I've had a lovely relaxed weekend, which was definitely the plan after being out almost 24/7 last weekend! My new DVDs arrived on Friday so I spent much of the evening watching episodes of Peep Show and drinking tea :) marvellous!
Anyway, on to more interesting things (the image of me sitting on the sofa watching the telly can only be fascinating for a very brief moment, if at all). I hung out in Soho on Saturday, first eating sushi and going for coffee with Mark for a catch-up (I think I may have been sitting next to a famous in Cafe Nero but I couldn't work out who she was...) and then for a few drinks with Chris, which coincided nicely with the end of the Wales-Italy rugby match. In the evening I went over to Greenwich to see a film at the 02 with Duncan - we watched Be Kind Rewind which was surprisingly heartwarming as well as funny, I'd definitely reccommend it for a chilled-out afternoon.
Most of Sunday was spent rehearsing for State Fair, unfortunately not entirely successfully as we were missing a lot of people this week, for various reasons. I managed to block one new scene and song, and to go over a few dances with the chorus, but with so many people missing, however good it looked on Sunday, when the others return it's bound to revert to being uncertain as people have to alter their positions and try to remember the steps at the same time! Annoyingly poor Alison (who's in charge of costume) arrived not long after we'd sent most of the cast home, hoping to measure everyone! I think most people should be back next week, but it's getting very frustrating as we get closer to the show that we can't progress, as we're having to re-rehearse the same things over and over, either because people were missing or we haven't got the people we need to do new things.
The most exciting thing that will be happening this week (apart from me giving lots of venue tours to the interview candidates we've got coming in for the next 3 days) is that Xander and I are going to see Hairspray on Thursday night!!!! We've been wanting to go for ages, so we're using his leaving as an excuse to make the (rather expensive) trip, preceeded by some sushi. Wooo! Also on Saturday it's Alessia's birthday party in Ealing, the fancy dress theme of which is 'What you wanted to be when you were 6' because Alessia's birthday is on the 29th of February, which means technically she's only 6 this year! I'm keeping my costume a secret (partly because I've got a choice of 3 things I remember wanting to be, and partly because I'm going to see how brave I feel...) so you'll have to wait for the pictures on Facebook!
Other than that nothing much exciting is happening at the moment, but I'll make sure I write a decent review of Hairspray on Friday.
Check out www.howstuffworks.com if you get bored, it's really interesting!
Lxx
Monday 25 February 2008
Friday 15 February 2008
Continued ...!
Gosh, well these are going to be long posts it seems, at least until I've caught up with myself a bit. So where was I?
Ah, theBROADWAY, Barking. Well due to the aforementioned lack of staff, I've been very busy with recruitment and I've also been seconded to the Marketing Department to help with press cuttings and suchlike. So technically I now have 2 jobs! This means I've been full-time since the beginning of January - not a huge shift, since I've only gone from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week, but surprisingly tiring nonetheless. However, the marketing tasks will only last until we get a new Press and Marketing Officer (the application deadline for which was last week) so after that I'll have the full 40 hours to devote to my new Administrator work. I'll also have to teach our new administrator all about how we operate, when they are appointed, so I won't be bored that's for sure!
The last time I blogged (until the most recent post, that is!) I'd just given my first hire tour of the the theatre and was generally still quite a newbie at the Broadway. Since then I have settled in well and taken on plenty of responsibilities, as well as getting to know people, which has been really nice. Our Christmas panto, Cinderella, was a particularly fun period, as I got to know some of the cast and crew, and the atmosphere in the theatre was always buzzing! One of the best things about working here has been getting on so well with Xander, who has been a constant encouragement, getting me to take on new things and learn as much as possible, as well as being fun to be around, and knowing when to tell me to improve on what I've done. Plus he's a big Musical Theatre geek (!) so we've been on several fun outings and can chat about various geeky musical theatre topics [e.g. who has been the best Elphaba in Wicked...] As such, I'm gutted that he's leaving! Sitting at my desk just won't be the same without him sitting opposite, grooving away to Legally Blonde (or similar) on his headphones...
