We’re so very nearly there…

So we are now only a week away from the set get in at Itchen Valley Country Park, two weeks away from the technical fit up and precisely two and a half weeks until the technical rehearsals!  Safe to say this is why we haven’t updated our blog as much as we should have done as we have been quite busy trying to get everything ready in time (especially with the amount of props Dan has decided he wants as usual!).

Over the last month myself, Dan and Amy have been busy in the office as well as the rehearsal room (where the cast have been especially busy working hard preparing the show for their performances).  When it comes to our productions, as a youth theatre we rely very heavily on sponsorship and support from local companies and businesses in order for us to be able to afford to put our shows on.  For The Jungle Book, we are very fortunate that RBS Scaffold and Selwood are our production partners.  RBS also sponsored our Christmas show in 2010 and this summer they are building all our structures and technical towers at Itchen Valley Country Park for us!  Geoff from RBS has been incredibly helpful and from next Monday, he and his team will be coming onto site and building all sorts of wonderful structures for us – some for our lighting towers so we can light the scenes but also some for our set, so look out for monkeys clambering over things!  Selwood have also been fantastic, and they are providing us with generators and other plant equipment – things that are so crucial when we are working in an outdoor environment!  So we are so grateful for these two companies and also all the other businesses and organisations that are helping us.

As the DSM (deputy stage manager) for the production, my role in the rehearsal room is quite demanding but also very exciting and creative.  It is the DSM’s job to mark down all the blocking for the production in a copy of the script as well as keep rehearsal notes, so that everything that happens in the rehearsal room can be circulated to the rest of the creative team.  For instance, when Dan decides what props he would like for each character, or a particular piece of set that needs to be included in the scene, this is recorded in the rehearsal notes and is sent out to the creative team, which includes the designer, the musical director, the choreographer,  the stage management team and the technical team.  This way, they are all able to follow the directors’ vision for the production without being in the rehearsal room.  This makes the process smoother when they come to work directly on the piece, knowing what is expected on them.  We are also holding regular conversations and meetings with these members of the team as well so that we all know at what stage each department is at.  Last week, we had a production meeting to discuss all the technical requirements that lasted two and a half hours!  Clearly there were lots of items to discuss – including updates from our lighting designer Elliot about what equipment he needed us to order, how many radios we need to hire, logistics about when set pieces were being delivered and even a discussion about the hire of portable toilets! 

Another one of my roles as DSM, is to collate and record all the props that will be needed for the production, and then to collect and source them.  As much as possible, we are begging, stealing and borrowing what we can (not actual stealing obviously) and we are always blown away by people’s generosity so this is keeping me very busy to make sure that everything is in place as soon as possible.  We’re at one of my favourite stages of the production process now, at the point where everything is starting to come together and we can start to see the results of months of preparation and hard work.  Carl Davies our designer also comes down to start full time at the end of this week, so we’re really going to start to see things happen now and very quickly too.

I am currently writing this blog whilst in a rehearsal – and before you ask, no there is no other work for me to be doing.  Ivan Stott, our wonderful composer and MD (musical director) is teaching our cast one of the songs from Act 2.  This particular one is for Mowgli’s mother to sing to Mowgli after he has returned to the man village – and I would like to say it is beautiful.  The music Ivan has written is gorgeous and the cast have lovely voices – I might be biased about this but I am really excited about this production, possibly more so than I usually am, it is going to be a really wonderful experience for all involved.  I really can’t wait.

Louise Rickwood

Youth Theatre Coordinator

DSM – The Jungle Book

'Who knew ebay could be such fun?’

So it’s been a long while since my last update, but it has been pretty busy to say the least these last couple of weeks! What with rehearsals and sourcing props, materials and all of the other things we need to make a production like this work there’s been no time to/think about anything else but Jungle Book.

WE SOURCED A PROP ON EBAY THE OTHER DAY… and it was a very exciting moment. So one rehearsal our Youth Theatre ASM’s sat bidding on Daniels laptop for 2 hours to get a pair of old opera glasses for Chil the eagle to look down her nose through. I cannot even express the excitement in the room when we were down to the final couple of minutes, as the bidding was drawing to a close. The entire room was shouting the countdown from 10 and it was absolute madness. (Video to be uploaded later courtesy of our Cobra- Beth Folan who was recording the whole thing!) Alas, out first personal prop was found!!

