Thursday: Run 1: Notes

These were Simon's notes for our first run through of the show in the New Theatre on Thursday:

- Good, moving, thought-provoking.
- It's going really quickly, feeling a bit rushed, slow down - you have a lot of time.
- Everything needs to go slower to allow people to watch it all.
- When you're all on stage at once, it becomes cluttered - use the whole stage space - go right to the edges.

- Opening: our talking should be low level noise, focus on the house lights going out. Tuwaine judges when to come forwards. It took too long, as soon as he steps forward we need to be silent and attuned to what is happening on stage.
- As he moves the silence drifts down the rostra, like a ripple effect. Do not shush anyone. Wait for the silence, all attention on T.
- Make sure you fill the space, there were big gaps with no-one in them and a lot of us clumped together upstage.
- When we speak at the beginning - deliver those lines, speak loudly and clearly and let yourself be heard, "When I think about the First World War, I think of..."
- Listen to the recording like you've never heard it before. Take a longer time to leave the space. Actively listen to the recording.

- The Recruitment: Space your chairs out and use the whole space. Stay until the change in the music happens. Wait until it stops - until you leave. At that point Cameron and I were the only two left on stage, when we should have all still been there.
- Enjoy the moment, don't panic and rush off stage. You know what comes next and you can take as long as you like to get there. Slow everything down. Remember to keep telling the story as you leave.

- Bar Call: look left, look right, then move - take your time. You know the distance you need to travel, so move to the appropriate speed to get there.
- Keep your back or profile to the audience, do not turn around and look at the audience.

- Marching: It's too fast, slow it down or it goes way too quickly.
- Harrison shouts the orders too, or it's too quiet.
- We'll have a whistle for the real performance.
- Hold your gun left to right and drop it for the women's section.

- Boxes Section: Leave slowly, come up very slowly and watch the box.
- When you take the box do it slowly, place the box back and go off stage.

- Fat Cats: No words - snorts/laughs/giggles/noises, but no spoken words.
- Animalise it - snorts, belches, burps- make it horrendous/grotesque/animal like- the line between human and animal is blurred.

-Line at the end: Shuffle yourself, move and line yourselves up into a line and make sure who is in your next line.
-Go when the people next to you go, it goes down a line at a time.

These notes were really helpful and they're really going to allow me to improve my performance for our first show.