Gorgeous Avatar by Jules Horne

Shaken and Stirred

'How to terrify a new playwright in one easy lesson...'

I'm told it was actually a pretty small meeting. A mere 20ish people were gathered in the upstairs rehearsal room at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, listening to the first run-through of my play. Usually, when rehearsals are held at the Traverse, it's more like 30-plus - absolutely everyone involved in the production. I tried to submerge myself in a handy back-row sofa, but Literary Manager Katherine Mendelssohn kindly offered me her seat at the table - beside the actors, director, production manager, stage manager, set designer, wardrobe designer, lighting designer, sound designer, composer, choreographer, technicians, marketing team, education officer and a whole blur of others.

I mean to say, these people are scary. They've been there, done that, built the set, acted the roles, made the props, dressed the cast, ridden the faders, lit the way for more shows than I can count without stuttering. Pros to the core, impressive and unimpressible. At that moment, I found the idea of asking this team to work with my words for the next five weeks and beyond an extraordinary pressure. People's livelihoods were bound up in characters, scenes and stories that so far, had only existed in my tangled head. Now they were out there, fighting for their lives. Would they measure up?

Happily, the read-through went well. Of course it did. The cast are the best in the business (more on that story later). The meeting veered from the hazy shape of a fledgling play to practicalities: do we need a fight director? An AV operator? What about transport? The Traverse van is a bit sick. The cast need measuring. The sofa needs to be the most versatile cast member of all: big/small/strong/slight/flippable/rollable, hideable and preferable vanish-awayable when no longer needed. I get the feeling the sofa is going to be hard to cast, and a bit of a diva.

At night, I go back to my Amadeus B&B, and phone home. 'Help!' I say. But help is not forthcoming.

posted by Jules Horne @ 4/06/2006 12:23:00 PM