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Oliver! understudy rehearsals today, with the casting juggled round so that everyone picks up new lines and actions. It works well: the company is so familiar with the piece that they can take surprises on board, and the understudies are terrific.
Oliver! continues to play to packed houses, and in the Green Room and the offices we have a mountain of letters and pictures sent in by children who have seen the show.
Meanwhile, the building is gearing up for The Glee Club, which starts rehearsing on the first working day of the New Year. The floor is being painted, fabric purchased, furniture acquired and made. I’m tying up loose ends ready to go into rehearsal, and the program for the rest
of the year is coming in to focus.
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The young actor playing Oliver was taken ill during the performance yesterday. There was a lull when he didn’t come on for ‘Consider Yourself’ whilst the Company Manager was informed, who called the show to a halt.
An emergency car was sent round to the school of the other young actor playing Oliver, who was about to start a maths lesson. Heroically she excused herself and jetted to the theatre, got into costume, got her radio mic on, and was on stage – all within twenty-five minutes. The performance continued as if nothing had happened.
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Spent today sitting on the floor of my office playing with The Glee Club model box. The designer brought it to us last week – a scale version of the theatre with the set and furniture for The Glee Club nestling inside it. Teeny-weeny chairs, a tiny piano, a miniscule piano stool. Lockers that actually open. And six little men to move around the space.
I find it tremendously useful to spend this time with the model. I’m not planning in detail where the actors and the furniture will be – there are too many unknowns to make those decisions without the performers themselves – but just starting to get a feel for the texture of each scene. How does the dynamic of the space change if a chair moves from centre stage to stage left? Where are the hotspots? And where the less friendly places on stage? Seeing the little figures come and go flags up which scenes are intimate, which more public. A scene that seems to be about circles gives way to one that is about straight lines. I start to get a feel for the momentum of the play – moments that are still; moments that are fast and furious.
All the fun of a doll’s house, but with a bonus – in January the people, the furniture and the set will all arrive life-size!
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The Vic’s work is created by a huge and talented team. From time to time I’m going to ask them to write about their experiences of the Vic and our productions. I asked Design Assistant Laura Clarkson to be my first guest blogger:
It is Wednesday afternoon and there is an excitement in the air, that of a school outing. A group of us are going to Apedale Heritage Centre in Chesterton, as research for our next production of The Glee Club. Workshop, Wardrobe and Stage Management are all preparing to brave the journey underground in order to understand how it felt and looked for the miners during the year of 1962, when the play is set.
As we arrived, we were greeted by an amazing man called Keith Meeson who was to be our guide and fount of knowledge for the next few hours. Keith had been a miner at one time and because of this his knowledge of life underground is immense.
We started by having a tour around the museum where you can see all manner of equipment, clothing, and photographs of mining over the years. Next was to go underground. We collected our helmets and lamps and set off. The walk down the mine shaft seemed to go on and on with loose gravel underfoot and the daylight reducing by the second. You began to gain a glimpse of what working underground is like.
But this was the part that myself and Denise, the other Scenic Artist, had been waiting for. As part of the Glee Club design Kate Bunce has placed a coal face surrounding the stage and it was this that we wanted to see. Unlike the black dirty coal you see by your fire at home and what I was expecting, the coal underground is smooth, clean and shimmers in the torch light as if glitter had been placed on it for the festive season. Suddenly the thought of finding a way of creating this aspect of the set became far more exciting! After an hour underground Denise, Kate and I couldn’t wait to start discussing how to achieve this effect with vac form, paint effects - and more importantly, glitter!!!
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