by Q.Araignee » Sunday 25 February 2007 3:43:58pm
You'll love it Scarlet, our school joined in for 7th and 8th February.
And at least you have more than a week's warning for learning lines, and an hour to organise the lighting on the day, and ten minutes to teach a member of backstage staff the lighting standbyes/cues/script prompts/dramatic pauses...dear gods, I found it so stressful!
My second time performing as part of the Shakespeare Schools' Festival- we did The Scottish Play 3 years ago and The Tempest this year. The girl playing Antonio couldn't do the second performance, so the director asked me to learn the lines and stage directions in a week- I didn't even get to have a run-through before my performance. I found out on the morning of the first day that I was going to be Stage Manager- which meant I had to handle all the lighting as well as the prompting, and had only an hour to learn everything.
On the bright side, I got a personal bow at the end of the second night- the compere was apparently so impressed by my professionality and abilities that he gave me an honorary award as 'Master Stage Manager of the Carriageworks'.
Okay, rant over- and I'm sure your performance(s) will run much better than our own. I think I've just forgotten the details of our first attempt, and am looking upon this one with a very critical eye.