Thursday 1 March 2012

Antigone - so nearly there






The Antigone team are heading into the final, final stages of preparation now.

Their last two rehearsals have been on the stage proper and it's been an enormous benefit to them.  For the first time, they've seen and worked in the space and realised what level of projection they need to use.

One more rehearsal next week, then their dress and technical rehearsals and then they're performing.

It dawned on me abruptly that this was an extremely inexperienced crew in many ways.  Which is dumb, as I've known from the outset, but never really put it together - so bear with my idiocy.

Of the seventeen cast members, only six have any significant performance experience.  Now, of those six, they've clocked up a lot of on-stage hours in the panto, the local Operatic Society and some Youth Theatre shows, but they've never done anything quite like this before.  Of the remaining eleven, about half have not really performed at all.

Their director is one of our senior students and she has never directed before.  Their mentor is another senior who has never mentored before.  I am the technical crew and costumier and while I can do the stage management without worry, I've never created seventeen costumes before.  As regular readers will know to their cost.

We are, between us, putting on an intense, passionate tragedy lasting one hour in which most of the cast never leave the stage.

Craziness.

Except ... it works.

They did a really good run yesterday.  While there are still some dodgy corners, we all know what they are and how to remove them. 

I am so proud.

2 comments:

  1. Break a leg :) I'm looking forward to reading about how the performance went.

    ReplyDelete