Technical Rehearsal

Notes from Technical Rehearsal:

SET

• Strips between blocks need painting in brown to look uniform
• Mask screws
• Touch up black fascia
• Either peel off more map or stick up as it looks out of keeping with rest of collage
• Paint top bit of wood black - seen over Pros
• Tone in 2 blocks - look too orange
• Curtains need more brown along bottom edge/ spattering
• Trim curtains
• Fabric to cover curtain rail
• Stravinsky planks/ iron still need putting up
• Age fiddle
• Age mirror more
• Age photo frame
• Hide pole at the back of Proscenium stage blacks
• Black out carpet seen under steel deck
• Belfry decoration on pallets more black
• Bed laid out in a more luxurious manner - tell ASM's

COSTUME

Soldier

• Putties need to be identical - just below knee
• Shirt pulled down
• Continuity - bag done up, buttons on jacket (front and pockets)

Devil

• Cattle Merchant - tie needs to be more like a Cravat
• CM -Brown scarf material rather than hanky - looks too white
• WW - Hanky - poke out of sleeve a little more
• VV  - bow tie tighter
• Devil - Remove white feather from front of yolk.

Narrator

• Check John's tie size

Princess

• When revealed on the bed make sure her skirt lining is underneath the skirt fabric and cape out of the way
• Replace skirt fastening with metal poppers as the skirt kept falling down during the dance

LIGHTING

• Lights are quite strong and pink colouring isn't relative to set colour scheme - suggest alternative
• Final lighting is rainbow like - wrong message after sinister end to Soldier
• Smoke machine makes rather a horrible noise before working - ruins effect. Can this be resolved.

MAKE -UP

• Narrator looks rather racoon like - less black beneath eyes
• Grey in Narrator's beard needs bringing to the neck
• Soldier needs to be more assymetric and less red
• Devil as violinist needs to have slicked back hair tucked into the shirt collar with center parting for androgynous look
• Devil - hair needs to be less loose as hides costume detailing.
• Hair back brushed and high to meet headdress
• Headdress worn for final scene with cape as restricts movement - does give a fantastic final presence

Bed having been rearranged to look more luxurious. Princess's costume moved beautifully when dancing.

Set under lights.

Reflection:

Was great to finally see the costumes under lighting and in full operation to gauge what problems might occur and the final costume tweaks. It was a real benefit to have Dexter's keen eye as part of our team to just pick out final detailing and have a fresh eye looking at set, costume and make up. He was a real asset and helped to give a true professional finish to the show and our working methods. The dressers were fantastic and all changes were swift, accurate and on time. Overall it looked very good just little changes required.

Get out

With the thought of home in mind the get out was very swift! We took care not to damage the dance floor as before and the things that took time were removing the planks and rounding up the odd bits and pieces. Was very odd seeing it come down after feeling like it went up yesterday but that is the transience of Theatre!
Another instance where all hands on deck get the job done efficiently and speedily. Costumes and set were loaded onto the truck, apart from the bits to wash which Grace and I took home, ready to be unloaded on Monday at uni.

Orchestra Costumes

Grace conducted all the fittings and arranged the costume hire from Torbay. Aside from spending much longer at Torbay than expected the fittings went smoothly with those on hand and only a few changes were needed such as taking in trousers at the CB etc. The costumes were in good enough condition to look good from where the audience viewed them and all fitted well. I am glad that we didn't try and make the women look masculine as it wasn't necessary, with their trousers and hair up anyway their was a sense of androgeny anyway. The violinist played with her jacket removed which created some variety in their appearance and also showing off the authenticity of the whole costume. They were worth the budget and on watching really made the Orchestra part of the production, they looked fantastic and so authentic. Plus, something I had not anticipated was that when they weren't playing they watched the action on stage which looked really nice and really added to the story telling feel of the piece as they also appeared to be transfixed by the Narrator's tale. 

Chris of Kokoro in uniform minus Jacket and hat.

Two of the musicians getting their putties done?

Orchestra all dressed the part and make up as well!

Reflection: I am so glad I included their uniform as part of my design not only did it unite the acting and musical aspects of the performance but it was great to get to know the orchestra and treat them to something different too which they all enjoyed. Once on stage they looked fantastic their costumes and instruments really adding to whole performance aesthetic.

Get In

I arrived early to help mark out the spacing for the Prosc arch stage and the band rostra as due to the confusion between the technical drawing, the venue's claims and my model box John and I decided it would be best if I marked up prior to the arrival of the steel deck to ensure it all fits correctly behind the projection screen. It can then be put down as soon as it arrives. In the end I marked up the Prosc stage which did fit and left us to negociate the band stage once this stage and the Prosc arch itself were in place. This definitely helped to save time especially due to the unforseen circumstance of the truck breaking down which meant we were running late by around 2 hours and with the absence of Amber a few things were also slowed. However, once it had arrived the unload was very speedy.  the Prosc went up pretty easily once screwed together and was sturdy enough with braces and flats for stability without needing to be wired to the lighting rig. The lateness of the truck impacted on our overall time due to the scheduled plotting, meaning after these tasks were completed boarding the orchestra rostra had to be done in darkness with head torches. This was really inconvenient as it took so much longer to do everything, in the case of the boards we couldn't see their arrangement dictated by numbers on their underside which meant alot of time was wasted. This meant that after Wednesday there was still much to do on the set.

