And so it begins…my first taste of life as a professional actor!  This will be my first Fringe performance, and after years of attending numerous Fringe productions, I’m ecstatic at the prospct of actually being involved in one!  All last week I’d been really excited about starting rehearsals, so much so that I think nerves came into play on Sunday night as I had the most restless sleep ever!!  It sounds ridiculous and, yes, rather dramatic, but it’s just that feeling of embarking on a new project, a new journey and it being something you’re so passionate about.

This is my first involvement in Burns’ works since the tender age of eleven.  Och aye, the days of primary school Burns recital competitions, I remember well, and even better the day I won the Burns Competition and was invited to recite my poem, “O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam” at the Kinghorn & Burntisland Rotary Club Burns supper.  I have fond memories of my parents hosting annual Burns suppers with a group of friends, each guest taking their turn at a different part of the preceedings.  As well as entertaining their pals, we also had family Burns suppers and to this day, I am not a fan of cock-a-leekie soup and detest haggis! But it was never so much about the food as it was about celebrating Burns insightful, prolific work.

Anyway, to return to the more immediate topic, I am absolutely LOVING the Burns’ songs in the show.  They sound awesome!  When I first got the sheet musicand heard Matthew, M.D, play my two solo songs to me, I was amazed – they both had the most fluctuting range I’d ever heard in any song arrangement.  I thought, “I can’t possibly sing that!”  Nonetheless, after a few rehearsals I feel I’m getting increasingly confident with them and am actually totally enjoying singing them now!  Yes, Wednesday was a successful and progressive day for me

The Highland accent, required for one of my characters, is actually posing fewer problems than I thought it might.  Oh aye, Cathie assures me I’m on the right tracks.  Yet, I fear, even though it’s still fairly early days, it’s coming out a tad Welsh.  But alright boyo, I’ll work on it!!

Jen

Lee's Blog continued….
 
Day 1- We started at the Mining Museum for the morning where we met everybody involved. We then continued with a read through of both shows which were great  to hear out loud ! Both shows look like their going to be great fun and there was generally a good vibe after the readings! I then enjoyed some poached eggs on toast from the cafe and off  to Rosslyn for the afternoon session…Sword Fighting! Something i thought would just be testosterone filled enjoyment was actually a real challenge and required a great deal of focus! Everyone seemed to help each other plough through and the opening fight scene was bearing some sort of shape by the end of the day. Came home with a frazzled brain  but with the satisfaction of a good days work…Roll on tommorow more sword fighting!
 
Day 2-Met in the Rosslyn rehearsal space again today for 10am. Start with a bit of a group warm up then split the casts and get  on with business. We start by going over the fight we had been working on yesterday which is really starting to come togeather. We then decided to think up as many pirate quotes and phrases as we could which could be used for ad-libbing in the show. Next we took a look at the second fight scene between Arrow and Benn Gunn. This fight is more light hearted so we tried to push for as much physical comedy as possible which i think should be pretty funny! This for me in particular was very physically demanding and left me very sweaty and tired, but Bruce seemed fairly pleased with what we had put togeather, so after a bit of tinkering this scene was pretty much complete by the end of the day. My voice feels fairly strained from the pirate banter so may have to take a bit more care of the old vocal chords over the coming weeks before i start sounding like rod stewart!

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