Well, here we are again. While I await word of whether I am been successful in my application for my dream job, I have, as usual, been keeping myself busy. I've also promised myself that these posts will be a bit shorter, so stop me if I'm rambling.
I have spent most of this afternoon prepping for the auditions next week. THE AUDITIONS...AHHHHHH.....when I first wrote on this blog, and indeed this subject, July looked a long time ago. And here it is.
And the auditions are just the start. Once cast, I shall be spending the summer gathering a crew and backstage support, putting a rehearsal schedule together, planning a set concept to hand over to our set designer and starting to loosely plan direction in adavnce of starting rehearsals at the end of August.
I'm actually really looking forward to auditions. Now I know the scene snippets I am going to do, the warm ups I am going to run and the other excercises, I'm looking forward to it. I've had a few people regretfully advise they aren't taking part which has in some cases been disappointing, but understandable. I've also had a lot of people tell me they are coming and know of at least one person who is not a member of the Players who is coming along precisely because it is Pratchett. The play has even, indirectly, put me back in touch with someone I last saw in my first year of Uni!
Hell, I even had an enquiry from Bangkok about the possibility of a part yesterday.
In many ways, it shouldn't be a surprise that the fame of this has spread. Indeed, there has been recently been a somewhat ego boosting moment. It is a tradition that the next production is trailed in the programme for the previous show, in this case Tis Pity She's a Whore. Because I had already decided the audition dates at the point the programmes were produced, the date and name of the show was not just shared, but my contact details and the audition dates.
However, there was one small, and I assume deliberate, typo. Where it meant to say "please contact the director, Richard Vince", the programme instead read:
"please contact the, Richard Vince."
Eddie Izzard once claimed to be the Definite Article. I am. I've got proof. It's in writing and everything.
I've also had two inadvertent preparation opportunities for the production in the last few days.
I managed to spend a couple of evenings spending an hour in the empty theatre in the build up rehearsals for Tis Pity. I make no bones that I am an actor because essentially, at heart, a show off. I naturally try and draw attention to myself in most situations. However, in its own special way, the time working in a theatre in the build up to a show is more enjoyable than the performance. The performance is a high, an addictive buzz. The week before the play is an odd, zen like state of frantic activity. The theatre is a bubble, which shuts out all light, most noise, and sense of time and real life. It is you, the function of the theatre, and the job of getting ready for the show. People, especially actors, talk about the magic of theatre, and for me, it is created then. I can't go and see a show or film without walking out feeling slightly changed by the immersion - wander out, blinking, generally slightly dazed and a bit vague. I've lived in that world for a few hours, helped by the environment and the feeling on enhanced reality. Imagine how that feeling is even stronger when you've spent whole days in the theatre. I love it, and it ranks, along with Tour, games days and my recent writing week, as amongst the most content I have felt in recent years. It's a chance to step away from real life, and do something important instead.
So it was marvellous to get to do that for Tis Pity, where I had no responsibility other than extorting money out of members of the company. It got me all excited for the equivalent week in November when this all becomes real.
The other opportunity took place in my professional life, the contents of which I often keep away from this blog as an unecessary distraction. However, Thursday was a different day. Amongst other things, I was asked to run a session on a team working/emotional intelligence tool I am a trainer in for a client, one I gained access to via a close friend. I love days like that, where I am there to lead, train, inspire, inform. I flatter myself that I'm quite good at them, but am never sure if the people taking part enjoy them - most of what I'm saying and doing, if I'm honest, is for my own entertainment - I hope the 'audience' go along with me, but it isn't my primary concern in the moment. Selfish, potentially very bad habit.
Running a training session is more like directing than acting. You have to imprint your personality on proceedings, guide, inspire and communicate ideas and be the driving force, but in the end, it is only measurable by the actions of your trainees, and what they go on to produce.
I had a review which said it was one of the best training sessions the attendees had been to, and a comment that holding the particular room's attention was basically unknown, and yet achieved on this occasion. Re-sult.
Of course, even before I'd got home, I had self criticised myself to the point of assuming it was rubbish. But this is the thing about being a show off. In the end, your own opinion is either that you were better or worse than you were, as it is arrogance or neuroses which drive most show offs. Your opinion, in short, is irrelevant. What matters is what the people you were showing off to take away from it.
For those brave enough to take on what is about to start, and get Wyrd with me, be aware - your director is a total neurotic show off, makes it all up as he goes along. You may love it, you may hate it (please God the former) but you will most likely have never been in a production like it.
Deep breath.....LET'S GO!
