First day of rehearsal. I’m feeling a lot less anxious now. Still got a mountain to climb.
The morning was visa logistics and general admin, and then we had a moment to talk about scheduling before lunch. I think from the light of that that we’ll be able to work together nicely. It’s a funny thing to do, to throw 5 actors into a room with a play for a few weeks and no director and see what comes out the other side. You need a good balance of order and chaos, and I think we have this. TC had said many inspirational things over the time I’ve known him, but one of the ones that sticks is “Great theatre is a balance between the fixed and the flowing.”. You need people who are super organised and together and you need people who are gonna keep coming up with big offers. Knowing which one of those I am and which of them I’m not gives me comfort that we have things covered in this particular room. I’m not gonna be the only one doing my best end, but the other end is covered too.
The afternoon was RC-Annie. Sounds like “Arsie Annie”. People sniff at this sort of thing but it’s important. An intimacy coordinator. She comes in on day one and helps make a safe environment to build the show. We never had that on the previous tours I’ve done and we definitely could have done with it. A language where we can negotiate potentially difficult interpersonal dynamics. It was a day well spent even though we are all looking at what needs to be achieved right now and the time we have for it and quietly freaking out.
We will be making a whole darn Shakespeare play together, and playing all the parts, and trying to do it well by whatever standards we have in our brains about what doing it well means… But we will hopefully arrive at an accord where we all share the meaning of that well. And negotiating these unspoken personal boundaries is where arsie Annie really makes sense. I’m so glad the company programmed it. I was worried about being seen as the old guy etc etc just as I’ve got some years on them. Now I feel safe. And I feel like I know the others better. We are gonna be in each others pockets, so we need to.
Pub quiz tonight though at Vaulty Towers. Ugh. Mel has always wanted to go, weirdly. She loves a pub quiz, she’s only here for a week. Someone has given her the idea it’s a “the best” one. “I’ve always wanted to go but never had a team.” Shotgun Carousel and Mel and our BAC youthcrowd built the place. I’ve sent various event friends there and they love it. It’s not cheap but it has character. Gotta go. No phones.
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Hours later. A Christmas tie break drag catwalk performance from Brunhilda won us the five bonus points to make our team of two win the first pub quiz we’ve won since the one where Harriet and I on a very early date guessed the right number of bottles in the cellar of The Windsor Castle as a tie breaker. The prize at Vaulty is a £100 free bar tab. Mel goes back to America soon. I don’t need a bar tab. We will work out how to blow it with friends. Any sense of victory was removed by timing, with a loaded conversation landing on WhatsApp exactly as the winners were announced. It has left me completely flooded.
I didn’t want to go out tonight at all… I did though. Mel is so rarely in town and she’s a great power of a friend. We won a thing together. I think that might be good? I feel a bit sick.
I’m in bed. Looking forward to tomorrow. Wishing it could all be easy.
AlBarclay 