Week one of Sleeping Beauty Performances

L.H

Just finished our first week of Sleeping Beauty and we now have two days off to rest and re-boot. The schools have been in this week and their reactions have been priceless. My two favourites are probably the screams of 'eughhhhhhh!' when the prince(Owen Whitelaw) and I share our supposedly beautiful  awakening kiss and the boisterous chanting of 'fight fight fight' when the two ogres meet at the end. Hilariously endearing. Official opening night Friday was great fun, everyone in the cast was on fire (utter fear mixed with adrenaline), ending the night with a cracking party in the carpentry workshop with free (rather lethal) punch. Two shows the next day. I'll say no more.

The whole show is really starting to get into its groove and the backstage team is running the show like clockwork. Barry(ASM) Emma(ASM) Cathy(DSM) and Natalia(SM) are our stage management team and they are the most on it group of people I've ever met. Never miss a beat. We also have a dresser (Karen) who is always ready and waiting for all the quick changes (rather a lot of velcro in this show). The ensemble have about six quick changes altogether (1 minute or so) and are, most of the time, wearing three costumes at once(!) Backstage can get pretty mental. I have one quick change. And its about 3 minutes. And only involves taking off slippers and tidying my hair. So all in all, I actually have none. Phew.

I am sharing a dressing room with Ros Sydney (Queen/Ensemble/goat/donkey) and we have embarked on a very special journey together of eyebrow sculpturing. Each morning, she paints her face white and begins drawing. Depending on her mood and her creative flow/artistic flare on that particular day, the outcome is always something very unique. We then discuss and deliberate. I believe it all hangs in the curl.

Ros satisfied with the brows.

All in all, a great week.

‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.

Flickr Production shots of Sleeping Beauty

L.H

Cracking production photos of Sleeping Beauty on Flickr...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/citizenstheatre/8246130643/lightbox/

First Night!

above: Lucy and I getting ready to go on

A.H: So, it happened. On Saturday evening the thing that everyone in the building has been putting all of their efforts into for the past month finally came to fruition. After a week of one of the most complex, and therefore lengthy, Tech’s I’ve experienced (see Lucy’s latest entry for more details) Sleeping Beauty has finally opened to the public. In one of our first blogs Lucy and I talked about how many people went into putting on a single production and this show has only reinforced the fact. So much has been built from scratch by workshop: set that transforms from walkways to towers, chimneys, twins, trap doors! For everyone involved Saturday night marked the culmination of months of work (the production department first started talking with designer Naomi Wilkinson six months ago!)

Plenty of sitting around during tech week. Nice Silhouettes though.

You’ll be happy to hear it went brilliantly: all the actors were on form, and, save for the odd sound cue, the show was technically perfect (which given the amount of cue’s in Stage Manager Cathy’s cue book constitutes a small miracle).

It may sound strange to hear about a show we’ve been working on in great detail for over a month but I don’t think any of us actors could truthfully say we knew how the audience would react. The play is a mix of Tim Burton, Monty Python and Grimm Fairytale; there is incredible humour to the show yet an equally dark heart and when you have a full auditorium, predominantly packed with children of all ages, you’re never sure who will get which joke or whether any of it will resonate at all. Mark McDonnell, who plays both the King and Ogress, and I were waiting in the wings as the lights went down on Act. 1 simply to hear how the audience would respond, neither of us knowing what to expect. Luckily they approved, which in turn gave us a boost for Act. 2 which was even more well received. Add to that the fact that it was a charity evening and therefore all ticket sales went to a good cause and it looks like we did pretty well.

Finally, a huge THANK YOU needs to be given to everyone back stage who have worked so hard this week and will continue to do so hidden away while the actors are prancing about on stage. Without them none of the lights, sound or set would do any one of the hundred things the show requires them to do. An especially large thanks goes to Karin from Wardrobe and Emma from production who help the ensemble with all of their quick changes in the first act. If there was a time lapse camera back stage all you would see is an ensemble shaped blur running from the stage, into a new costume, down a flight of stairs, up a trap door and then the reverse as they change back into whatever insane costume they're needed in next with only seconds to spare. Without those two none of us would make our cue's on time.

