BUY GODDAMN IMAGINARY TICKETS
It is Tuesday, it is August, and I am back with NYMT rehearsing for Imaginary!! And what a fun half-week we've already had. We open a week tomorrow, which is nothing short of terrifying.
What is to be said? Currently, nothing, because I am on voice rest, mainly because I enjoy the extra attention that this status brings. When I am very bored with work at Cambridge I often carry a sign around saying that I am on vocal rest and then spending the whole day performing elaborate mime. This is part of my general quest to bemuse as many people as possible before (and potentially after) I die.
The voce is mostly fine at the moment, though an hour's silent blogging can only help. The problem with poor vocal health is that it totally creeps up with you, so you need to rest the voice BEFORE it's really bad if you want to actually prevent it from going downhill (vocal rest becomes a bit pointless once you've already lost your voice!). As anyone who knows me or who has read my last blog post knows, I'm not very good at quietness, but my part in Imaginary is a pretty hefty sing (and speak!) - all Gs and Abs, 3 songs in total, and my character has a really dumb way of speaking which endangers the silly actor's voice no matter how much he tries to support it. Silly actor. Silly part.
Great show. Come and see it! You can buy tickets for IMAGINARY at THE OTHER PALACE in LONDON from the 9TH TO THE 12TH AUGUST at this link right here: https://www.theotherpalace.co.uk/whats-on/imaginary. I know what you're thinking - my my that link is tempting to click. It's so darn easy. I could just click it and buy tickets right here right now. And even if I don't, I might be convinced by subtle later reminders throughout the post.
The days at NYMT are pretty intensive - wake up around 7, breakfast at 8, start rehearsing at 9am and then finish rehearsing at 9pm before bed at 11! Fortunately we did most of my Act 1 stuff pretty early so I've managed to find time to blog and even watch the latest Game of Thrones episode (GO WATCH IT FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND BUY TICKETS FOR IMAGINARY). But I'm finding the structure quite nice after a month of holiday and boring old work. Apologies but I have a feeling that this might just be a 'recount what Robin has been doing as of late' post.
When I say work, I mean work for my dissertation, which has not been going terribly well. Part of the problem is that with such an independent piece of research you really have to set out your own path and find your own reading, but this means you end up reading a lot of less-than-relevant material, and also requires you simply to sit down and get on with it. This is tricky, and my attention span seems to have vanished at some point this summer. The topic I'm doing is cool though (maybe more on that another time (and by tickets for imaginary))!
Anyway, NYMT is a nice break from that. I love rehearsing with this company. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that I can be myself at NYMT more than almost anywhere else in my life; there aren't many places where I get to be with such lovely, like-minded people, people who enjoy having fun and who never have cause to be bitchy or mean to each other. It's such a relaxed and non-judgmental environment. It's a particular bonus this year because we get to spend lots of time with all of the *adorable* kids, who all have energy to envy, that deep-rooted plainness and honesty that so few adults have, and boundless imagination, which is kind of what the show we are doing is all about. It's a celebration of childhood, really!
The rehearsal room is a magical place. Not all rehearsals are special, of course, but the room breeds special moments, and it's rare not to have a show on which special rehearsal moments are plentiful. Several stick out from my first NYMT show 13, though perhaps the best was a 2 hour dance rehearsal with our choreographer Drew on the song 'Being a Geek', in which we got almost no choreography done because everyone kept jumping out into Grease-style dance moves (which Drew eventually put in!). Everyone was in stitches by the end. On the original version of BRASS we had a particularly amazing rehearsal which was funny and poignant in equal measure: poignant because we (as soldiers in the trenches of WW1) ended up singing a spontaneous harmonized and hummed rendition of 'Silent Night'; and funny because Jack McNeill forget that Christmas was Jesus's birthday. The show London Road also had a particularly memorable rehearsal for me in which I kept messing up the words of a song in which the character kept messing up what they had to say, all the while in front of someone who was writing an article about our show!!
We've had several moments with elements of that rehearsal magic like that already this week, but I'll just recount one. The director of Imaginary, Shaun, is a terrific storyteller, and yesterday he was relating a tale to the young 'uns about one of the teachers from his youth. I was on my laptop at the back of the room typing, and scattered about were other members of the cast, on their phones, reading their scripts, or chatting. Shaun's teacher, he was telling the kids, had not been an imposing figure, and she had never needed to raise her voice; because every time the class started to misbehave or stop listening, she would simply tap her pencil slowly on the desk and stare out at the class until they quietened down. Now as Shaun told us this he too began to tap his pencil on the desk, and I looked up from my laptop screen to see the entire room, quiet and staring at Shaun, as if he had managed to channel that very teacher from his childhood days. He's a fab, fab director.
Anywho, I'm being called off to rehearse again now, but hopefully more blogging will be done before the end of the week! In short: having a great time.
