The end of the first week

Myself and Rosie have just completed the first weeks worth of rehearsals, it was hard work but I think we got somewhere, especially on friday where we created to new scenes and even tried running through everything we had so far. Mark asso came a long and helped us make the scenes a bit jucier. He said that it needed to be a bit ruder so we tried this, I think we might have been letting the barrier of 'there just children be present to much and I think we underestimate at times what the children will like. Therefore we worked on making the performance style a bit more 'older' but still tried to keep the blocking simple as to keep a clear focus.

We have founf problems this week with regards to blocking as we cannot start rehearsing in Chiswick part yet, therefore we have to try and think about the park's lay out as well as the blocking of the scenes. We decided not to worry to much, as long as the actors know the scenes well enough, re-blocking shouldn't be to hard.

The first rehearsal!

We had the first rehearsal for 'The Shrinking Land of Kalku'. I think personally that it went very well, we have pretty much made the first scene, just needs to be rehearsed and scripted more but otherwise a very good start to the rest of the rehearsal process. We will be rehearsing with the different character groups on a seperate basis but then having full cast rehearsals on the friday so we can begin tying scenes together.

This was my first experience in directing and I quite enjoyed it, I didn't really know exactly what I was doing but it worked and Rosie and I pulled it off and I feel we did a good job. I think once we get confident in our roles and comfortable with being directors and making bold decisions we will begin to flow well and get a lot done.

I got back from Manchester yesterday, and I believe its true what they say, people are a bit more friendly up north. I don't know why, and I'm sure (as I am a southener myself) that southern people are very nice people, but perhaps don't show that they are in front of strangers as much as the northern lot. It's just a thought, disagree or agree with me if you want.

It's strange that In London that when you walk around, whilst on a day out that you feel rushed, don't walk slow, they will trample you, or take you with them, regardless of whether you want to go that way or not. In Manchester I felt as ease, relaxed and calm and walked around at my own pace.

Is it the city that makes the people or the people that make the city? Why have londeners got this mentallity of go go go? Why do mancunian's seem to be more laid back? It's a mystry. Lets not even talk about Scotland!

Casting the show

The casting yesterday for me was very successful, myself and Rosie got to see everyone working together and on an individual basis. We went in already casted the show as we had an idea of who we wanted to play each character. However, after having watched them play out a scene and a monologue each we found we had very different ideas of who would be good at what. We played a character based game with them where they had to stand on chairs and play out all sorts of different characters in different situations. I found myself drawn to people who were the most playful and who started doing something the moment the stood on the chair. It showed us who would suit a playful role, who would suit a serious role and thus helped us see who could play each character.

The casting also suprised us and we ended up casting people in roles that we might not have expected to cast them in, which i think is a good thing as everyone exceeded expectations. Myself and Rosie are looking forward to directing the show as everyone in the community project is commited and excited about the final project therefore making the rehearsal process (hopefully) very enthusiastic and fun.

We will be rehearsing with the four main tribes people very closely while infusing that with working with the more cameo based roles such as Milky Magician. We will then have a full company rehearsal every friday so we can start running things and working together as a full company.

Rosie and I have also decided to meet together with Skye in order to prepare for the following weeks worth of rehearsals, by doing this we hope to be able to keep on top of everything and resolve any problems we might have faced in the previos week.