Working in the dark would have been forgivable as I understand we are on a tight schedule and the van breaking down wasn't the fault of anyone, however the plotting ran over the following day by 2.5 hours which resulted in a rushed technical rehearsal and no full run as planned that evening. This was extremely annoying and quite rude considering as the set team had kept to their times, even more so our first full run through would be Friday morning  with an audience. This left virtually no time to correct parts of the set or costume alterations which was not fair and put unecessary pressure on our set and costume team.

Plotting in progress - finally fixing boards down and you can see the peeling paper on the set that needs to be taped down and the iron/ planks still need adding to the Pros decoration.

Nailing in planks - Grace and Aimee were around to help speed this on.

Hammering nails into planks - some needed a few as they  were warped.

Reflection:
This was a good learning experience of working in the conditions of different venues and how important it is to keep to a set schedule. Each venue has different rules, regulations and equipment that can soak up time if you are unaccustomed to it. This industry will always be collaborative which requires tolerance and patience in some cases however, it is also an industry where allowances sometimes need to be made for it to come together. In this case however the technical manager of the venue didn't always see it this way which meant our time was very restricted and we were lucky to complete everything for the matinee on Friday.  

Costume Plot by Grace

	Scene 1		Scene 2		Scene 3
	The Banks of a Stream		Native Village		A room
	The Soldiers March	Airs by a Stream	Pastorale	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	The Soliders March
Narrator	Vest Top Shirt Tie Cufflink Trousers Braces Waistcoat Jacket Socks Shoes Bowler Hat	"	"	"	"	"
	Scene 2		Scene 3		Scene 4
	The Banks of a Stream		Native Village		A room
	The Soldiers March	Airs by a Stream	Pastorale	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	The Soliders March
Narrator	Vest Top Shirt Tie Cufflink Trousers Braces Waistcoat Jacket Socks Shoes Bowler Hat	"	"	"	"	"
	Scene 3		Scene 4		Scene 5
	The Banks of a Stream		Native Village		A room
	The Soldiers March	Airs by a Stream	Pastorale	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	The Soliders March
Narrator	Vest Top Shirt Tie Cufflink Trousers Braces Waistcoat Jacket Socks Shoes Bowler Hat	"	"	"	"	"
	Scene 4		Scene 5		Scene 6
	The Banks of a Stream		Native Village		A room
	The Soldiers March	Airs by a Stream	Pastorale	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	Petits airs du bord du ruisseau	The Soliders March
Narrator	Vest Top Shirt Tie Cufflink Trousers Braces Waistcoat Jacket Socks Shoes Bowler Hat	"	"	"	"	"
	The Devils Dance	The Devil's Song	Great Choral	Triumphal march of the Devil
Narrator	Vest Top Shirt Tie Cufflink Trousers Braces Waistcoat Jacket Socks Shoes Bowler Hat	"	"	"
Soldier	Vest Top Shirt Trousers Braces Belt Jacket Socks Putties Boots Hat?	"	"	"
Devil	Devil Lyrca Bodysuit Bodice Yoke	"	Devil with cape Lyrca Bodysuit Bodice Yoke	"
Princess	Underwear Bodice Skirt Overtop Cape Shoes	"	"	"

Stage entrances relevant to costumes

Graces note of entrances for the arrangement of changes.

PERFORMANCE STAGE DIRECTION ENTRANCES
	Curtain Up
	Solider	Centre of arch
	Old Man	Left of arch
	Both off through arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Solider	Centre of arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Cattle Merchant	Centre of arch
	Solider	Right of stage
	Both off through arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Solider	Centre of arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Solider	Centre of arch
	Washer woman	Right of stage
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Narrator	Make table in arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Vionlinlist	Centre of arch
	Solider	Across left to right
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Solider	On box in arch
	Vionlinlist	Left of arch
	Curtain down
	Solider dance with vionlin
	Curtain up
	Princess	Laying on bed
	Soldier	Right of stage
	Devil	Right of stage
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Soldier and princess	Centre of arch
	Curtain down
	Curtain up
	Devil	Right of stage
	Both off centre arch
	Curtain down

Soldier's Shoes

There was a problem after ordering Josh's shoes from Torbay, despite having the right size on trying them on they are far too big for him. This is particularly a problem as he needs to dance to slightly big shoes is simply not an option, with a bit of trial and error Aimee bought some extra thick socks and insoles which solved the problem, Josh felt comfortable to dance and move around. This is particularly good as the shoes hired are just like my design and completely authentic unlike our previous finds. After some muddying up they will look splendid!