Speaking of theatre I've seen plenty of shows recently (or until I started working on State Fair, which has taken up quite a bit of my time) - including Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles, Uncle Vanya (the press night at the new Rose Theatre) Avenue Q (again), Bill Bailey (the Tinselworm tour, in Birmingham with Rob) and a whole weekend of Sweeney Todd! (The show at Warwick Arts centre AND the film, plus a few choice morsels of soundtracks...) I've also spent weekends in various places including Nottingham (visiting Sam and Geoff) and Cardiff (visitng my gran), and most recently I went to see Strictly Come Dancing Live at the o2 thanks to Duncan who's a cameraman on the tour! Amazing. So all in all, I've been pretty busy!
The Musical of Musicals/Throwaway project has been coming on slowly but surely (as you may be able to see from the blog - http://themusicalofmusicals.blogspot.com ) but has slowed down somewhat with Tim away in New York for the whole of this month. Steph is still beetling away with venue applications and work on the other Throwaway show, but we have at least got confirmation that we can have the rights to the Musical of Musicals for Edniburgh, money permitting. We're working on fundraising ideas to this end! We did apply for funding from the Lord Rootes foundation at Warwick but didn't get it, which wasn't really surprising since Throwaway were given the entire £5000 only 3 years ago. Onwards and upwards, as they say...
Well I think that just about gets me to a point where I've caught up with myself. It's all daily mundanity from here on in...!
Will blog more about State Fair and other exciting artsy happenings soon.
Lxx
Ah, theBROADWAY, Barking. Well due to the aforementioned lack of staff, I've been very busy with recruitment and I've also been seconded to the Marketing Department to help with press cuttings and suchlike. So technically I now have 2 jobs! This means I've been full-time since the beginning of January - not a huge shift, since I've only gone from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week, but surprisingly tiring nonetheless. However, the marketing tasks will only last until we get a new Press and Marketing Officer (the application deadline for which was last week) so after that I'll have the full 40 hours to devote to my new Administrator work. I'll also have to teach our new administrator all about how we operate, when they are appointed, so I won't be bored that's for sure!
The last time I blogged (until the most recent post, that is!) I'd just given my first hire tour of the the theatre and was generally still quite a newbie at the Broadway. Since then I have settled in well and taken on plenty of responsibilities, as well as getting to know people, which has been really nice. Our Christmas panto, Cinderella, was a particularly fun period, as I got to know some of the cast and crew, and the atmosphere in the theatre was always buzzing! One of the best things about working here has been getting on so well with Xander, who has been a constant encouragement, getting me to take on new things and learn as much as possible, as well as being fun to be around, and knowing when to tell me to improve on what I've done. Plus he's a big Musical Theatre geek (!) so we've been on several fun outings and can chat about various geeky musical theatre topics [e.g. who has been the best Elphaba in Wicked...] As such, I'm gutted that he's leaving! Sitting at my desk just won't be the same without him sitting opposite, grooving away to Legally Blonde (or similar) on his headphones...
Speaking of theatre I've seen plenty of shows recently (or until I started working on State Fair, which has taken up quite a bit of my time) - including Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles, Uncle Vanya (the press night at the new Rose Theatre) Avenue Q (again), Bill Bailey (the Tinselworm tour, in Birmingham with Rob) and a whole weekend of Sweeney Todd! (The show at Warwick Arts centre AND the film, plus a few choice morsels of soundtracks...) I've also spent weekends in various places including Nottingham (visiting Sam and Geoff) and Cardiff (visitng my gran), and most recently I went to see Strictly Come Dancing Live at the o2 thanks to Duncan who's a cameraman on the tour! Amazing. So all in all, I've been pretty busy!
