Books Down!

We're now around halfway through the rehearsal period and we've hit the point that the actors dread.  Books down!  The highlighted date on the rehearsal schedule when the actors have to let go of their scripts and work without the security blanket of the words there in their hands.

In amateur theatre it's always later than you would hope it to be.  Unlike the pros, we all have day jobs to be getting on with, so we are unable to rehearse for 35 hours per week, so people aren't forced to be as familiar with the script as they could be.

The first couple of rehearsals without their books are inevitably slow, shambling and frustrating.  Actors and director will be tempted to think that progress has stopped and we are going backwards, but that's certainly not the case.  It's just an am-dram rite of passage that has to be overcome.

Certainly in The Collector we have made excellent progress in the past 4 or 5 weeks.  From the hesitant readthrough I wrote about in my last post, we have explored myriad aspects of the characters' personalities, aims and ambitions.  We have learned what drives them and what stops them achieving their aims.  We have choreographed fight sequences and had discussions about the technicalities of how to tie-up and gag someone.  And we've had to start thinking about how we get various props on and off stage naturally and gracefully.

That work will continue for the rest of the rehearsal period.  Doubtless we will change our minds about some of the decisions we have made, and other requirements of the play, previously unseen, will make themselves clear.

Additionally, this week we start looking at the technical departments of the production.  Ideally this would have been started with a pre-production meeting before rehearsals started.  I'm a stickler for this sort of preparation usually, but for one reason and another I wasn't able to get around to it.  So now I have to meet with my lighting, sound and props department heads (that is, heads of a department of one!) to discuss what I need from them in the next 4 or 5 weeks. 

I don't really have any worries about the actors at this stage - I know that they will get over the "books down" hump - but I've yet to get together with the tech team and I'm sure that the questions they will ask me on Wednesday night will bring a fresh set of challenges and decisions which will need to be made.

So - for no reason other than the fact that I can look back on this with 20:20 hindsight - here's what I have to worry about at the moment:

• Where the hell am I going to get a butterfly collection from?  If anyone has one - let me know!
• Where will I get the bed, bedside table and other furniture from?
• Will the furniture all fit in the performance space?
• Will the props all fit in the performance space?
• Will there be any room left for actors and audience?
• Will one person be able to operate sound and projections?
• Will my idea for projecting pictures, captions and video actually work?

Of course, there's still a while to go yet and I've got lots of wonderful people backing me up and helping me, so I do need to learn to delegate, stop micro-managing and stop worrying.