Rehearsal diary, week 3

'Cloud Nine' by Caryl Churchill

By Aggi Gunstone

As one patron sails off to Istanbul for a week, another appears. This week´s shining example of human fantastic-ness is Lisa Gaughan, who has found us space at the university – Lisa we love you. As fab as the warehouse is, having toilets at close hand beats any spiritual connection to a building, hands down. We got up and running this week starting with a serious look at Act two. This feels very different and is much more static – no bad thing, but after the energy of act one it took us all a little time to get to grips with. I am playing a 60 year-old lady in this act and despite my best efforts am having trouble not doing a cross between Joyce Grenfell and Mrs Overall. The second act is more political, or perhaps just feels that way because we can relate more clearly to the issues involved in it. Therefore a lot of debate is generated through rehearsal which is fantastic to listen to and get involved in. Unfortunately we also have to remember to get the action down as well, so this week has been a little slow for running scenes. Having said that we have blocked the whole play so are technically in a position to do act runs now, scary stuff after only two weeks and a real testament to how hard everyone is working. We were also blessed with Becky this week- our stalwart dramaturg whose frantic note-taking during our many changes of mind ensure we all a good idea of what is eventually decided on. Beck, we owe you many bars of chocolate.

We have a rudimentary props list, which has been forwarded to all friends and family. The poster is ready (thanks Phil and Jo) and will be collected from the printers on Friday ready for some serious trail blazing publicity. Lets hope it doesn´t rain this weekend or there will be some very soggy actors walking the streets of Lincoln.

We ended the week with a rousing music rehearsal at Kev´s house. As there is such a wealth of musical talent in the cast, we have decided to do everything in house. Kev and Marla led the music discussions with gusto while the rest of us sat and smiled politely; trying desperately to look like we know what was going on. Marla has written a fab tune for the second act and Kev has found the original music for a song in the first act so we had several rousing renditions of the songs and many a vocalzone. Jo gave the cast fan workshops in between the singing – she is a world class expert after The Way of the World two years ago – though Simon was giving her a real run for her money by the end of the evening. It´s all in the wrist action apparently… I declared a fan-off between them and the results will be posted next week.