First Day In The Theatre

Greetings everyone from a very excited actress!!

I am unbelievably excited about this production and got even more so when I walked into the theatre this afternoon and saw that the set was up, the lighting was being rigged and the desk for mixing the sound and lighting was set up in order for the Technical Rehearsal to take place.

I didn't end up rehearsing today, but we did get our dressing rooms (boys V. girls) and ours has zebra print tables which are very nice indeed! I shall endeavour to post a picture later on this week.

Look at what greeted me when I got to the theatre:

If you look super closely at the poster - that's my name on it! That made me super happy :)

A lot of the time, techs can be quite laborious and time-consuming, and while they are definitely the latter (think everyone is finishing around 10pm tonight having started at 1pm - some much earlier), it doesn't feel laborious because everyone seems to be having such a good time.

For those of you who don't know, a tech rehearsal is to fix the lighting and sound in place before we do a dress run (which is doing a full run of the play with complete make-up, hair, costume, sound, lighting, set etc. without stopping). The dress run is due to take place on Wednesday afternoon, on the day we go up!! 

I should be doing my bits tomorrow and am very much looking forward to putting on my costume! Depending on how my make-up and hair goes, I'll put up a picture - want you to get the full experience, so if it's a bit shoddy tomorrow, I'll leave it till Wednesday!

One of the best things about today, was the fact that every cast member and Tom brought in some home-baked goods. I didn't however, because like a pillock, I forgot. But I will!! Those were some good home-bakes!! Yummy yummy yummy.

Here's a cheeky little pic of the stage:

In this photo is Joe (Shelley) and Rhiannon (Mary) sitting next to our lovely SM (Stage Manager). That strip of light at the back is known as "West Brook". I'll break it down for you: Harriet's last name was Westbrook and she drowned herself in the Serpentine River. So for the majority of the play, we will allude to her link with water using that back part of the stage. So we "cleverly" renamed it "West Brook", like a watery brook... Geddit...? Clever ain't we?

Anywho my luvvlies, I have one long arse day tomorrow (10am-10pm) and will no doubt be throwing myself about the stage so need to get some shut eye. Poor H, supposed to have a quiet night to himself tomorrow but I've ambushed it because getting back to mine from his adds nearly an hour on to my journey and I need to get into bed asap!! Bless him, he's such a good'un!

I'll speak to you all tmrw!! 

Lots of love xxx

26th Jan

Good evening everyone :)


Today was another pretty short day. We did our third run and out of all the ones we've done so far, it was definitely the one that was the most full of life and energy. Tom told us to be free and try out new things, even if we weren't sure about them, so that was what we did.


One scene in particular, which I'm not in, had me in utter hysterics. It's a scene in which the others act out the allegory of Plato's Cave. It challenges what we perceive to be real to what is actually real. It's quite convoluted so I'm not going to go into it now, but basically, it's quite a complicated and wordy scene. However today, the guys mixed it up and had a great time with it. We had the Artistic Director of the Jermyn Street Theatre in today to watch and he said that what makes the play is the spirit of it - fun. And that's what he thinks we've captured, which was great to hear.


I tried some new things in my speech, which I've yet to hear Tom's opinion on! We get our notes tomorrow so I'll let you know how it went down...


xxx

A walk in Hyde Park...

Good evening loyal readers,


So today, I have a bit of a treat for you... I took myself to Hyde Park and had a little walk around the Serpentine (where Harriet killed herself) and I filmed it. I shall upload them in just a moment...


Today, we had a sit-down day and received our notes from the run yesterday. They were definitely shorter than Monday's notes - we had 6 pages this time instead of Monday's 9 and it took an hour less to get through. 


We then had this "Italian rehearsal" that I mentioned yesterday. What I initially thought it was, was doing the lines at super speed in an Italian accent and I was sort of right, but there aren't any Italian accents involved. It's basically to test that we know the lines when put under pressure, like having to do it at high speed. And for the most part, we were fine!


After that, we had another costume fitting and... I got my costume!! It's brilliant. I don't want to say too much about it yet as I'll post a proper picture when it's all done properly, but what I can say is that it's fantastic and I'm very chuffed.


It was another relatively early finish today so before meeting H from work, I went off to the Park and here's what happened...

So there you have it! 

And to finish, I took a spooky photo...

xxx

Rehearsal photos...