So, that’s one performance down and fifty to go. Today we've been called for 12.45 to quickly go over some technical hiccups to make sure all the Gremlins have been banished; then another charity preview at 7pm. And now it's over to the actors and the audience, some shows will be easier than others, some shows will feel like your herding mercury but, ultimately, as one famous Danish Prince once said "The readiness is all" and Dominic has prepared us very well indeed. Wish us luck!

‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.

Tech Rehearsals and First Preview of Sleeping Beauty

L.H
Tech week has been mentallllllly long (about 39 hours). Actually, I am very grateful we had as long as we did, it meant that I could take some time to organise and acclimatise myself within the new space. Firstly, the raked stage is NUTS (apparently the steepest rake in scotland). There's a lot of running involved, and I didn't realise I would be running DOWNHILL in heels..with a pram. I also have a ridiculously inappropriate dress that I have to factor in to act two which has been interesting. With roughly a 10 foot long train attached to it, it looks amazing but is a bit of a beast to negotiate. Especially whilst holding two rather large puppet babies. I sound like I'm complaining, I'm really not (well maybe a bit...) It keeps me on my toes! 

One thing I have noticed after getting on the stage is that I really need to keep an eye on my voice. It's something I have been told off about time after time at the Conservatoire; 'SPEAK UP!' and in this theatre, there's really no room for negotiating. Working alongside the more experienced actors makes it easier, even if it does just make me realise how quiet I actually am. I don't have much natural resonance in my voice so I always need to do a massive warm up (much to peoples light hearted ridicule) and I'll probably have to give a lot of conscious effort for the first few performances before it becomes a bit more second nature. That's the hope anyway. 

However, first preview done and my voice is already feeling a bit tired (I kind of forgot that the majority of the audience would be hilariously vocal and that I would have to factor in pitching above that) I have decided not to speak today. I am currently waiting for my good friend Sam to meet me where we has been requested to talk AT me while I find the appropriate sign language to respond. However, there's so much I want to talk about after this week so my vow of silence will probably last about five minutes. Hey ho.

Here's a riddle: What is broken when you say its name?

 ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.

'Sleeping Beauty' rehearsals come to a close

A.H:

Today has been an extraordinarily good day, In fact, it has been a day I’ve been looking forward to and longing after for at least the past 48 hours. Today was Sunday! Not a Wednesday, nor a Thursday, not even a good old fashioned Saturday. But a Sunday! And, having been a Sunday, it can only mean one thing: we have had no rehearsals today...at all. “Oh no” I hear the twitter-sphere cry, “Did something go wrong?”, “does everyone hate each other?”, “is the show really going so badly that being in THAT rehearsal room is now unbearable”? Thankfully, the answer to all of these questions is no. Quite the opposite, there’s an energy in the room that comes from knowing you’re working on something good, we really can’t wait to get it in front of an audience.

The actual reason I’m so glad it’s a Sunday is because after a very long week I am absolutely knackered. At Saturday rehearsals yesterday I may have been walking and talking but I don’t think my brain was properly awake until half way through the second run-through of Act. 2 and that probably means I was away with the fairies for around 3hours of rehearsal, not good! This was mostly due to a very long and hard working Friday which itself was followed by a long recording session in the evening.  However, it has all been absolutely necessary. Yesterday marked the end of the final week of rehearsals and, as such, we’ve been squeezing as much as we can out of every available hour. Particularly complex has been Act.2 due to the fact that half of it is essentially a giant chase sequence involving a mix of continuous song, character’s appearing to almost instantly disappear again topped off with several fight sequences. Choreographing all of this so that it is safe, keeps its momentum and, most importantly, interesting to watch takes a surprising amount of precision and, therefore, an unsurprisingly long amount of time.

