Monday & Tuesday

Monday 8th November

Today was a three session day, meaning that we started at 10am and worked through until 10pm. Thankfully, Drew and I are used to this sort of day, having both participated in extra curricular work at university. We started by running the last section, as we did not have time to do it on Friday, and then started dress rehearsals before lunch. It was a difficult run, as we had never done the whole thing before, and being off script was slightly scary! We muddled through, waiting for lighting changes and cue lines, but all in all the first dress rehearsal went better than we anticipated.
For the rest of the day we worked on blocking that we thought hadn't worked properly, and on scenes that needed more attention (such as a banquet scene, in which we have to lay the table- this took quite some time to get right, with the vast amount of props!). We did three dress rehearsals before leaving at 10pm, each one better than the last, with notes between each one. Notes were usually regarding the way in which we say the lines, and questions about blocking, but none were too severe. Today was a success, and we are ready for our first (ever) professional show audience in the morning!


Tuesday 9th November

This morning our call was 9am, as we had a dress rehearsal at 10am with an invited audience of school children (aged about 13). This dress rehearsal was eye opening, as it was the first time we had ever been able to interact with the audience, and see if the information we are giving them stays, and if the jokes and references work. The show went well, and appart from a few minor mistakes, went smoothly. The audience stayed afterwards for a question and answer session, which was more for our benefit- so that we could ensure that our points were coming across well. They responded positively, which I was happy about because i think we were all worried that we were being patronizing, and that we weren't explaining our points properly.
We then had a break before our second performance at 2pm. This was the first official performance to the public, and had two school groups (one boys school and one girls school). The performance got off to quite a muddled start, as clearance wasn't given to the tech box, meaning that us actors were on stage for quite a considerable amount of time before we could start to do anything. I found speaking with the audience a little but intimidating at first, as i have not spoken to people this age for quite a while- but i found that i could speak tothem about Shakespeare and gage their opinions on what they were about to see, which then aided the way in which i presented information to them. The show mainly went well, although energy dipped slightly in the middle sections. I think now that we are becoming more comfortable with the format of the show, we can now play with the audience reactions more, and with the way in which we say our lines. The question and answer session was not as lively as the morning, and it is quite apparent that a lot of the young adults watching  have preconceived ideas about Shakespeare and the theatre, although a proud moment for us was when most admitted that they had changed their views about Macbeth, and found it more appealing to study.

We are looking forward to the rest of the week, with two shows ever day it will be tiring, but rewarding too.

Suzanne