. This is again a fantastic directing technique and really helps set the scene and get you in character.

Tomorrow, we're all going to Winston Churchill's War Rooms on a little field trip. What with our set being a War Room-esque type design, it'll be really interesting and helpful. I've got my camera on charge so will try & get some photos to show you over the weekend!

Hope you've all had a good Thursday and again, thank you so much to anyone who is reading, enjoying, recommending and RT-ing my blog. It means so, so much!

xxx

My limbs aaaache....

Evening all,


Today was my second day at the NT and boy was it intense!! We went to the pub last night after rehearsals for a quick drink ad whilst there, we got an email with what we were going to be doing today in it... The first thing we noticed? CIRCUIT TRAINING!!!! FIRST THING!!! For those of you that don't know, circuit training involves various different exercises at various different points (ie. stomach crunches, press ups, the "plank"). We had 7 stations in our rehearsal room and after about 10 minutes of running and skipping and jumping around the room, we got on it! It was hard, but actually turned out to be super fun. We were in pairs going around the different stations and I was with Annabelle, who's playing Ismene. We were giggling the whole way through - as was everyone to be honest! 


After that, once we'd dried off and had a well deserved cup of tea (and a banana and yoghurt in my case), we sat around in a big circle of tables and began dissecting the script. It's a bloody short script (and hour and 10 when we read through it yesterday) and there won't be an interval so I reckon it'll be rather popular seeing as the audience can get into the bar before 9pm! Our director Polly likes to "unit" her scripts. "Uniting" is basically breaking the script down into scenes and then breaking these down further, depending on when the mood on-stage changes. It takes a fair amount of time but is well worth doing and if I were ever to direct, I know I'd do the same.


It was a beautiful day on the South Bank today so at lunch rather than just stay inside (especially as I wanted a little nap after the circuit training), I decided to go for a little walk and it was very nice indeed! I don't get to go to the South Bank often so am taking full advantage of my time there.


After lunch, we had a lady called Laura Smith from UCL come in and talk to us about the play. She's a lecturer of Classics and therefore knows her stuff! We were throwing all kinds of questions at her and she was just knocking them out of the park! We got so much information, my little notebook was busting with notes!!


Once Laura was gone, we carried on dissecting the script until the call ended at 6pm.


All in all, a bloody good day! 


I took a photo of the rehearsal room to show you but I'm at H's this evening so can't upload it properly - will do that tmrw!! In the meantime, here's a poster of our production:

Night night!! xxx

PS: Please can I ask you all to check out another blog:

theemi1y

theemi1y is a comedian and a twitter buddy - she's fricking hilarious on that  & even more so on her blog. You'd be silly not to have a gander! xxx

New job, new blog...

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!

Well, as the title suggests, I have acquired a new acting job, which means a whole new set of blogs recording the rehearsal process and the run itself.

This time, the play I'm doing is "Antigone", a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. It's set BC but we're going to jazz it up a bit and set it post-WW1 but with a hint of it still wafting about. The part I'm playing is Ensemble which is basically background - but important nonetheless. I am also getting the chance to understudy Antigone!! The lead bloody role!! And not only am I understudying the lovely Jodie Whittaker, who is playing Antigone, I get to do it at the Royal National Theatre in London. It's like the Holy Grail for actors and huge, huge deal. I couldn't be more excited to tell the truth!

This will be my home for the next 3 months:

Yes, that's me outside the National theatre, looking pleased as punch with myself. I really am so chuffed. It was something we used to joke about at drama school - "oh yah when I'm at the Nash, chuff chuff". And now I am, it's a bit surreal to be honest!!

So today was day 1, and even though I thought I was going to be late, I was ok and got there in the nick of time! We started by doing some name games and getting to know eachother exercises - there's a heck of a lot of us (though only 5 girls which is nice!!). Then we had a look at the set, which is AWESOME!! It's so cool, and because it's in the biggest theatre at the NT, it's huge. As I said before, our director Polly is going for a sort of post-WW1 thing with a splash of modernity, so if anyone's been to the Winston Chuchill War Rooms Museum, you'll have an idea of what I mean. We broke for lunch and the girls and I ate in the canteen specifically for NT staff members - which was a bit of a thrill!! I then bumped into a friend from drama school who turns out is doing a play at the NT too! Very small world...

After lunch, we read the script and then had a talk with various staff members from the NT - including a health and safety talk. Then it was up to costume for costume fittings. None of us really know the kind of thing we'll be wearing, but I'm jolly excited to find out!

I managed to grab a picture outside our rehearsal room before we finished.

Well, I'm totally shattered now so have to hit the sack!! Night all xxx