Director's notepad - week ending 17th May

Hi all,

This week we had 2 rehearsals in succession (Wednesday and Thursday). I very much enjoyed the wednesday evening, but by thursday I was feeling a little tired and run down, so I suspect the product of that rehearsal was not my finest work!

We have, however, covered most of the show now (all except 2 songs), and have scheduled all our rehearsals from now until the day of the show; that's exciting, and it's made us all feel more confident - having covered so much so early on, we've got plenty of time to polish it and make sure that it's the best it can be by the 7th of June. We've also got a full day planned in on bank holiday monday, with a run in the evening in front of a few friends to get some feedback, which is always helpful.

We've added a couple of props to our list, too, and I've been eating Ben & Jerry's to ensure that we have a tub to use - it's been tough, but I got through it. One has to suffer for one's art.

Looking forward to next week - rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday, and finishing all the blocking (fingers crossed!) Apologies for not being very chatty - still pretty run down, but I'll be back on form soon. Promise!

LB

Director's notepad - Sunday 10th May

Greetings all.

We've had another couple of rehearsals, now (apologies for not updating the blog sooner!) - one with Tim and one more without. It's been very successful, and we've blocked two more songs ('Colour in my Cheeks' and 'Back to School').

The closer we creep towards the show the more excited we get, but also the more nervous - it's suddenly starting to feel real! Tim also seems pleased with the stuff we've come up with in his absence (pleasing the writer always a good target!) and although having him in rehearsal is great for speeding up songs and having live piano, we cope equally well without him, I think (concentrating more on acting and getting the action as complete as we are able). However, it can be tricky if the rehearsal backing track is a bit fast, as we discovered with 'Back to School'!

I was right about Kate's attention to detail, and so I've been giving her quite specific things to do during songs, which as well as working well for a very tiny stage space, allows me a level of control that you'd never be able to have with a larger cast (!) 'Back to School', in particular, was a challenge - the lyrics being both wordy, fast, and full of references to props and actions that needed to be worked into the blocking. We had to go over it many times and even take a break for lunch, but by the end of the rehearsal we were pretty confident that we'd got it right. We didn't, however, get to work through another song that I'd planned to do in that rehearsal, which means that in my head we're one song behind. Currently, we have fewer rehearsals planned than there are songs in the show, but I'm trying not to let that panic me...!

We have, however, come up with a good space/set solution for the staging (which tends to move from place to place, and on such a tiny stage that can be difficult to get right), and I think that will make both my life and Kate R's much easier! (The practicalities of when to pick up or put down a prop and where to put it are a constant difficulty!)

Looking forward to fitting in two rehearsals this week, and tickets are going well which is extremely good news... have you booked yours yet? (www.leicestersquaretheatre.com)

More anon...
LB

Director's Notepad - First Rehearsal

Hello all!

 

Well, what excitement - Kate and I have had our first rehearsal! Kate (Roscoe) is the actor playing the confusingly-named Kate in our show, the sole character about whom the story unfolds. As such, we have to distinguish between the real Kate and the character Kate by their surnames; I'll try to remember to do that in my notes, too!

 

Kate Roscoe has, of course, been learning the songs for some time now, so the fun of working out blocking, character and how the narrative unfolds can begin on a firm footing. We've decided to work through the songs in order, at least for now, to get the development of the narrative really clear (both in our minds and, hopefully, for the audience, eventually). Hence, we ran through the first two songs in 'Heart of Winter' - 'Wide Awake' (the prologue) and 'On My Way' - the second of which some of you may know from our demo on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc0aw6oQHyo)

 

We ended up using rather a lot of props in our rehearsal - looks like our production team is going to have quite a list of things to source...!

 

I've never worked with Kate R before, and it was great to find that she's big on detail, both in terms of her character's background and in terms of staging. We got to try out various different ways of blocking and interpreting the two songs, and Kate is just as keen as I am to explore as much of Kate Douglas (the character)'s story as we can. As such, although we only blocked out the two songs in a fairly sketchy way, some nice details are already beginning to creep in that we can (hopefully) use later in the show, too.

 

Sadly, Tim couldn't be there for that first rehearsal with Kate R and I, so I look forward to Monday afternoon, when the three of us get to start working together, and when he'll get to see what we've come up with so far! I'll scribble some more thoughts after that...

 

LB