Blogging The Rover: Was that really a smile?

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.

Saturday, 31 May 2008

Was that really a smile?

I think it was! In fact I am sure I saw the director smiling at points during rehearsals this week.

I am not claiming we are there, that would be foolish, we are not yet at the point where I would be happy to show it to an audience. Although that said at this point we do tend to start getting people who haven't seen it up to this point as the backstage and technical crew turn up to familiarise themselves with the play. So there is a certain amount of true performance creeping in.

What I think caused Alison to smile is that we are over the bump and running towards the finish line, prompting is scant and far between (and will be non-existant come the performances, we fly solo so to speak) and the cast are beginning to enjoy themselves looking for places where a grin or a noise adds to their part.

The polish is being applied and we really do appear to have a corker; I might even have come to learn to not hate the fact, that the last epic scene kicks off with a soliloquy, that I have to deliver in a pair of lacy drawers.

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