Directors Notes Issue 12

We had our last rehearsal in the “space” otherwise known as Room 6 of Centenary Hall last night. Tomorrow we start the zen process (Noeleen’s words) of erecting the stage and then the play takes on a whole new character. Adrenalin starts pumping through the veins of the cast while yours truly rediscovers some of his many but forgotten phobias. Ladders, electricity and electric saws come to mind. I remember some years ago being cornered by Roger (who deserves a page on Leeson Park Players website all to himself). Roger could have saved Apollo 13 with a roll of double sided sticky tape and a hammer. Unfortunately he assumes that everyone else could too.

Roger spotted that I had assumed my normal position of standing in the centre of the stage so as best to observe everybody else working. Rogers loathes such laziness in the way that nature abhors a vacuum. So he handed me a baker light phone and some wire and told me to “rig it up to the board back stage so that it rings on stage”. He might as well have been speaking Swahili. I gamely figured that this would involve cutting a hole though the set to feed the wire through. Two hours later I had succeeded in cutting a hole that you could squeeze a bus through and found myself holding two pieces of electrical wire in one of those moments that Edison must have lived through. I got a A in Science in my inter, so I knew that if you stuck two pieces of wire together, you’d get a bang and what little hair I have left would stand on end. So I meekly made my way back to Roger (who was building a conservatory from some toilet paper and empty washing up liquid bottles). I asked him how I should connect the two wires. He suggested some masking tape as though I’d just asked him how to plug a kettle in. I muttered something about how this didn’t meet with Health and Safety standards and various EU initiatives. He looked at me like the pond scum that I am and said “Its only 9 volts, it won’t kill you”. I slouched away shamefully thinking “A smack in the belly with a wet fish wouldn’t kill you either, but I’d prefer not to get it”.

The happy ending is that the phone worked and I had a little sense of achievement every time it rang on stage. I say all this because we need as many hands as possible tomorrow and Sunday to get the stage up and ready to do justice to all the hard work the cast have put in. So no matter how inept you feel, we’ll find a job for you.

I had intended a rabble rousing speech at the end of last night’s rehearsal, but we had to leave in a bit of a hurry. Perhaps it’s just as well, because that phase of the play is now history. The next stage begins with putting up the stage, and then the stage after that is acting on the stage. I can’t think of anymore puns, so see you tomorrow!!!