We’ve just come back from our 2nd rehearsal with all the cast and our lovely Director Kate.
I’m Naomi and I’m in the community chorus along with my daughter Caitie, who’s 12.
We actually started rehearsing the music with Matt a couple of weeks ago so that we could get up to speed on the music before the cast and Kate arrived. Some of us still need to learn all our lyrics!
We got the chance to meet the very talented cast last week at our rehearsal, Vicky, Jill, Andrei and Jonathan – we sang to them, and with them. A highlight for us was hearing Andrei sing his chant for the first time – haunting and beautiful – the sound he created was magical and he’d only just learned it!
We got to hear where our songs fit into the script on our next rehearsal and I discovered that I had some lines. As we read through the scene I became gradually aware that (in my opinion) I was not a particular pleasant member of the community chorus – in fact some of my lines were very controversial. At our short break I mentioned this to a few members of the chorus and Matt. I wasn’t entirely sure I could ‘play’ such an antagonistic character and one that shared such different views from my own. I couldn’t be further removed from this person and would never act the way in which they do. Even though it’s uncomfortable to say these lines, I am very lucky to have this opportunity to portray how some people do think.
Monday this week was exciting as we were invited to join the cast, play-write, producers, directors and specially invited Theatre in the Quarter guests to hear the script read through.  It was a very moving hour and at the end there were many silent tears (mine included), and this is just a script read through. We can only imagine how powerful this drama is going to be when it’s actually acted and staged too. In fact a friend of mine has called the script ‘scaldingly amazing’ (I hope that she won’t mind me quoting her on that!) – Stephanie Dale is very talented – we just all need to bring it to life.
This was also the first time we had met Kate our Director and welcome her to Chester.
This week we’ve been starting to pull our scenes together. We’ve seen what the set will look like. We’ve been thinking more about our characters and how to develop them. We’ve been adding words/music in and taking some away. We’ve all been getting to know each other better.
We have a very exciting few weeks ahead…..