Week 56

Tuesday 6th May 2025 

Photos from rehearsals: 

Wednesday 7th May 2025 

The railway Children 

Currently our director for the railway children is doing a show with his level 4 students, so we've been running some independent rehearsals in the time being. We've nearly finished blocking part one of the show, and I'm really enjoying it- especially the dynamic I have with my cast and building up those relationships further in rehearsals. I still have a bit of character work to do for Bobbie, more specifically the time period in which the play is set and how that effects her as character and the way she moves, interacts and develops as a person throughout the show. But mainly a lot of my focus for railway children has gone into my dialogue, as its quite a heavy play to learn, especially if your one of the children, because you practically never leave the stage and there isn't actually scenes within the show so learning the text comes with a lot of repetition, and applying physical blocking to lines. This is one of the main things that's helped me learn the text so far, and allowed me to keep on top of being off script for what we block so far. 

The lovely Bones 

Continuing Lovely Bones rehearsals today, we blocked susie's memorial scene. When approaching this scene I didn't think there would be any massive emotional challenges within it, as Lindsey doesn't have a large amount of dialogue in this scene and instead reacts for most of the scene- so I approached it with the mindset that there wouldn't be loads of difficult emotional conversations that I would have to dissect, and therefore would be an easier scene to block. I was defiantly wrong when I thought this and the memorial scene ended up being one of the hardest scenes I've had to do. This was mainly because Lindsey faints in this scene and I've never had to faint on stage, so I didn't realise just how hard it would be. It wasn't the physical fainting that I found difficult it was the awkwardness I felt after I fainted- which is something I really didn't expect, and this is because If I was to get hurt or fall over as me normally I would find the situation embarrassing and awkward, so initially found it awkward when fainting as Lindsey. It would also take me out of my character headspace as well, because a part of me was focused on the person catching me- which involved trust and letting go as an actor to keep myself in the character head space whilst fainting. I got there in the end, but it defiantly took some time and was a scene that I really struggled to grasp initially. 

Thursday 8th May 2025 

Today we finished the end of act one lovely Bones by blocking Lindseys break in to Harveys house. This scene is one I've been looking forward to tackling, because I knew that it would be full of tension and excitement for the audience. There's quite a few layers to this section and the scene itself is split into two halves: Lindseys physical break in to the house- and Mr Harvey returning home and her having to escape him. Although I found this scene really fun to block, It also had quite a few challenges- and for me the main was ignoring Susie. Now previously in rehearsals I haven't had a massive difficulty in ignoring Susie when acting within the scenes, but when it came to this particular scene I found myself waiting for the actress playing Susie to deliver her lines, which made it obvious that I was using her to queue me. Throughout the whole play no one can see susie apart from the people in her heaven, so it's really important that I speak and move throughout the scene as if she's not there whatsoever. I think what made it harder for me to ignore Susie in this scene was everything else I was focusing on, because I have to actively tell myself not to look at Susie when she's near me normally- but this was harder to do when my main focus was remembering the separate sections of the scene. Some of Susie and Franny's dialogue also acts as narration over the action that happens within that scene and the length of some of their conversations is the amount of time we have to act out part of the situation- so instinctively I would just look at her as a way to just how long I had. Once we finished blocking this scene I did get a lot better at ignoring her, but learning the dialogue and getting the script out my hand defintly helped with this.