The Musical of Musicals/Throwaway project has been coming on slowly but surely (as you may be able to see from the blog - http://themusicalofmusicals.blogspot.com ) but has slowed down somewhat with Tim away in New York for the whole of this month. Steph is still beetling away with venue applications and work on the other Throwaway show, but we have at least got confirmation that we can have the rights to the Musical of Musicals for Edniburgh, money permitting. We're working on fundraising ideas to this end! We did apply for funding from the Lord Rootes foundation at Warwick but didn't get it, which wasn't really surprising since Throwaway were given the entire £5000 only 3 years ago. Onwards and upwards, as they say...
Well I think that just about gets me to a point where I've caught up with myself. It's all daily mundanity from here on in...!
Will blog more about State Fair and other exciting artsy happenings soon.
Lxx
Thursday 14 February 2008
Prompted by Xander...
...I realised I haven't blogged for ages, and that this would be a good way of keeping track of my latest directing job, State Fair for Forest Musical Productions, based in Loughton. So I'm back on the blogging scene! To begin with a plug, it's on at the Kenneth More Theatre in Ilford, from the 2nd to the 5th April, and tickets are on-sale now, so please come to see it!! I got the job thanks to Mike McLean, who teaches singing to several of Forest's members, and who reccommended me after hearing they were in need of a director. I started a few weeks ago in January, doing 2 evening rehearsals a week, and from this week onwards we're also rehearsing on Sunday afternoons. The musical director, Ben, just by coincidence, was the assistant MD on our pantomime at theBROADWAY! (More news from theBROADWAY later...)
State Fair is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical based on the 1945 film of the same name, for which they wrote the songs. Set (as the title suggests) at the Iowa ststae fair in 1946, it centres around the Frake family - Abel, a farmer and prize boar breeder, Melissa, his wife, Wayne, their son, and Melissa their impressionable daughter. I won't spoil what little there is of the plot, but it's safe to say that it follows the traditional Rogers and Hammerstein format and despite some obstacles, the family end up happy with their respective outcomes of the Fair!
Working with an amateur dramatic society is a little different from previous experiences I've had in that the committee (not all of whom are involved in the show in any way, but some of whom make up the production team) had final say on all the casting after the first round of auditions - i.e. we did the first auditions for people who are regular members and who have been in productions before, and then we were going to have second auditions but nobody could make them, so I had to let the committee decide who would play the other parts (having expressed some preference having met the company at singing rehearsals). In short - a bit odd.
However, the system also has its advantages, in that they've done a lot of productions in the past, and subsequently know what they're doing production-wise! Plus they have some money, (some of which they're going to spend on paying me) so asking for things like props is not the ordeal that it can be with a student society! The production team are usually way ahead of any requests that I have, and the cast members are generally very hard-working (possibly in part because they pay to be involved!) - they practise in rehearsals when i'm not using them, and they write everything down! This makes me very happy. All of which generally makes for an easy rehearsal process (thus far, at least) and good working relationships :)
So where are we up to with the whole thing? I've been rehearsing some big crowd scenes and most of the family's scenes (minus a few characters who have yet to be cast...) and Ben has been hard at work making cuts, teaching harmonies in the chorus numbers, playing underscoring for my rehearsals and songs for the choreographers. The choreographers (Karen and Lauren) have been equally hard at work teaching and creating, and they'll be continuing work on some of the big chorus numbers on Sunday. Ben and I are moving on to concentrate on the principles and their solos and scenes.
The props mistress is hard at work sourcing jars, a camera, tent poles and around 30 balloons, among other things, and the fliers are now printed and in circulation. Costumes are roughly plotted and are being sourced, partly from ebay (real vintage!) and partly from a costumiers. I need to have a few more discussions about the set, but it's coming together nicely in my head, at least, and after that I'll start to make a list of LX/sound cues and a microphone plot. AND we're ahead of our rehearsal schedule! I'm just waiting for something to go horribly wrong, now...
