what happens to the holes when the cheese is gone

I decided to start this blog the day after the performance of my Advanced Higher Drama class' work for Unit 1, but that was a month ago. I've been up to a lot in the mean time but first I want to relate what happened for that performance:

The three of us (myself, Maisie and Sean) had been frantically preparing for the big day, starting with writing our scripts over the summer holidays. Maisie's was a montage looking at consumerism, Sean's was a supernatural love-story about a couple and their relationship after the wife dies, and mine was a political thriller. Then came the weeks of rehearsal - it was an interesting time, with all of us experiencing desperate highs and lows as one day we thought we'd gotten a break-through and the next realising that nothing worked. And we had to assemble props and costume, create oodles of media and design the lighting. I also had the problem of designing several violent sequences which required intense rehearsal to avoid concussing my leading lady. This is all in addition to arranging the venue, which wasn't easy with limited funds and no way of knowing whether we'd make any money back.

We got there eventually, though. We spent the morning of October 1st talking to the technicians at Perth Studio Theatre, getting the lighting set and checking we had everything we needed. Our "extras", Ruridh and Chloe, arrived at 12, in time for lunch and the tech runs in the afternoon. Everything went pretty smoothly, although there were a few creases to be ironed out.

Amazingly, we sold out all of our seats twice. First when it was just 30, then again when we increased it to 50. All in all, we managed to break even.

The performance itself I only remember slightly: I was running on adrenaline for most of the time. It all went off well, however, and I was especially happy with my own play, which I could actually watch. I really am thrilled I got such great actors as Maisie and Sean to play the characters, they captured everything so well!

After the show was fantastic, everyone lingered a little and we got a chance to talk to people, including teachers, students, friends and even the head of education in Perth and Kinross. Everyone was very kind, but we had to leave fairly soon so the technicians, who had been so helpful and forgiving of our lack of experience, could strike and close up.

The entire experience was very revealing for me, because while it was undoubtedly one of the most stressful times of my life, it was also one of the most enjoyable. I just loved putting things together and working with lots of creative people to realise this vision I had.