Rehearsals are continuing to look fantastic, there is a lot of great character work happening especially in terms of making our actors look as animal-like as possible without having them all crawling around on the floor. It has been really interesting to find other ways of moving, and how to find animal movements in human beings. All of the scenes have some form of structure which is great, now comes the fun part of going through the play and adding much more detail.

Hugo our fight choreographer has come in a worked with everyone on the big fights in the play which was fantastic; the wolves in particular have been really great to watch in the fight sequences as they have sticks as an extension of their legs to help with movement, what Hugo and Dan have created looks absolutely great and I cant wait to see it in situ at Itchen Valley Country Park.

It is really interesting for me having been a part of the youth theatre since I was 15 which is four years now! I’ve gone from being in the shows every year to being trusted to DSM our Christmas show last year to now assistant directing! It is an incredible opportunity and although I have found this particular transition a challenge I will rise to it and make the most of it.

Sourcing everything we need is taking a while; I never knew how much went in to pulling a production as big as this off! Especially as it is a promenade production and it is outside, so generators, extra lighting, dressing rooms, office space and all the set and props need to be found, and this is not a small job, Louise, Youth Theatre Co-ordinator and Jungle Book’s DSM is working tirelessly to secure all of these.

So Jungle Book is definitely going – its well on its way and everything is looking amazing. Everything is so excited as we draw closer to the production itself and there is still lots to do!

Amy Pattison

Assistant Director

The Jungle Book: Now the fun starts

So it’s been a busy couple of weeks in the strange and exciting world of youth theatre. The auditions were fantastic and so much fun, lots of monkey-ing about to be had!! Then came Dan’s task of actually casting it, which I didn’t envy him having to do as there was lots of difficult decisions to be made, but in the end we were confident in the choices that had been made, now the fun could really begin. Me and Louise then spent the next couple of days sending out all of the Jungle Book information and PARTS to all the actors which was extremely exiting and everyone seemed genuinely happy with them which is always good to hear!

So we had a complete technical team list and a full cast list, it was time for the first rehearsal and read through!! The read through was fantastic and it was such a conformation that all of the right decisions had been made; it was also amazing to see the entire cast together in one space to really get an idea of the show.

Our second rehearsal was filled with exploring characters and generally creating the jungle in the theatre, pesky monkeys stealing shoes, the wolves holding them hostage and bears just minding there own business! All in all it was great to see the whole of youth theatre interacting with each other as their animal alter-ego’s! we also discovered some exciting physicality that could be used be used for the wolves and also Queen Cobra. Its nice to discover new things and watch as Dan creates something out of it.

So that’s us up to the day! Back to sourcing props and materials and everything we need to make such a huge production come to life!

Amy Pattison

Assistant Director

The Jungle Book: Auditions and Casting

The Auditions for the Jungle Book have gone fantastically well and we have a very strong cast all round.  Having the added complication of working out a cast for the Marwell version has been tricky and as ever with this fantastically talented group of young people, the decision making process is always very difficult and emotional.

But with the show now cast, we can finally let everyone know what they have got and that for me is when the show really starts to come alive. It is so important that the production goes beyond me as a director; creating a show is a collaborative process between the cast, the creative team, the stage management and ultimately the audience. This first stage of handing the responsibility of portraying each character from the page to an actor is one of the most important as the dynamic of the company and therefore the show is untimely affected by that combination of individuals.

And so it gives me great pleasure to list the company below:

Guy Anderson, Maddie Bidmead, Aidan Cooper, Millie Dale, Phoebe Dalgas, Lauren Davies, Millie Dowse, Grace Drinkwater, Benjamin Farnes, Jodie Farrell, Beth Folan, Olivia Forde, Lily French, Andrea Gillespie, Monica Greep, Richard Gunston, Conner Handstock, James Henderson, Gemma Higgins, Heidi Jones, Sydni Jones, Simon Keene, Ellie Kenna, Jonathon Knapp, Kate Koetsier, Farran Lee, Adam Leppard, Edie Lipton, Oliver Lyons, Tyler Maskall, Lucy Merry, Jessica Millicent, Anthony Moses, Daniel Page, Emily Pauley, Mollie Philips, Chelsea Quinn, Romalie Rees, Leah Reeves, Alana Sketcher, Ben Sutcliffe, Rejoice Tambayi, Izabella Tomassi, Lucy Warne, Isabel Wealleans, Catherine Wooldridge.

