Having read through Act
One of LBiA and made provisional notes, I was feeling rather overwhelmed. It
suddenly dawned on me that in just three months, it’s show night and it’ll be
my ideas and creativity exposed for all to see and judge. That, needless to
say, is a very nerve-wracking realisation.
However, today was the
first meeting with co-director Abigail Oscroft, discussing how we’re going to
start this whole process. We work very differently as people; Abigail is
incredibly creative almost instinctively, whereas I work best when in the room
with actors, seeing how things work and don’t work when it’s right in front of
me. That explains the panic when it was just me and the text – without tangible
people saying the words, I can’t gauge the best way for them to be performed.
The meeting was incredibly
productive, going over the audition process. For me, it is important that the
people we choose cannot only act, but emotionally connect with the characters
on the page. They must engage with the way in which these characters feel and
live day to day, whilst each having their own and very specific way of
expressing their ‘anger’. Establishing workshops and techniques for how our
would-be actors will show this to us made me relax, realising that as soon as
I’m inside that audition room, I’ll see my Alison, my Jimmy, my play.
Right from the get-go,
this is a learning curve. I’ve never attempted anything like this before – it’s
not just a means to a module, it’s producing a play for the public to see,
something of a professional standard. A director isn’t just there to move the
actors around a stage; a director is there to put across the playwrights’ words
and move an audience. Challenge accepted.
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