Rehearsals - working as a company


      I really think that working as a company can be as good as working by yourself and sometimes, even better, as long as you resonate with your teammates and are working on the same level. I’ve said that, because I, personally, like to work on my own; I feel free to follow my own vision and work in my own way, which I think not many people understand; anyways, working with other people gives you a strong amount of confidence and the beautiful feeling that you’re not alone in that project.
      My team was made of 9 other people: JP, Tristan, Daniella, Kaddie, Harry, Mya, Michael, Chloe and Kieran. We are so different, but we have the same passion and rehearsing with them was so fun. Everyone was dedicated and focused and a few days before the performance, when we had the final rehearsals, I felt how the atmosphere was full of emotions. Still, what’s the best way to get through this if not by having fun together?
       While the other 2 groups were working together, we were most of the time in the 222 room, rehearsing or discussing production or technical ideas. Sometimes we were starting the rehearsals by warming up ourselves with some games or stretching. I really enjoyed the games part, because we had days when we were depressed, with no energy to put a smile on our face, but playing made the atmosphere change and somehow we gained energy from each other.
 
       One of the things that I liked most was that everyone could share their ideas and the others were saying if they agree or not. That’s how we took almost all of the decisions for this play. And that’s how I shared my opinions, too. Sometimes, while others were rehearsing, I was watching and I was getting ideas of how we could improve the scene in matter of movement, the whole image or dramatic level. For example, seeing the Banquo’s apparition I was thinking something is missing, so I told them that Kieran should change places when he appears the second time and play around a little bit, like a ghost would do. With 2 days before the performance, Tristan announced us that he couldn’t be there for Monday, for health reasons. Then, new problems appeared. Like, what are we going to do  with the roles Tristan was playing? Malcolm and Donalbain had a big part of a scene together. Thinking for a while, I’ve eliminated the idea of someone replacing him because we had no one to know his lines good. The only option was to transform a dialogue into a monologue. Well, it wasn’t hard, the only thing I had to do was to acknowledge I was an only child and at that point I had a conversation with myself.
 
        I have to admit, with Rob missing, things went a little bit crazy for a moment. We, the students, felt lost, especially when we had started to work the beginning of the play with him before the Christmas holiday. Then, we had Shenagh and Monique, who tried to help us as much as they could. As time was passing by, my group was wondering if we would make it to our performance, if we will manage to learn our lines in time or if we can play the scenes in the exact order, as a whole.

These couple of pictures are taken on our first classes since being the blue group. Looking back, we’ve improved so much in terms of relationships with each other and experience, because, yeah, we made it! We managed to run a performance for an audience all by ourselves.