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