Finally, the first night of my first show in my first season at the New Vic.
When I was starting out as a young director I thought first nights would get easier to bear, but in fact I get more nervous every time – perhaps as I gather more experience of all the things that can possibly go wrong! Some directors don’t even make it in to the auditorium on the first night, and I’d certainly love to feel I could avoid it too. But I feel that, having been fine-tuning the show for weeks, it’s my job to tell the team why it worked if it was a success – and to be a support if it’s not.
As it turns out, it’s a great night. We had a good sized audience, including a number of significant people I’d been looking forward to meeting. The actors loved having an audience for the first time, and it was evident that they really enjoyed the show. As did the audience, who laughed in all the right places, applauded all the songs, and clapped deafeningly at the end.
The next day, a good review in our local paper, another good show and good audience. Now I can catch up with all the things I’ve let slide during rehearsals, program the next season, catch up on the next production – oh yes, and relax!
[ add comment ] ( 24 views )
The first technical rehearsal for The Glee Club last night. We’ve moved out of the rehearsal room into the auditorium for the first time. The technical involves working slowly through the play, adding sound and lights, listening to the actors’ volume, getting used to new entrances and exits, rehearsing quick costume changes, flying in scenery for the first time, working with props.
It will be a busy few days, and it’s often a fraught time, but I’m glad to say last night everyone was pleasant and positive. Today, though, we’ll be doing scenes involving frenetic backstage activity, so I expect stress levels to go up.
[ add comment ] ( 22 views )
The last performances of Oliver! It has been the most popular show the Vic has ever produced, and I’m sorry to see it go. The two groups of children, the cast and many of the stage crew have been with us for three months. There will be tearful goodbyes after tonight’s performance – then tomorrow the production team will work all day, taking out the set and replacing it with the next show.
[ add comment ] ( 26 views )
Lis Evans, who is designing Jamaica Inn, and I had an inspiring field trip before Christmas, when we travelled to Cornwall and spent the night at Jamaica Inn, taking the chance to read the script together and talk it through. Despite working together in the same building we haven’t had the chance to talk much since then, so today we grabbed a quick meeting over lunch to catch up. One of the questions we wanted to return to is: how necessary is it that the set features a fixed staircase? We had toyed with lots of interesting ideas – the actors making a staircase out of moving planks of wood; a seesaw staircase, so that the actor leaves from ground level, travels up, then down, then arrives back at ground level. We’ve been quite excited about these ideas, but looking at the scene breakdown yesterday we noted how many scenes are set on the staircase or at either end of it. Our whackier ideas would be fun, but they really only work once – with Mary Yellan returning to that staircase two, three, four times, it really has to be an acting area rather than an opportunity for fireworks. We also talked about how to create the landscape on stage, and how quickly the play needs to move from scene to scene, and the actors from costume to costume.
[ add comment ] ( 22 views )
The third and final week of rehearsals for The Glee Club. This week is about tuning each scene, so that variations of pace and tone and texture carry the audience through the play. It’s about tidying up music and choreography, and making sure the actors are happy with everything they’re doing. It has been a pretty public week, too, with a try-out of some of the songs in front of an audience on Monday; Midlands Today filming rehearsals on Tuesday; the Vic’s adult learner’s group, Revolve, observing rehearsals on Wednesday, and designers attending run-throughs. It’s a good process, to start getting used to the fact that this gem we’ve been honing in the rehearsal room belongs to everyone in the building, and will be meeting a paying audience next Friday.
One of the big technical elements of the play involves miners coming off work, getting out of their clothes, going into the showers, coming out clean and getting into another set of clothes. Throughout they engage in a lively dialogue with each other. We decided we’d troubleshoot these scenes ahead of the technical, by checking that the pit-muck make-up is adequate; that it comes off easily enough; that the costumes work as well as possible for dressing and undressing on stage. This rehearsal call took place in the men’s dressing room and washroom! Whilst running the lines, the actors practised putting on pit-muck make-up, undressing, washing the make-up off, dressing. To our relief, it all worked pretty well first time round – big praise to the playwright, who has clearly through it all through, and to the producers of the first stage version, who ironed out any wrinkles. Hopefully next week’s technical will be a gentler ride having explored these scenes.
[ add comment ] ( 22 views )
Calendar
