Well with only a month until the premiere we are incredibly busy at wolf central. This week has seen us develop new songs and lyrics – special mention must go to the ‘Pepper Song’ which is our most panto-like number with actions and hopefully juggling of peppers by Dan! (And a bit of audience participation with the tongue twister too). We have also chosen and met with our Wardrobe and Scenic Design interns – Jodie and Alison both of whom are really talented and motivated individuals. We are also lucky to have Rachel Childs as our ASM. Rachel has worked at the Library Theatre in the past and will be a great help to the production.
Wednesday I visited B & Q in Selly Oak who have kindly donated some paint and wallpaper for our set. We also got the sales figures for Arts Fest; we sold 50 tickets mostly for the 2.30 performance. Its a great start but we want to be at least half full for both performances – so buy your tickets now! (www.birminghamboxoffice.com)
We have contacted more schools for the Friday performance and have had 2 schools book and one school also book a follow up workshop; which we are very happy about.
Yesterday was our 2nd development day. We need to say a bit thank you to the Wine Republic at the Rep for giving us a rehearsal space. It was a hot sunny day outside but inside we were also having a very good day. We concentrated on the music, with Gerard creating harmonies and the actor-musicians making a lovely sound.
In particular the opening song ‘Don’t Blame it on the Wolf’ is, as Liam our stage manager said, “really atmospheric”. After lunch we put the whole play with music and vocalising the scene/lighting/sound / film elements together so that we could all (including the production team who had joined us) get a feel of what the mountain is that we have to climb. After this I had a production meeting whilst Gerard worked on the music some more.
From a personal point of view, with my writers’ head on; there are quite a few changes I want to make. Certain sections need to be less wordy and some thematic hints need to be made clearer in order that everyone can make sense of the denoument. A really really useful day which has got us all fired up.
To quote Liam ” I am much happier than when I arrived this afternoon and I was fairly happy about it then”.
And so to work!
