LEB: The Read-Through

Today was the read-through and the first rehearsal for Last Eyes Blinded. The read-through is always a somewhat relaxed affair, it’s about getting a general handle on the play and asking any questions that need asking, so this wasn’t a massively high-pressure situation. We simply all gathered at my house and, after I’d finished interminably eating a yoghurt, we started reading through the play, stage directions and all, to get an idea of what we were doing. It’s at this stage that a few major decisions start to be made. Of course when I wrote these plays I had no idea what sort of space they might be performed in or what sort of budget might be behind it, so a lot of the ideas behind staging in the script are ideals, many of which we couldn’t possibly realise on our small budget. So it’s at this stage that we start to have ideas of what the set will actually be like, and we do now have a working diagram. This means we have to bear in mind that certain sections of the play will need to be staged differently to how they are written as the furniture onstage will be slightly different. Also, as we read through certain sections or lines are considered for revision and editing or even complete cutting, depending on whether they feel natural or even necessary as we read it aloud for the first time. This is the sort of thing we can work on as we rehearse those particular scenes, after we’ve seen if there’s a particular means of staging that section that works better than another.

After the read-through we had to wait until Jake turned up so he could take a few headshots of us all for the flyers. Jake had spent the morning sorting out all our marketing issues, talking to the people at EcoPrint who will hopefully be producing our posters and publicity material. Jake had also had a very helpful talk with everybody at the Playhouse and came with important information on one particular trouble-spot, that being a gunshot that is fired during the course of the play. To use an actual gun onstage would, we knew, involve certain legal and safety issues, but we now discovered that those issues outweighed the necessity of having a gun onstage at all, and so we have settled for an offstage sound effect which will work much better over all. This is a very useful thing to have discovered this early, and will save unnecessary confusion later. Tomorrow rehearsals start properly with the blocking of the first duologue scene between Frith and Ollie, and rehearsals will continue all this week. Also, we’ll hopefully be going into the Playhouse to sort out any other contractual and admin business that needs doing at this stage. See you all in the next blog!

Joz