Dreaming on...and on and on!

Well, we're out of the traps and the hare is doing what it does best: scooting away in front of us. Rehearsals are well and truly underway for the new winter production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and the dates for the first full performance have been confirmed as 6th and 7th December at Hazelwood House, just a couple of miles removed from Kingsbridge.
First, however, we have to whip the Mechanicals into shape for the Dart Drama Festival on 8th and 9th November. No pressure there at all.

What I'm particularly loving is the strange continuity that seems to be appearing. As I said in the previous post, some of the actors are reprising their roles from 2007. We're using pretty much the same, edited script that we used then, but I've been through and trimmed a little here and reinstated a tad there. Yet people are remembering, even now, what they did then. Our Sal (Helena), for instance, in rehearsal last Sunday, was running her first lines and stalled a little...wasn't using her script and the reason for the stall? She wanted to use the lines she remembered from 2007, but a couple had been cut and she couldn't get them out of her head! So we put 'em back in. Happy as Larry now.
There's a smashing positivity about the whole thing, and we're only a wee way in. The Faeirie folk arrive next Sunday and start their rehearsals with the other actors...and there's another lovely little bit of 'connectedness' if you will. Some the young people who are in this production were part of their own group's (the fabled Little S.O.D.'s) rendering of the story; a modern, musical version, written specifically for younger companies, called 'Dream On'. Just one of the actors in that show was, the then, little Sophie. A few years before that, she was one of the faeries in our production of The Dream; and this year the now not-so-little Sophie was Stage Manager for King Lear. Lovely to see how things move and grow yet somehow remain in touch.

Some of the Faeires from the 2007 Dream...and there's Sophie, front and centre, in green and white

The Mechanicals from Dream On...and there's Sophie with ears!

Just four of the Mechanicals from 2007.

We also have several new actors joining us for this winter venture; never done anything like this before, yet already they're proving to be more than capable. By the time we get to the performance, well, it's going to be excellent.

Thought you might like to see the badge/branding...whatever they call it...for our advertising and so on for the next two and half years or so.

Jane had a really exciting weekend up in Stratford-upon-Avon, working with some of the foremost movement, voice and directing coaches in the land.

She's got reams of stuff and we hope to be getting copies of relevant bits and pieces together for the actors, not only for The Dream but for next year's Dartmouth Shakespeare Week, The Taming of the Shrew.

Speaking of which...work progresses with that production too. Shaunnagh, who designed our posters and programme covers for both Twelfth Night and King Lear, has kindly volunteered to do a similar job for The Shrew. And that's alongside playing Hippolyta in The Dream.

 

Above are just three of the rough-draft ideas that Shaunnagh has had for the artwork. Still a work in progress, but the finished deal will be just as much fun - and in full, vibrant colour - as these sketches are.

 

OTHER NEWS IN BRIEF...

I'm still learning my lines; everyone's learning their lines; Gil knows his lines.

That is all.

Nothing new there then.

But to finish it all off this time, here's a picture of the backstage crew from King Lear...and Sophie's second from the left.