RJLF
What is to be said? Currently, nothing, because I am on voice rest, mainly because I enjoy the extra attention that this status brings. When I am very bored with work at Cambridge I often carry a sign around saying that I am on vocal rest and then spending the whole day performing elaborate mime. This is part of my general quest to bemuse as many people as possible before (and potentially after) I die.
The voce is mostly fine at the moment, though an hour's silent blogging can only help. The problem with poor vocal health is that it totally creeps up with you, so you need to rest the voice BEFORE it's really bad if you want to actually prevent it from going downhill (vocal rest becomes a bit pointless once you've already lost your voice!). As anyone who knows me or who has read my last blog post knows, I'm not very good at quietness, but my part in Imaginary is a pretty hefty sing (and speak!) - all Gs and Abs, 3 songs in total, and my character has a really dumb way of speaking which endangers the silly actor's voice no matter how much he tries to support it. Silly actor. Silly part.
Great show. Come and see it! You can buy tickets for IMAGINARY at THE OTHER PALACE in LONDON from the 9TH TO THE 12TH AUGUST at this link right here: https://www.theotherpalace.co.uk/whats-on/imaginary. I know what you're thinking - my my that link is tempting to click. It's so darn easy. I could just click it and buy tickets right here right now. And even if I don't, I might be convinced by subtle later reminders throughout the post.
 |
| NYMT Imaginary Cast! You simply must come. |
The days at NYMT are pretty intensive - wake up around 7, breakfast at 8, start rehearsing at 9am and then finish rehearsing at 9pm before bed at 11! Fortunately we did most of my Act 1 stuff pretty early so I've managed to find time to blog and even watch the latest Game of Thrones episode (GO WATCH IT FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND BUY TICKETS FOR IMAGINARY). But I'm finding the structure quite nice after a month of holiday and boring old work. Apologies but I have a feeling that this might just be a 'recount what Robin has been doing as of late' post.
When I say work, I mean work for my dissertation, which has not been going terribly well. Part of the problem is that with such an independent piece of research you really have to set out your own path and find your own reading, but this means you end up reading a lot of less-than-relevant material, and also requires you simply to sit down and get on with it. This is tricky, and my attention span seems to have vanished at some point this summer. The topic I'm doing is cool though (maybe more on that another time (and by tickets for imaginary))!
 |
| Always combining work and theatre #buyimaginarytickets |
Anyway, NYMT is a nice break from that. I love rehearsing with this company. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that I can be myself at NYMT more than almost anywhere else in my life; there aren't many places where I get to be with such lovely, like-minded people, people who enjoy having fun and who never have cause to be bitchy or mean to each other. It's such a relaxed and non-judgmental environment. It's a particular bonus this year because we get to spend lots of time with all of the *adorable* kids, who all have energy to envy, that deep-rooted plainness and honesty that so few adults have, and boundless imagination, which is kind of what the show we are doing is all about. It's a celebration of childhood, really!
The rehearsal room is a magical place. Not all rehearsals are special, of course, but the room breeds special moments, and it's rare not to have a show on which special rehearsal moments are plentiful. Several stick out from my first NYMT show 13, though perhaps the best was a 2 hour dance rehearsal with our choreographer Drew on the song 'Being a Geek', in which we got almost no choreography done because everyone kept jumping out into Grease-style dance moves (which Drew eventually put in!). Everyone was in stitches by the end. On the original version of BRASS we had a particularly amazing rehearsal which was funny and poignant in equal measure: poignant because we (as soldiers in the trenches of WW1) ended up singing a spontaneous harmonized and hummed rendition of 'Silent Night'; and funny because Jack McNeill forget that Christmas was Jesus's birthday. The show London Road also had a particularly memorable rehearsal for me in which I kept messing up the words of a song in which the character kept messing up what they had to say, all the while in front of someone who was writing an article about our show!!
 |
| Me and Elsa, who plays Miss Stoker (She's fab, and she really wants you to buy imaginary tickets. She'll cry if you don't.) |
We've had several moments with elements of that rehearsal magic like that already this week, but I'll just recount one. The director of Imaginary, Shaun, is a terrific storyteller, and yesterday he was relating a tale to the young 'uns about one of the teachers from his youth. I was on my laptop at the back of the room typing, and scattered about were other members of the cast, on their phones, reading their scripts, or chatting. Shaun's teacher, he was telling the kids, had not been an imposing figure, and she had never needed to raise her voice; because every time the class started to misbehave or stop listening, she would simply tap her pencil slowly on the desk and stare out at the class until they quietened down. Now as Shaun told us this he too began to tap his pencil on the desk, and I looked up from my laptop screen to see the entire room, quiet and staring at Shaun, as if he had managed to channel that very teacher from his childhood days. He's a fab, fab director.
Anywho, I'm being called off to rehearse again now, but hopefully more blogging will be done before the end of the week! In short: having a great time.
RJLF
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