Imaginary (Or, Robin Franklin, the Misery Sponge)
I haven't read many blogs in my life, but one of the few that I have read contains a section which seems appropriate to quote back now. Here is the entry for August 19th 2013 on Dougal Irvine's blog about his musical The Other School (https://theotherschoolmusical.wordpress.com/), which had just finished its run at the St James Theatre and the cast of which I was lucky to be a part of. There was no entry for the previous two weeks.
"What happened to the blog? I meant to tell you about our ten days rehearsal in Sevenoaks working 15 hour days during which I re-wrote a good third of the script.... I meant to tell you how hard all the cast, crew, band and creatives worked without a single complaint – putting many professional companies to shame. I meant to tell you about an incredible week of performances including our world premier on Wednesday 14th August.... But I guess – with all that going on there wasn’t quite the time to stop and blog about it."
This quote seems pretty much to stand for my own experience over the past six exciting days. I have been back with the same company as performed The Other School, the National Youth Music Theatre, rehearsing for an equally exciting piece of new Musical Theatre writing: Stuart Matthew Price and Timothy Knapman's Imaginary. This is now my sixth show with NYMT, a company that has given me some of the best experiences and best friendships of my life, and I am thrilled to be involved with this show in particular: certainly a week of working on the script/music and getting to know the cast and creative team has left me counting down the hours until we resume in August. We'll be performing at the very same theatre where I performed The Other School four years on from that show, though it's since been renamed 'The Other Palace' (i.e. not Buckingham but near). You can buy tickets here!! (https://www.theotherpalace.co.uk/theatre/imaginary/)
What to say of the show? I suppose I ought not to give too much away, but I can at least give you the fairly cryptic advertising tagline that it will be 'a moving, funny and inspiring new musical about the wonder of childhood, and the struggle to hold on to that wonder as you grow up.' It's really quite special, hilarious and poignant in equal measure: Tim and Stuart have down a brilliant job. Our cast runs from 10 to 21, and originally I had been a little unsure about how the cast dynamic would function with the age range, because being the oldest of the guys I was worried that things might be a little strange. It turns out, however, that I was totally wrong, that having a huge contingent of 10-13-year-olds etc. just makes for a lot of cuteness, that the older members of the cast are lovely (though they have named me 'Grandad' in the group chat!! I'M 19 PEOPLE) and that everyone is seriously talented. Again not giving too much away, but my character is a kind of evil-mad-scientist Headmaster sort-of-thing. It's very me, and I get to do a lot of manic laughing. My fellow teachers are all particularly excellent. The music is a joy to perform, incredibly catchy, full of beautiful ballads and quirkier fare, and all this has made for a very fun week.
Fun, but exhausting. At NYMT we work 12-hour days - up at 7 (7:30 if you're cheeky like me), a 15-minute walk to breakfast at 8, rehearsal starting at 9 in the morning and finishing at 9 in the evening, followed by some indeterminate bedtime. It is an exhilarating and frankly insane rehearsal schedule, and one complicated by the constant stream of rewrites that defined our work this week. There's nothing more thrilling than watching songs, sequences, dances etc. take shape in front of your very eyes, and to be involved in that deeply creative process of creating. I'm going to bed soon, and I feel like I could sleep for a week.
There are so many more things I could say about the last six days. How I can already feel the post-rehearsal blues coming on (though I'm sure I'll be fine!). How much I enjoyed being reunited with people I'd worked with before, for instance my friends Toby, Rhiannon, Ellie and Billy, or beyond the cast all of the pastoral at NYMT: Henry, David, Ben and Cicero. Special mention must go to the lovely James Bartlett, who I've not much seen since he Md'd me for Spring Awakening in Cambridge about a year ago but who it has been a joy to work with again, because he's a very funny and talented guy who coined the idea of a 'Misery Sponge' (don't worry blog title readers - I am not a misery sponge, I just like the phrase!!) and who this week introduced me to the game 'Cheese, Disease', which simply involves players alternately naming particular cheeses and particular diseases.
But I'm knackered now, so I think I'd better wrap up. Perhaps I'll elaborate at some point!
RJLF
'How best to channel the pent-up energies and frustrations of every day? Everyone has their little ticks, compulsions and everyone needs to let off some steam one way or another. But how,
how and what is the best way to let off steam like the Hogwarts express as it chugs along to Hogwarts. this is the question I am left pondering, pondering, wondering and gendering along
along along along but where to and from these are the questions I desperately let off steam and yonder on and on.' = David Grant's original hijacked version of the start of my blog post. Silly David.