As is customary with rehearsals reaching their end we’ve also begun to ‘run’ the two halves of the show. This is where we finally begin to put all the scenes we’ve been rehearsing and dissecting individually into chronological order and run it from start to finish, without stopping and complete with as many of the props and as much set as production can muster. This allows the actors to work out how each scene blends into the next, to get a feel of the show and discover how quick their costume changes will have to be. For Dominic, our director, it allows him to see how the play looks as a whole and if there’s any glaring issues that need to be resolved or bits that simply don’t work.

Run-throughs are incredibly useful for actors but can be equally infuriating. If you feel something isn’t working with your character it can be frustrating to see others handling their scenes so competently only for you to come in and drop the ball (for me the Minstrel is still not quite what he ought to be). However, all experiences, whether good or bad, are useful and always feed back into your work while Dominic’s notes and observations, which he writes down through the run and then gives to us afterwards, are invaluable. There’s a reason why he’s been in charge of three of the major theatres in Scotland.

So, rehearsals are over and now the Technical rehearsals begin. For the actors this means we move from the rehearsal room to the stage, we get to work in costume and see the finished set which four weeks ago were merely sketches on paper. And here I am on a wintry Sunday evening in Glasgow with the Observer and a big pack of McVities Dark Chocolate digestives to hand, sausages cooking in the kitchen and Abi Morgan’s The Hour on the Tele, waiting for the excitement of the coming week to begin.

 ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.

Week 4 of Sleeping Beauty Rehearsals

L.H

This week started with a massive smack into a horribly familiar brick wall: don't know what I'm doing, where I'm standing, where I'm going, who I'm talking to, who I AM or what play I am in. I was hoping that this wall that I usually meet in week 4 was just an insecure drama student thing, but apparently it happens in the professional world too. I look around and everyone else seems to be on the right track. Full of confidence and flare. Suddenly my character seems completely unattainable and one (utterly helpful and completely justified) comment from the Dom about being careful not to play Beauty too young makes me want to run far far away.

SO (after a bit of self hatred fueled rocking in the corner) I get back to work and start from the beginning again. Luckily I had some time to myself during rehearsals today (SLEEPING Beauty) to stop wallowing and to just get on with trying to hammer through that wall. After a nightly phone call to my good friend Sam (half friend, half life coach) and a watch of the Disney film 'Tangled' for research (surprisingly, ridiculously helpful. A young feisty princess locked in a tower her whole life... duh, that's how to play it!!) and I start to feel like I might be on the right track. Wednesday begins with a run of act one and things finally start to fall into place. For now. To be honest, what I was doing before probably wasn't much different but at least I feel like I know who I am again again. I wonder if anyone noticed...

Two members of the cast have been hit with illness this week and the whole room has gone into ultra paranoid panic mode. Dominic brought in 3 bags of oranges so we can stock up on our vitamin C, I ran out to the shops to buy Berocca, Echinacea, some sort of horrific anaseedey cough syrup and made a firm decision to swear off alcohol. I have only ever done a week long run before now so I just don't know my limits. It's a pretty full on show vocally and physically (I AM ONLY ASLEEP FOR 20 PAGES ALRIGHT!!) so I guess this is me until January. Currently sitting in at 10 o clock on a Saturday night blogging...

 ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.

Week 4 in Pictures



The week began with the announcement of the stupendous new season



A sneak peak at the set

Thorn Evaluation

Alasdair Take One

Alasdair Take Two

Prince of Nerds

A bit of everything

Debbie, ensemble and the fairies.

Kath's wheelbarrow of goody's

Al tries on his table.

Lucy getting into gear

Lunch break

Lucien and Benedicte in action

Competition entries for the design of the Sleeping Beauty programme cover

The Musical Theatre Ensemble take a power nap

The directing team

 ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is on at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from 1 Dec to 6 Jan. For all tickets please contact the box office on: 0141 429 0022, or book online at www.citz.co.uk.