Brit Cruise

Last month Lyndsay’s play On The Menu was accepted into the London One Act Festival at the Grand Theater. So, out of the blue Lyndsay was responsible for casting, producing and directing a play within 3 weeks. This was a huge commitment, much more so than a normal hobby would consume….She kept up a journal of the process on her website.

Below are some photos of last weeks work:

Rehearsals were moved to our living room, where I set up a mock stage. This helped assist with staging since we had very limited time – and only a handful of rehearsals.

Building props outside with good ol’ cardboard and spray paint. The red and silver paint slowly became the color theme of the show without us even realizing it. The set has this odd 1950’s spacey feel to it. We even used my Nana’s kitchen stool which I painted silver – I loved that stool.

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Lyndsay’s initial set design (I think the lemon is the stove), she made this very confidently after a few Carling’s.

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This is the kitchen layout which the play is based on. Duane and I were talking about gambling, while Lyndsay watch girl interrupted in the background.

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These are shots I took from the lighting booth during our tech rehearsal.

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I gained some practical lighting knowledge during the 30min we spent setting our lights and cues. I have to say, it was a lot of fun for me. I tried to replace footlights with bounce light off the main table. I went very warm for the interiors, which

washed out skin tones so we added a hint of blue throughout.

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The stage before and after lighting. On the left is a photo of our single run through we had time for. I found it almost impossible to act while worrying about props and lighting cues – It’s going to take some mental preparation to get into character. The character I’m playing is myself which is weird, self-reflexive recursive loops are frustrating. Lyndsay and I discussed some new ways which our relationship can unfold on stage, which isn’t in the script. Aside from that everyone else delivered their lines well.

Three days until show time.

This entry was posted on April 19, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Video / Theatre with tags acting, behind the scenes, Grand Theatre, LOAF, London One Act, London One Act Festival, lyndsay simmons, making of, Theatre, Theatre tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.