Also guys, here's a link to the website which has some rehearsal photos of us doing our thang!! Take a look:

Rehearsal Photos "Bloody Poetry"

1 week today people!

I can't believe that this time next week, we'll be nearing the end of our first preview performance. Utter madness! And so exciting!!


We had an incredibly short day today so this won't be the longest blog in the world, but I'll fill you in the nonetheless.


Today we did our second run, which was considerably better than the first - and even that one was pretty good. (I think) Tom made less notes than he did before so fingers crossed he thinks this one was better, considering we'd tried to take on all the notes he'd given us yesterday on board.


We had a bit of an audience today. As well as the usual Tom and our Stage Manager, we had the Development Director and the Lighting and Sound guys in, as well as the Marketing Manager. It was the first time they'd seen or heard the piece since the readthrough and the reaction we got was great! It can only get better :)


We finished at lunchtime and if I'm honest, I was a bit of a lazy cow and spent the rest of this afternoon having a duvet day in bed catching up on all my favourite programmes and eating things I shouldn't. Then again, my last day off was just over 3 weeks ago, so I don't feel that bad...


Tomorrow should be fun - we'll be doing what Tom calls an "Italian Rehearsal", I'll fill you in as and when!!


Until then my lovelies, sleep well & I'll speak to you tomorrow!!


xxx


PS: Hello to my lovely new twitter followers - a massive thank you for the support, it means the blimmin' world!!

23rd Jan

Well, we got our notes today from Tom and Howard (Tom passed them on). All of them were really constructive and helpful. 


Howard's main note was not to take the play as some Chekhovian masterpiece or take it too seriously. So we spent the rest of the afternoon loosening everything up and linking the thoughts together whilst still having the separate intentions behind what we were saying, in the hope that it wouldn't be the length it was on Friday (the second half was 15 minutes longer than the first, despite being shorter page-wise). Oops.


We decided to do a second run tomorrow instead of today because the note session was nearly three hours long and we therefore need time to process them and a lunch break isn't really enough time to do that. So in the afternoon we worked through a bit of Act 1 and some of Act 2. We reworked my monologue and sped it up so that it wasn't self-indulgent (not an original conscious decision, I might add!). It felt soooo much better after we'd done that and I feel a lot more confident about it. With what we've done, Harriet is even more seemingly off her rocker and creepy, so thumbs up to that!


Hopefully we're going to do three runthroughs this week (including a Saturday rehearsal) so we'll be well prepared for the dress run on the Tuesday we go up for previews, which I'm hoping (fingers crossed) my Dad can come to as it's during the day and he can't come to any of the proper shows because he's starring in Noises Off at the Old Vic at the moment. Here's hoping!


And just a final note to say that the people I'm working with are the most considerate, kind people and I really do leave rehearsals with a huge smile on my face each day. Having the time of my life :)


xxx

It's Friiiiiiday!!!

Yep, it's that time of the week peeps - Friday time, or as we have nicknamed it in rehearsals Funday! We're crazy that way...


Today we did a run for the first time and it was AWESOME. We were so proud of it. It needs a lot of work, yes and is about 3/4 way there, but it's in such a good place, we can't help but feel 100% positive about it. 


As promised, here's a pic of the rehearsal room:

The little lines on the floor is the mark-up of our stage and that's our various bits of crap strewn over the chairs at the back. It was much neater this morning, but I took this as we finished at 5pm so it had got a little messy by then!

And here is a pic of our (very many) prop cases:

There are absolutely loads of these bloody things, which while incredibly useful to keep props in & use as carriages etc., they all look fairly similar so it's quite hard to remember what is in which box. Saying that, I don't have to do any of the prop-ing so it doesn't really affect me... :-s But the others are awesome at knowing what they're doing - give me too much to do, and it fries my tiny brain!

Both Howard and Tom (writer and director respectively) seemed really, really pleased with the run which just affirmed how we felt about it. There were only a couple of lines forgotten, which considering how long and wordy the play is, isn't bad going! We get our notes on Monday and according to Tom, it's going to be a week of running it and working the notes into the runs so we really get used to the flow of things. Can't believe that in a week tomorrow, we'll be in the theatre teching!! 

I shall let you know on Monday what the notes were like!

xxx

PS: We all went out for cast drinks for the first time (when we were all present) this eve. We went to a really awesome Tiki bar which had 2 cocktails for £7.50. Lovely jubbly.