"What happened to the blog? I meant to tell you about our ten days rehearsal in Sevenoaks working 15 hour days during which I re-wrote a good third of the script.... I meant to tell you how hard all the cast, crew, band and creatives worked without a single complaint – putting many professional companies to shame. I meant to tell you about an incredible week of performances including our world premier on Wednesday 14th August.... But I guess – with all that going on there wasn’t quite the time to stop and blog about it."
This quote seems pretty much to stand for my own experience over the past six exciting days. I have been back with the same company as performed The Other School, the National Youth Music Theatre, rehearsing for an equally exciting piece of new Musical Theatre writing: Stuart Matthew Price and Timothy Knapman's Imaginary. This is now my sixth show with NYMT, a company that has given me some of the best experiences and best friendships of my life, and I am thrilled to be involved with this show in particular: certainly a week of working on the script/music and getting to know the cast and creative team has left me counting down the hours until we resume in August. We'll be performing at the very same theatre where I performed The Other School four years on from that show, though it's since been renamed 'The Other Palace' (i.e. not Buckingham but near). You can buy tickets here!! (https://www.theotherpalace.co.uk/theatre/imaginary/)
What to say of the show? I suppose I ought not to give too much away, but I can at least give you the fairly cryptic advertising tagline that it will be 'a moving, funny and inspiring new musical about the wonder of childhood, and the struggle to hold on to that wonder as you grow up.' It's really quite special, hilarious and poignant in equal measure: Tim and Stuart have down a brilliant job. Our cast runs from 10 to 21, and originally I had been a little unsure about how the cast dynamic would function with the age range, because being the oldest of the guys I was worried that things might be a little strange. It turns out, however, that I was totally wrong, that having a huge contingent of 10-13-year-olds etc. just makes for a lot of cuteness, that the older members of the cast are lovely (though they have named me 'Grandad' in the group chat!! I'M 19 PEOPLE) and that everyone is seriously talented. Again not giving too much away, but my character is a kind of evil-mad-scientist Headmaster sort-of-thing. It's very me, and I get to do a lot of manic laughing. My fellow teachers are all particularly excellent. The music is a joy to perform, incredibly catchy, full of beautiful ballads and quirkier fare, and all this has made for a very fun week.
Fun, but exhausting. At NYMT we work 12-hour days - up at 7 (7:30 if you're cheeky like me), a 15-minute walk to breakfast at 8, rehearsal starting at 9 in the morning and finishing at 9 in the evening, followed by some indeterminate bedtime. It is an exhilarating and frankly insane rehearsal schedule, and one complicated by the constant stream of rewrites that defined our work this week. There's nothing more thrilling than watching songs, sequences, dances etc. take shape in front of your very eyes, and to be involved in that deeply creative process of creating. I'm going to bed soon, and I feel like I could sleep for a week.
 |
| Teachers hard at work! |
There are so many more things I could say about the last six days. How I can already feel the post-rehearsal blues coming on (though I'm sure I'll be fine!). How much I enjoyed being reunited with people I'd worked with before, for instance my friends Toby, Rhiannon, Ellie and Billy, or beyond the cast all of the pastoral at NYMT: Henry, David, Ben and Cicero. Special mention must go to the lovely James Bartlett, who I've not much seen since he Md'd me for Spring Awakening in Cambridge about a year ago but who it has been a joy to work with again, because he's a very funny and talented guy who coined the idea of a 'Misery Sponge' (don't worry blog title readers - I am not a misery sponge, I just like the phrase!!) and who this week introduced me to the game 'Cheese, Disease', which simply involves players alternately naming particular cheeses and particular diseases.
 |
| The Imaginary Company |
But I'm knackered now, so I think I'd better wrap up. Perhaps I'll elaborate at some point!
RJLF
'How best to channel the pent-up energies and frustrations of every day? Everyone has their little ticks, compulsions and everyone needs to let off some steam one way or another. But how,
how and what is the best way to let off steam like the Hogwarts express as it chugs along to Hogwarts. this is the question I am left pondering, pondering, wondering and gendering along
along along along but where to and from these are the questions I desperately let off steam and yonder on and on.' = David Grant's original hijacked version of the start of my blog post. Silly David.
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