Don't You Just HATE It When...

Oooh..it makes you so cross!!

...you have something all planned out, you know exactly what it is you want to do and how you're going to do it then...technology gets in the way. Well, maybe not technology as such, it's probably more to do with your own inability to understand said technology!
A word to the wise: when something says it's easy to do, take the statement with a pinch of salt; a large pinch. Huge. It's not like there isn't anything else to be getting on with: planning the first production meeting with all those wonderful, indispensable people that you rely upon to get the pictures in your head up on the stage, or tweaking your notions for the block moves, or wondering if Lear was really mad or just suffering from early onset and feeling under the weather, or...you get the picture.

I like to think that, for a relatively unskilled type, I've managed to get to grips fairly effectively with all this 'social media' hoo-hah. Siging up to Twitter, getting our presence out there on several different theatrical web-sites and so on, I've even managed to build and maintain a pretty substantial, and dare I say it, popular web-site. Then the tech bit reared its ugly head and things started going ever-so-slightly pear-shaped. Suffice to say that it lead to complications and I decided to switch hosting services and re-design the web-site. Isn't hind-sight a wonderful thing? To one such as myself, the language used and the expectation of various companies, that everybody knows exactly what they're talking about, is pretty damn annoying. Anyway, I've managed to get so far - with offers of help and advice, gratefully received (thank you!!!), from several people, but things have now ground to a halt...
So, as of yesterday, the company have no web presence. BUT, with perserverance and much gnashing of teeth, it will be back in the next couple of days.

The company we're now with are actually being helpful - which is a novelty in itself - and the new site promises to look even better than before. I'm not holding my breath however - some may call me cynical, I prefer realistic! - because if experience has taught me anything it's that Sod's Law kicks in the moment you say everything's going beautifully! So keep your fingers crossed!

And in other news...the company presence will be felt in the real world on 21st March at Kingsbridge Library. This little event gives us the chance to promote not only ourselves and this year's production, but to raise some interest in Will himself.
Called WS@ The Library, it starts at 4pm and features Nick Rawlinson, of the Bristol Old Vic, performing some of the famous speeches from Shakespeare's work, including Prospero's speech from The Tempest and the 'To Be or Not To Be' rant from Hamlet. After the interval we're up and, to quote the programme notes '...we hope to give an insight into presenting an open-air Shakespearean production for modern audiences whose references are entirely different to those of an audience in the 16^th and 17^th centuries’. Really looking forward to this, in a strangely nervous sort of way...probably because I'm not hiding behind Sir Toby or Touchstone!

And just to hark back to technology for a moment...the benefits of getting out in the ether, as it were, have already made themselves felt. We have been fortunate enough to meet, and use, several excellent actors and have also welcomed many back-stage people to the fold as well. And this year has been very fruitful in this respect too.
So as much as I may fume, fret and curse the mechanics of all this techno-stuff, I have to confess, it's a great tool to be able to utilise!