Rehearsals for THE BUS progress well. We’ve been running the play for the past week or so and really getting a feel of how the story twists and turns more than the postal bus between Lugano and Tirano (a journey I made 10 years ago and which still lives on in my nightmares to this day!).
There’s one more week in the rehearsal room before we hit the main stage at The Crescent for our tech week and dress rehearsals. Then the big opening night on Saturday, 14th March.
I’m happy to report that the production is shaping up just as I hoped it would: it’s a great play, full of surprises. I hope you’ll see it and agree.
The results of the recent photo-shoot for The Rivals are in, and you can see the chosen publicity shot above, featuring Alicia Crockford as Lydia Languish.
Thanks go to photographer Petra Setvinova, and to Sarah McCaffrey for all her efforts in organising the shoot.
Following today’s Forum meetings I’ve added a new category to the Blog called Membership. This category is intended to be used for items relating to membership activities/recruitment/induction/training etc.
Remember The Blog is an open area of the website and available to all - keep it clean!
You may be aware there is government legislation (The Terrorism Act 2006) which makes it a criminal offence to make “a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences.”
If you’re interested and can’t sleep very well you might like to take a look at all the offences covered:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060011_en_2#pt1-pb1-l1g1
What’s most concerning is the wording “likely to be understood by some”. How can we legislate for the inference or meaning taken by an individual? Poor old Dunkin’ Donuts - they’d be doing a 7 year stretch if they’d run their seemingly innocent ad campaign from 2008 in the UK:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dunkin-donuts-accused-of-promoting-terrorism-837428.html
So where does that leave us? Are we in breach of the Act? Presumably the more incendiary amongst us may see the words ‘Terrorism’ or Terrorists’ and take it as an immediate green light to take up arms! The very words seem to carry a great deal of power these days - but do they really persuade people to commit the very acts they describe? Surely that’s absurd?
So, Sunday saw the first run for the cast of The Rivals, which (considering we have only been rehearsing for 4 weeks) isn’t bad at all. The cast ran the first four Acts and most of the last leaving only the final epic climax to be created before the full play has been worked through in the space on stage. And all things considering - it being our first run with furniture and on the correct sized stage- it went well.
It was also the first time the cast had all met together again after the first session we had back at the beginning of January because of my banning them from watching each other rehearse. And what was lovely (and this is of course the reason i forbade them watching the other scenes rehearse) was that they watched and laughed and found it entertaining! Ah, there was method to my madness after all.
And think all our hard work is paying off so far. And hard work it is because the other day wracked up a whopping over 7 hours of rehearsal - with only a total of 10 minutes worth of break- in an afternoon (or at least it was afternoon when we started!). I’m readying myself to win a sweep of awards including ‘Hardest Task Master’ and ‘Least Popular Director’.
But now, they’re back to being forbidden to watch until we meet again for our next run through. But having done the first run with almost precisely two months before we’re on, gives me time to fine tune to my heart’s content!
Or I may just put my feet up…as i’m sure the cast wish!
More than 50 people gathered in The Crescent’s bar on Saturday night to celebrate St Valentine’s Day by listening to a vibrant selection of music, songs and readings all on the theme of love and exploring the emotion’s many facets.
It was a great event and love really was in the air that night. Apologies for the poor photo, but if gives you a good idea of the event.
Despite consisting of three plays, our Terrorism mini-season is largely being promoted as a single entity. However, to help each of the casts’ own efforts, we have come up with some cards for the trio of productions…
Hopefully, one of these - or maybe one of each - will be pushed into your palm in the near future…
Birmingham Theatre School in association with The Crescent Theatre has announced two new shows for February…
Full details will be published on our main website soon.
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