February 9, 2008...9:46 pm
a very little world
Eventually I will catch up on myself, so yet another backdated entry. Also apologies for the punctuation, I have no idea what to do with commas.
Jan 16th - The third day of auditions was followed by a production meeting, the lighting and set designers came up from London, the talented Anna and Mila who found the January chill much sharper in Newcastle, southern wussies. I also met the tour manager for the first time. It once again brought home what a lot of work is going on behind the scenes, set building, rehearsal venues, lighting design, setting up every detail of the tour including costumes and laundry.
Most exciting of all was seeing the 3D model of the set. Mila and Anna had previously visited all the venues as the set and lighting have to be moved and installed easily and quickly. I was enthralled by the miniature set, the tiny pub chairs, juke box, even posters, dartboard and working doors. There was a circular bar which will become a performance area for the scenes in the play when we leave reality behind to enter surreal moments based on real quiz formats. There was a tacky designated area for Geoff’s (the landlord) Pub Quiz to be hosted, the sticky carpet hadn’t been fitted but the miniature bar had tiny beer pumps and a discussion was had about whether or not the real set ’s bar would be connected to working pumps and barrels. The stage walls create clever angular spaces for characters to have private ‘public’ moments, we can see characters move outside to smoke, flirt and argue. There were even miniature people sitting at the tables and propping up the bar,
I always keep stage and set descriptions to a minimum, I enjoy seeing what others do with the space and story I have imagined and in 120 pages I might only have three or four paragraphs of description in total. A good designer like any artist needs to have space to create and that is not my strong area. Bringing a play to production really is a collaborative process, I know I am going to have to walk away form the development process soon and wait to see what they do with the story I started. I am lucky that for such a small tour the play has been given the budget and the team to ensure it has high production values and I know they can only improve what is without them just words on a page.
I managed to clumsily wheedle a promise from Mila about getting the mini-me set after the show is over. It will be like having an adult’s doll house where bar brawls instead of tea parties can take place.
When I can work out how to get photos off my Blackberry I will post some of the set.
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