End Of The First Week
We made it this far…
Got to the end of the first week of the show and it has been successful so far. The 3 shows we considered Previews – a time to get things settled and try things out. Now we have a platform to build the show upon. Celebrated by going out en masse and drinking until the wee early hours. Much jollity had by all.
Audiences have been very good. 60ish for Thurs/Fri and 70ish for Sat. A great start. Hopefully we can carry on at this rate. Tickets are selling well at the Fringe and most people are not local – they have to travel to get here. Which is a good sign. We wondered if they might be reticent to become audibly involved in the play since they are in a church and it is Shakespeare – both of which inspire a lot of reverence – but people have been warm and responsive so far. Though I think we have to do more to coax them into it.
Saturday was a good show. The best so far. Most involving and developed. It was hot too! Sweating buckets by the interval. Its good – it should cost us to do a play of the magnitude. The energy and excitement was great. I really enjoyed Demetrius for the first time. Quince is brilliant to do – a real treat – but Demetrius has been more elusive. Now I'm starting to find my/his feet. The first scene with Helena has been bugging me all through rehearsal and on the first night most of what I'd been working on went out the window because of the audience. They responded differently to how I'd ever imagined and it took the scene to a different level. A valuable lesson. Each scene is very different and its easier to concentrate solely on that moment rather than think of the play as a whole or this particular stage of his personal journey.
Now we have a full week ahead with 6 shows. Time to learn how to pace ourselves. Fridays and Saturdays are great to perform on because there is a freedom about the weekend. Audiences are livelier too. But the challenge is to live up to the standards we've laready set, and then better them.