Daniel
PYT Director

The Jungle Book: pre-production

This week we have started rehearsals for our summer production of The Jungle Book, our very exciting promenade production taking place at Itchen Valley Country Park from the 2^nd – 7^th August. This first blog is a rundown of everything we have been up to over the last few months getting to this stage. We will then be regularly updating with all things Jungle Book and I hope that this will give you an insight into the backstage processes and what goes in to putting on a production with The Point Youth Theatre.

Pre-production on any show requires a lot of planning the logistics and also the dreaming up of many ideas. Before we can get creative however all the crucial jobs have to be done like sorting out budgets and writing contracts, then we can get on to thinking of far-fetched initial ideas - the early stages of projects like these are always extremely exciting!

Carl Davies, the designer and I did a site walk at Itchen Valley Country Park to work out the route of the performance and also decide locations for every scene. From here we could work out what kind of infrastructure is needed and more importantly, where in the park to put it! As we are creating a show outdoors we need to bring in all the necessary facilities for dressing rooms, production office, work spaces, toilets and interval setup, on top of all the set and LX. After this I was able to take the rest of the team round the site, Elliot our lighting designer and tech manager so that he can start thinking about all things electric and Ivan our Composer and MD so he can think about all things music.

So from then on it’s a cases of prioritising what we need and start the process of obtaining quotes and speaking to companies about how they might be able to help us with all this infrastructure. We are very fortunate to have RBS Scaffolding and Sellwood on board who are both supplying us with equipment in kind.  This sort of generosity is what make our shows on limited budgets possible.

Elliot and our technician Luke measured the whole site and mapped it out on an arial photograph of the park, this has proved a really useful task, and it made the project seem surprisingly less daunting as distances  between locations aren’t as long as I thought.

Also I have been talking to the guys at Aurora Metro Press.  They have decided that Neil’s script of The Jungle Book is going to be published for general release and they have asked to use our production as the published version, which is absolutely brilliant but means that I have had to sort out all the creative team and cast lists, images and content for the book so that it can be sorted, printed and published in time for the summer.

On top of all this we will also be performing a reduced version of the show with 6 actors at Marwell Wildlife for two weeks after the show at Itchen Valley.  This means casting two shows and sorting out everything for that alongside the Itchen Valley show!  We are very excited about having the opportunity to perform at such an amazing venue. This partnership meant that myself and some members of the Youth Theatre took a trip to Marwell as we needed photos for press and publicity. The whole team at Marwell were great and really supportive, we were met at the gate by head keeper Bill who walked us around the park, on our way we encountered a number of animals, and some got a little close for comfort as one member found when a giraffe dribbled down her neck! We also managed to take a look at the proposed site for the Marwell performance; it looks great and has a power supply which will keep Elliot more than happy.

The first few months leading up to a show are always pretty admin heavy, but also very exciting, and its during this time I get the creative team on board, who are:

Director - Daniel Hill

Designer - Carl Davies
Composer/Musical Director - Ivan Stott
Choreographer - Vicki Hargreaves
Fight Director - Hugo Jackson
Lighting Designer - Elliot Carmichael

Assistant Director - Amy Pattison

Assistant Musical Director - Marie Negus

Production Manager - Tim Slater

Technical Manager - Elliot Carmichael
Stage Managers - Tiff Jackson / Stacy Peters
Deputy Stage Manager - Louise Rickwood
Assistant Stage Managers - Lauren Banks / Claudia Hodgson / Amber Holland / Shante Nicholas
Costume Supervisor - Verity Sadler
Technicians - Josh Whittlesea / Luke Hornbuckle
Wardrobe Assistant - Zelina Rebeiro
Head Chaperon - Julie Folan

Rehearsal Production Assistant - Elliot Churcher

Rehearsal Directors Assistant - Daniel Fulton

Rehearsal Researcher - James Markiewicz

Daniel
PYT Director