2 months to go!

Hello and welcome to the Artists Theatre School blog page!!

With just over two months to go until the opening of our show 'Nell Gwynn' we felt it appropriate to start a rehearsal blog.
Nell Gwynn will be performed on 20th, 21st and 22nd July at the Questors Theatre, Ealing.
TICKET DETAILS COMING SOON.


The Play

'Nell Gwynn' is written by Jessica Swale and was first performed at the Globe theatre in 2015.
Our production is directed by Artists Theatre School's principal, Amanda Redman MBE and will be performed by this years' adult students.

The play begins in the 1660's and follows the story of Nell Gwynn. Nell was brought up by her mother, a brothel madam, in Coal Yard Alley, Covent Garden where she most likely originally worked as a prostitute. She then began selling oranges in the pit at the Drury Lane theatre. Nell then made her way onstage in Thomas Killigrew's theatre company as the company's first ever female actor where she was spotted by theatre fanatic, King Charles II. She became his most famous mistress, giving him two children.


The cast of 13 have been rehearsing since late January every weekend and are very excited to perform to an audience.
With now only 2 months to go, lines have been memorised, characters have been created, costumes are being made, songs and harmonies have been learnt and being added to the mix next week is dance and choreography.    

Although the play is set in the 17th century, it is written in modern speech, making the action much easier for an audience to follow. So as a company, we get all the fun of the exciting ways and fashions of the 17th century, without the difficult language. Swale also drops the occasional modern reference into the script, making the story up to date, fun and comedic!! Jessica Swale's writing is certainly a joy to perform!




A typical rehearsal day takes the following form -

A warm up  - first thing in the morning, we do our personalised group warm up lead by a member of the company. This consists of stretches, breathing exercises, voice exercises, tongue twisters and always ends in a game to create a company rapport and build up an energy and focus together.

Singing - The play consists of lots of singing, so we spend an hour or two going through the songs with our musical directors, Dom and Emma. This is great fun and has really pushed a lot of us out of our comfort zone. We don't all consider ourselves singers, but Dom and Emma have been great in making us all feel comfortable and all sound great with beautiful harmonies, solos from Nell and big company numbers.

Speed Run - We then all get together every week and speed run the play which is incredibly helpful for coming together as a company and checking our lines are on top form.

Runs - we then come together with Amanda, our director and run the play from start to finish, get some notes, then work on bits and pieces of scenes.

This week we had the additional excitement of having costume fittings and next week we begin learning choreography for all the company songs.

We then use Sunday's to do various bits and pieces. This week we had a full Sunday of singing, followed by a company outing for Sunday lunch!!

Rehearsals are demanding and there's lots of work to do but it's all great fun and it is going to be a terrific show!! - Amanda's direction is on perfect form as always, the costumes are going to be stunning, and music and choreography is going to add a whole new layer to an already fantastic show.  

Some pictures from this weeks rehearsal:

 

That's all for this week folks!!

Come back and read our blog next week for updates!!

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