Week 55- Start of end of year show rehearsals

Monday 28th April 2025

We started today by going straight to a read through of the lovey bones and the Railway children. Even though I’m in both the lovey bones and the railway children I spent the morning with the lovely bones group as there’s a second cast and I was  aware there would be someone there to read for Bobbi. For me the lovely Bones also has a lot more smaller more intricate and refined details within it that I had to be there for to hear and take notes on. I’ve already put down quite a bit of ground work for Lindsey, but I’m still trying to fully understand her. I feel like I don’t fully know who she is yet, especially when it comes to character relationships and how they change through the show and as she deals with her grief. This is something I will work on individually with the actors playing her family etc. 

After our read through me and some of the other cast members stayed back and just started putting down some loose groundwork for a couple of scenes. It was mainly just so we could figure out the delivery and tension/ emotions within the scenes and begin to  get our heads around them. One of the main obstacles being Susie and having to ignore her even though she’s there the entire time, whilst still maintaining the emotion she feel for the characters she’s near. 

Tuesday 29th April 2025 

Today we started blocking both the shows- beginning the morning blocking the railway children and then moving onto learning the blocking for the beginning scenes of the lovely bones. When it comes to the railway children one of the things that I'm initially finding difficult are the heavy amount of transitions, and it's mainly because there's quite a few that  lead into other transitions, and it means that every move you make has to be calculated so not to effect a scene transitions. The railway children is also a piece of brechtian theatre, and the fourth wall is broken regularly throughout the play as a way to narrate the story. But when the children talk to the audience their as their current selves- not children so making that switch constantly is something that needs to be obvious and defined, so that the audience understand the structure of the play. This needs to be rehearsed well, but also executed character- wise well to make sure that the older version of the children is accurate to the character and clear.  

Wednesday 30th April 2025

  

I spent the morning with the lovely bones team, continuing our work from yesterday on scene 4. The main difficulty with this scene was with the phones and the ensemble work that went into it. Personally it was the timing of it and swapping it through different casts, because when your blocking something as one role it’s hard to know the details of the other one when your paying attention to the role that your currently doing. To try and counter this we decided to stop crossing over the phone wires and instead try and move the placement around to still make it look visually interesting whilst also making it easy to move into, which was helpful but the scene still felt slightly clunky so it’s something we need to continue to put more work into.

Throughout the day I swapped between railway children and the lovely bones, but I got the chance to go over one of Lindsey mains scenes with principal Caden. This scene is such a brilliant one for Lindsey, because we see her ability to run rings around people and just how clever she really is- it’s a good scene to communicate part of the way Lindsey is dealing with her grief and when she talks with Susie at the same time whilst being watched by her, you see glimpses of what their conversation would of been like and how they’ve both lost that level of sister hood they once had. Currently when it comes to Lindsey's personal characterisation I'm nearly finished, but I still need to do more work when it comes to her relationships within the play and how they progress and change, because for me that is what effects how focused and immersed in a scene I am- especially when I'm trying to view actors who I'm friends with as my parents and siblings.   

Extra Rehearsal Photos: