Wednesday 29 December 2010

Christmas with The Ash Girl

After four days of lazing around and eating too much it was good to have an excuse to do something different and helping build the set for The Ash Girl proved to be the perfect break from Christmas excesses.

The centre piece of the set is a 3-sided revolving structure - imagine a toblerone stood on its end. Each of the three sides represents a different setting and is turned round during scene changes. The bit I was set to work on is a huge tree that reaches almost to the lights and has branches that fold back on on themselves when the next setting is required.

The tree was made of hardboard, some bits of insulating foam were then stuck on to represent the knots and lumps and it was then covered in papier mache to give it some texture. My job was to cut out a slanting piece of hardboard with a jigsaw, screw on a bracket and hinge to the structure and then nail on my piece of hardboard. This took me most of the afternoon and was just so that the tree didn't look 'too straight'. It certainly gave me an awareness of how many hours of work go into constructing even the simplest of sets. (Not that this one is going to look simple!)

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up...

The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Thursday 10th to Saturday 19th February 2011

Auditions for this years outdoor Shakespeare The Tempest, Sunday 20th and Tuesday 22nd February 2011.

Teechers by John Godber 14th to 19th March 2011

See Progress Theatre website for details of all our productions and auditions.

Friday 17 December 2010

The Ash Girl Rehearsals

There is not a lot of time at Progress between one production ending and the start of the next one and time on stage is at a premium.

The cast of The Ash Girl were rehearsing in the bar area on Sunday while the set build team were busy on stage. In a future blog we’ll look more closely at the set – the giant toblerone looks intriguing!

As you can imagine rehearsing in the bar can be difficult, particularly with a large cast. There is not much space and actors not in a particular scene have to sit round the edge waiting for their turn.

The Ash Girl is a take on the traditional Cinderella story and bears more relation to the sometimes gruesome original Brothers Grimm tale than the Disney version. The scene being rehearsed on Sunday has Ash Girl going into a haunted forest where she is pursued by the seven deadly sins and some scary trees.

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up...

The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Thursday 10th to Saturday 19th February 2011

See Progress Theatre website for details of all our productions and auditions.

Sunday 5 December 2010

Teechers Auditions

Hope you all enjoyed Ajax. Coming up next at Progress are the auditions for Teechers by John Godber. These are on Sunday 12th December 2.30 and Tuesday 14th December 7.30 at the theatre.

Director Christine Moran is taking time out from rehearsing her part as a princess in Ash Girl to hold the auditions. She said that she chose Teechers  because she wanted do something light and funny but still good. After directing Going Postal last Christmas she also thought it would be a nice change to direct something that doesn't need a complex set and costumes.

She was supposed to direct John Godber's play Shakers when Progress performed it in 1999 but wasn't able to. Shakers  is set in a cocktail bar and is written in a similar style to Teechers with a handful of actors portraying many different characters, a fun challenge for actors and director. This photo is  from a newspaper cutting from 1999. As a marketing stunt we arranged for some of the actors in Shakers to have lessons in shaking cocktails at TGI Fridays. Shown in the photo are Sawsan Khuri, Jane Bertrand and Helen Wright (who wasn't actually in the play just making up numbers for the photos!)



If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up...

Auditions for Teechers by John Godber Sun 12th December at 2.30pm &Tues 14th December at 7.30pm

The Ash Girl by Timberlake Wertenbaker 10th to 16th January 2011

See Progress Theatre website for details of all our productions and auditions.