Blocking it all out

Last night saw the first rehearsal of the Woods team.  I was nervous and excited all at once to get them all together and what a rehearsal it was.

I knew I wouldn't get to Sophie's part so I dropped her a line earlier in the day to say that she was excused and when we arrived at the hall, I gave Caroline her piece of cake that she missed out on last week and told her that she wasn't required to stay either.  She was quite pleased about that.  That left 5 cast (Sam Woods-Zombie, Jenna, Kelley, Joshua, New Andy) and me.

I have started blocking the play - for those of you that don't know, this is where the movement is put into the play and the Director (yes, that's me) tells everyone where they should be standing, where they should move to and when.  I blocked up to page 19 in the script and we actually got through all of it, I'm sure we could have gone further if I'd blocked further!  We ran through it from the top to the end of the blocking and I must say I was (and am) very happy with it.  The cast think it all feels natural, even with a couple of little additions I had to make for continuity's sake and to stay true to the story (ah, now you're intrigued aren't you?).

We even got an early finish, which is always a bonus.  It does make such a difference when you have a strong experienced cast who make notes, pay attention and remember what they are supposed to do.  I have an awesome cast that are making their Director very happy.

Aside from all that, Joshua is happy because he gets to lounge around (although is worried that he's typecast) and Jenna is feeling weird about having Sam Woods-Zombie (sound like a character from Lord of the Rings)as her love interest.  There was also far too much talk about the "Log in the woods" and the toilet humour that it brought about...

The word of the evening was Dunch (er... yeah).

Song of the Day - Heather Small - Proud