Rehearsing from Home… Day One

When Technology and Theatre Meet

I feel like I’m entering a new era of creative work. Today has been the first day of our remote rehearsals for Common Lore. After a hefty week of uncertainty, which saw us face multiple cancellations, postponements and shifting of our expectations, I made the call on Friday to cancel our rehearsal plans at The Boo in Rossendale. I was really looking forward to being on site at The Boo for a few weeks, but It just felt far too risky to have a creative team travelling from all over of the country. Worldwide we’re now being asked to do our bit to keep people safe and, as much as I love theatre, it’s only a play. Safety, compassion and humanity always come first. 

But I’m also very concerned about the effect that all these cancellations are having on freelancers. Everyone on the Stute Theatre team is a freelancer (myself included). As a project funded theatre maker it can feel like your income and your opportunities are hand-to-mouth. I felt adamant that we were going to put our funding to good use, make sure everyone on the team can be paid the agreed fee for their work and find a way forward that brings our work to some new people at a very tricky time.

So a new plan was formed. I spent the weekend transforming the front room into a make-shift rehearsal space. It’s a bit small as far as rehearsal rooms go – but there’s enough space for our very portable set (just!). Credit to our designer April Dalton for creating something so flexible. And double credit to my very tolerant boyfriend for not batting an eyelid at this suggestion and for then for helping me move all the furniture out on a Saturday! We often tell venues that ‘Common Lore’ can work in any space – and this really proves it!

So… Here we are. Day one of rehearsing alone in my living room, connecting with Bryn Holding our Director via a video link and phone calls. 

It’s been a challenging but rewarding day. We have managed to work in beautiful detail on the text in the show. There really is a lot of very valuable text work you can do over the phone and our script is full of rich poetry and punchy spoken word.

I’ve also been working through specific rehearsal tasks set by Bryn to get the show back on its feet - rehearsing sections and then filming them to send for notes. This has been more of a challenge due to the dreaded ‘wheel of doom’ rearing its awful head, as my sluggish internet uploads videos! But we will plough on, because it’s all actually starting to feel quite appropriate.

‘Common Lore’ was a show designed to push the boundaries of solo performance. We use integrated technology – but not the high-end kind of technology that powers huge lighting rigs and cues sound seamlessly in auditoriums. We’re using bog-standard apps, a really old mobile phone, a past-it old laptop and a digital projector behind a screen. The music is live looped and the projections are triggered by the character onstage using a mobile phone. Whilst to an audience it will (hopefully) look seamless, rehearsing this kind of work is painstaking and requires patience and a cool head. Not easy when your Bluetooth connections keeps cutting out!

Everything we’re using in the show is non-theatre technology. Which means that the things we’re working on to make the show could be done to some degree by ANYONE with a bit of extra time on their hands and a desire to be creative. It also puts us in a great position to work on this show outside of a theatre or rehearsal space.

The challenges of working remotely are simply an extension of the challenges we’ve already given ourselves with this piece – so it feels like the perfect show to try it out.

Whilst we work, we’re also creating video tutorials on writing, spoken word, directing, performing. using a loop pedal (I’ve just filmed the first one after a long day – so forgive me if it’s not quite perfect!)

We want to create some great resources for high school students, college student, theatre students or anyone who’s staying indoors and in need of some creative ideas for the coming weeks.

For us, this is an exciting new era of creativity in an extremely challenging time.

 And if remote working keeps everyone safe, I’m all for it!