The Company is an amateur theatre group with members across Sheffield and South Yorkshire. We have been established for over a decade and have developed a reputation for high quality theatre worthy of the professional stage. We perform three plays a year at The University of Sheffield's Drama Studio, a renowned intimate theatre venue. Our members are encouraged to give creative input at all stages of production including script writing, set design, stage management, directing and acting. Our next production is Aphra Behn's The Rover which will be in the Drama Studio from Wednesday June 18th until Saturday June 21st and at the Dore festival Wednesday July 9th.

This blog will contain the thoughts and feelings of those members of The Company putting together this production of The Rover.

Who is blogging here? John is our leading man playing Willmore, the eponymous 'Rover' he is also managing the production, ensuring that all the disparate creative and technical strands come together to produce a whole play. Cassandra is new to on stage work with The Company having previously been part of the epic crew for "Noises Off". Alison is the director and has also done some of the adaption work to ensure the audience can understand what is going on and that the dirty jokes really shine though. Tony is playing Ned Blunt and will be battling with being typecast as a bumbling idiot and comedy costuming.
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Saturday, 15 March 2008

First Rehearsal (Blocking)

Being completely new to this sort of thing, I wasn't sure what to expect from the first rehearsal or what "Blocking" would entail. (my previous experience was many years ago, and my roles were never larger than "chorus member" -- Other than church pageants/plays anyway.)

Turns out (as I pretty much expected) blocking is just figuring out where everyone is going to stand and move to in any given scene. I was awed to see 1) how good the other actors were at doing clever things without even being prompted 2) how quickly Alison was able to assess scenes and make brilliant suggestions that seemed obvious in retrospect 3) how quick the other actors were at implementing (and remembering!) said suggestions.

I only had a few scenes and even fewer lines in this rehearsal, but one of the scenes where I have no lines, I'm on stage for a long time. Not talking. I hadn't considered when I read through the script that this was going to be at least as challenging as the talking bits. Without any lines you have to learn ALL the other lines (to an extent) so that you can react properly to them. I found myself more worried about what the other people were saying in that scene than about my own line in the other scene. I'm learning new stuff every day. Brilliant!
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