And They're Off!

After a couple of weeks back and forward getting the rehearsal schedule sorted - and avoiding other rehearsals and productions in the theatre - I finally got the schedule set in stone.  Not literally - in reality it's set in silicon bits and cloud server memory.

And so, last night, the intrepid cast (both of them!) and their director (me!) sat down at a secret location (an actor's living room!) to talk about the script and record a readthrough.

I was pleased at the level to which my actors have been reading and learning so far.  Already they have many questions about their characters, actions, strategies and objectives which challenged my knowledge of the play (in a very good way) and promised a very exciting and fruitful ongoing rehearsal process.

The readthrough served several purposes:  It was the first time I got to hear my chosen cast reading the entire play; it was a chance for them both to hear the lines they've been playing with over the past couple of weeks in context with their playing partner; it allowed them to experiment with tone and delivery at an early stage; and finally, it was an opportunity to record the whole play for later download or burning to CD, in order to assist with learning lines.

This was also an opportunity for me to listen closely to the play and makes notes about various aspects of the production we hadn't yet thought about and which we discussed after the reading.  Clegg's clothes and hairstyle; Miranda's dresses; how to hit someone over the head with a vase; cigarette smoking and swearing; nudity and naughty photos!  I have to stress that we decided there would be no nudity and no naughty photos - though my intention is to make the audience think they've seen something that they haven't seen in reality.

Our next rehearsal is on Sunday (memo: record the football!) and it's the first of many in the Green Room studio space where we'll perform in February.  The first opportunity to get parts of the play on its feet in the actual venue.  This is a luxury I'm not used to.  My previous group never got to use the performance venue until the get-in day, just before the public got to see the show.  Getting used to the room and space and making it our own over a 10 week rehearsal period is a great privilege.

Not that we'll be doing too much movement at first.  This is such a wordy and emotionally packed play that we'll spend a while reading and exploring the text before we think about moving it around.  That said, there are a couple of tricky 'action' sequences that we will look at early on, just so we can get a handle on where we will go with them later.

We've started.  Now it starts getting exciting!

Auditions

I wasn't sure how many people were going to turn up to audition for the two parts that were available. 

Two ladies came to the read-through, and a third had said she was unable to make the read-through, but would be auditioning, so I knew that I would have a decent choice of female actors (known as "actresses" in the "business", I believe!) to choose from.

But we saw no male actors (aka "actors"!) at the read-through, and a mail-out for interested people was not as successful as we'd hoped.

On the night, however, we had five ladies and three men come along to audition.

We started off playing some fairly silly games (the human knot, primal scream and tag photograph), to get everyone moving, engaged, comfortable and warmed-up.

I'd given everyone notice of the audition pieces the week before.  Three monologues for each character, and one dialogue between both characters.  I left it up to the actors to decide which monologues to do, or if they wanted me to tell them which one to perform.

I won't go into huge detail about individual performances here, as that would be unfair to the people who didn't get cast.  Suffice to say that I was very impressed at the level of preparation that everyone put into their audition pieces and they all showed a great understanding of the characters and the thought processes which the characters were going through during the pieces.

Usually at an audition, there are a couple of people who are obviously unsuitable for the part and they don't change your mind when they read the lines.  But this time round I could easily have found a justifiable reason for casting any of the auditionees in their respective parts. 

That made it a very hard decision.

But in the end, I was able to cast Miranda (Jennifer Hampton) and Frederick (Mat Robinson) as they both managed to embody their versions of the characters more completely than the other candidates.

Now I've got my actors I have to firm up the rehearsal schedule and then in a month (actually, 3 weeks!) time we start rehearsing.

Pre-Production

I guess that to the 'public', the task of casting the actors and starting rehearsals is the beginning of the production process, but it actually starts a long time before.

In the case of The Collector, the process started well over a year ago, in mid-2011, when I submitted a handful of scripts to the Artistic Director's script-reading committee to consider for inclusion in the 2013 programme.

At first, none of those plays were accepted.  Instead, the Feb 2013 green room show was going to be Harold Pinter's Betrayal, and I was asked whether I would like to direct it.  I jumped at the chance!

After re-reading the play a couple of times and starting to think how I would stage it, in June we heard that we'd been refused a licence to perform Betrayal.  Normally this is because a professional company is going to revive (luvvie-speak for "do a production of") the play.

After this setback, the choice of plays was revisited and the committee plumped for my earlier suggestion of The Collector.

Once I had the go-ahead, my pre-production tasks began, in around June this year.  We scheduled tentative read-through, audition and rehearsal dates (to be confirmed once all prior productions were scheduled).  Enough scripts were ordered for everyone involved in the production - this is a very small cast and crew, so seven scripts should be enough.

From that point, I started reading and re-reading the script in earnest, making notes on the character traits of the two protagonists and thinking about how we would configure the Green Room venue to best stage the play.  In this latter task, the input of experienced RAODS members such as the chairman, Neil, and my producer, Helen, was invaluable.

For my birthday, in August, I got a copy of Katie Mitchell's book The Director's Craft, and I've spent some (but not enough) time working through the directing method which Ms Mitchell uses.  Maybe more on that another time.

In early September we designed the graphic to be used on the posters and flyers, with the invaluable assistance of the Plaza's graphic design team.  You can see the result on the right of this blog.

In October, the read-through and auditions were advertised in the company's newsletter.

By this time, I realised that there was plenty of paperwork to be getting on with.  People attending the read-through would need sheets of information about the play: to tell them when the auditions were taking place; notes on the characters; how the auditions are to work; when rehearsals take place, etc, etc.

Last week we had the read-through.  This was quite disappointing, in that only 2 ladies turned-up to read, and no men!  So the past week has been taken up with frantic emails, phone-calls and Facebook updates, to find out whether anyone was actually interested in auditioning.

The auditions are tomorrow evening.  We will soon find out how successful our last-minute efforts have been...

Collecting

Romsey Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, who run the Plaza Theatre in Romsey have chosen The Collector as their first Green Room production of 2013, and I am directing it.

In the past I've blogged about the directing process.  It's probably not that educational for anyone else but, looking back at my previous efforts, it's a good way to remember the great fun we've had on previous productions.

So, around we go again.

The Collector is a play by Mark Healy, based upon John Fowles' novel about a young man, Frederick Clegg, who becomes obsessed with, and kidnaps, an art student, Miranda Grey.  It explores their changing relationship and Miranda's efforts to escape and to persuade Frederick to set her free.

The book was made into a film, starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, in the late-60s.