March 5, 2008...3:48 pm
first day of rehearsals
Monday was the first day of rehearsals and it started with a big meet and greet with all the team apart from the associate producers from Hexham and South Shields who sadly hadn’t been able to make it to the Newcastle meeting.
It was all very civilised, lots of pastries and coffee, introductions and background to the play etc and no leaping about. The team is from all over, London, Scotland, Leicester as well as the North East crowd. Again it brought home how lucky I am that a new play with a small tour has such high production values. It is costing in the region of £90 000 to get it on the road. It has taken around two years for New Writing North to raise that level of funding. The hope is that it will raise the profile of various individuals and organisations involved as well as encouraging regional theatres to take a chance on putting on new writers from the region.
So once everyone had met everyone else and introductions had been made the creative team got down to business. The actors spent the rest of the morning working on their responses to the set and environment of Pub Quiz. They drew plans of what might be beyond the part of the pub we see, where characters might sit and how they could respond to their immediate environment. Then there was a production meeting where the creative team responsible for creating, dressing and designing the set as well as lighting, costume, sound and maintaining the tour, hammered out details and a plan. After lunch we had a read through of the script. It was interesting to hear the whole team together and their responses to the newly tweaked draft. I of course focused on what sounded wrong (my writing, not their reading).
Psyche has blocked the script into sections to work on, units of action and change rather than scene by scene blocks and everyone was asked to leave with thoughts about the characters response to this world and also their physical selves as Tuesday morning is going to be spent with Shona Wright (stage manager) who will soon be shopping for their outfits as well as dressing the set.
The day ended as any day which involves actors should- in the pub. Good to see the actors bonding. I worry about the ones who are away from home and in digs and hope they will be happy and not homesick and not get scurvy.
I have missed the next two days as I’ve been attending a local screenwriters conference but am keen to see what progress has been made when I go back in on Thursday.
I haven’t quite got my head round the fact that this is actually happening.
From the New Writing North website:
So without further ado, we are delighted to present… Geoff: Joe Caffrey, Pete: Mickey Cochrane, John: Chris Price, Bethany: Helen Embleton, Kathleen: Vicky Elliot, Lewis: James Cunningham, Asram: Joseph Garton.
For more information about Pub Quiz, including tour dates and booking information, see our Publicity section.
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