Pictures and maybe some videos from rehearsals to follow when I get them uploaded from my phone ;)
In other news: Heather is back to stay at the Buddle Charity Home for Impoverished Theatricals for this month, which is very nice - she's working at the Cochrane. I'm working hard at the Broadway, because my boss is leaving at the end of the month! This means, however, that I get promoted to 'Administrator' and I get a new colleague on roughly my level who will be in charge of office management and such, and I get to be in charge of the fun stuff like professional programme admin, hires, the pantomime (yay!) and human resources. And at least I get to keep Xander as a friend! (Can you tell I'm trying to look on the bright side?!) We've also had some staffing issues which means we're a bit stretched at present (no executive director, only one front of house supervisor, no press and marketing officer...) but we're recruiting like mad things so hopefully most of these should be resolved soon!
I have to head off now, but more soon on the rest of what I've been doing with my life...
Lxx
State Fair is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical based on the 1945 film of the same name, for which they wrote the songs. Set (as the title suggests) at the Iowa ststae fair in 1946, it centres around the Frake family - Abel, a farmer and prize boar breeder, Melissa, his wife, Wayne, their son, and Melissa their impressionable daughter. I won't spoil what little there is of the plot, but it's safe to say that it follows the traditional Rogers and Hammerstein format and despite some obstacles, the family end up happy with their respective outcomes of the Fair!
Working with an amateur dramatic society is a little different from previous experiences I've had in that the committee (not all of whom are involved in the show in any way, but some of whom make up the production team) had final say on all the casting after the first round of auditions - i.e. we did the first auditions for people who are regular members and who have been in productions before, and then we were going to have second auditions but nobody could make them, so I had to let the committee decide who would play the other parts (having expressed some preference having met the company at singing rehearsals). In short - a bit odd.
However, the system also has its advantages, in that they've done a lot of productions in the past, and subsequently know what they're doing production-wise! Plus they have some money, (some of which they're going to spend on paying me) so asking for things like props is not the ordeal that it can be with a student society! The production team are usually way ahead of any requests that I have, and the cast members are generally very hard-working (possibly in part because they pay to be involved!) - they practise in rehearsals when i'm not using them, and they write everything down! This makes me very happy. All of which generally makes for an easy rehearsal process (thus far, at least) and good working relationships :)
So where are we up to with the whole thing? I've been rehearsing some big crowd scenes and most of the family's scenes (minus a few characters who have yet to be cast...) and Ben has been hard at work making cuts, teaching harmonies in the chorus numbers, playing underscoring for my rehearsals and songs for the choreographers. The choreographers (Karen and Lauren) have been equally hard at work teaching and creating, and they'll be continuing work on some of the big chorus numbers on Sunday. Ben and I are moving on to concentrate on the principles and their solos and scenes.
The props mistress is hard at work sourcing jars, a camera, tent poles and around 30 balloons, among other things, and the fliers are now printed and in circulation. Costumes are roughly plotted and are being sourced, partly from ebay (real vintage!) and partly from a costumiers. I need to have a few more discussions about the set, but it's coming together nicely in my head, at least, and after that I'll start to make a list of LX/sound cues and a microphone plot. AND we're ahead of our rehearsal schedule! I'm just waiting for something to go horribly wrong, now...
Pictures and maybe some videos from rehearsals to follow when I get them uploaded from my phone ;)
In other news: Heather is back to stay at the Buddle Charity Home for Impoverished Theatricals for this month, which is very nice - she's working at the Cochrane. I'm working hard at the Broadway, because my boss is leaving at the end of the month! This means, however, that I get promoted to 'Administrator' and I get a new colleague on roughly my level who will be in charge of office management and such, and I get to be in charge of the fun stuff like professional programme admin, hires, the pantomime (yay!) and human resources. And at least I get to keep Xander as a friend! (Can you tell I'm trying to look on the bright side?!) We've also had some staffing issues which means we're a bit stretched at present (no executive director, only one front of house supervisor, no press and marketing officer...) but we're recruiting like mad things so hopefully most of these should be resolved soon!
I have to head off now, but more soon on the rest of what I've been doing with my life...
Lxx
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