September 2015 by Caroline Nash
With anticipation, I arrived at The Mockingbird Theatre in the Custard Factory last week, script in hand. The early draft had landed. I had managed to have a quick read on the train – rough and ready but good, strong stuff - and my mind was already racing about how the audience involvement would work.
Julia and Liz had arranged a 2 day workshopping of the script, to give us as actors and themselves as writers the opportunity to see the words and ideas played out first-hand. We had invited Birmingham actor Rich Stokes along as he has extensive experience and we welcomed his input into the development of the script.
We started with copious amounts of coffee and discussions about what lay ahead and then settled down to read the script.
I play Rachel, and Rich plays my son-in-law. We don’t often see this relationship on stage – and I could immediately see the potential for emotional depth.
We were immediately engrossed in the play and particularly the possibilities that were emerging around the audience involvement.
Once we had read through, we talked our way through each scene and looked at the individual characters and their motivations. How were they reacting to each other and why? There were some scenes involving a baby and together we worked through the best way to portray the child.
Taking away the ideas and suggestions that came from the first workshop, Julia and Liz completed a re-write over 48 hours and produced the next version at day 2. We started to break down the scenes in much more detail and we were up on our feet in no time to try out some of the audience interaction. This was the tricky part as both characters have very different ways of relating to the audience and we wanted to ensure that the audience felt a part of the action rather than being dragged into it unwillingly. We trialled and discussed different ways of introducing the audience into our world and making them feel comfortable with the way that they were addressed. It was a fantastic eclectic mix of ideas and we established a wonderful contrast between the audience involvement scenes and the quieter, more intimate scenes between myself and Rich.
The next step is for us to perform a rehearsed reading of the script to an invited audience of local actors and writers groups to gain input and feedback in to the nature of the piece, and to see if they enjoy audience interaction techniques – or if they run off screaming!
Exciting times.
If you can attend this test performance in Moseley, Birmingham on Thursday 24th Sept at 8pm, please let me know asap and I will give you more info.