Hello world,
Yaz here, director of Titus. I’ve been promising the team a blog post for a long time. I want to tell you all about the wonderful workshops we’ve had, the challenges we’ve faced in bringing this complex story to life, the questions of gender identity and politics that this play has thrown up (for the men and women involved), and how we’re both vilified and terrified by the whirlwind of attention the show has been getting.
I can’t wait to write about our approach to comedy, what we’ve learnt about verse, and the ‘rules’ that we’ve developed to try and understand Smooth Faced Gentlemen’s style. I’ll explain the challenges and opportunities of me leaving the cast for a fortnight, what I’ve learnt as a director in this unique experience, and the rationale behind our rehearsal process.
I’ll write about all of that. But today, time is short, so I’m sticking to practical updates.
In the future, I’m going to try blogging these shorter “mini-updates” more frequently, scattered amongst the wonderful rehearsal blogs the cast are producing.
Rehearsal rooms
One very exciting development in the last few weeks – we’ve got a new permanent home for rehearsals. From early June to late July, we have a full-time space at The Biscuit Factory. This complements our other base at The-Drama-School-We-Cannot-Name very nicely.
It’s always nice to run a rehearsal process in a space the cast can call their own. Plus, the Biscuit Factory have another workshop we can use for our paint rehearsals. Messy messy fun.
Stratford-upon-Avon
A couple of weeks ago we took a team trip to Stratford – the cast, Rachel (assistant director), and myself. We saw the RSC’s production of Titus, met some of the cast, and had a great verse workshop in the RSC rehearsal studios. Amazing how much the trip unlocked for us. Here’s the gang outside the RSC:
Will blog about the verse work we did with Michael and Mariam (company co-founders and RSC actors) very soon. It’s tremendously useful stuff, based loosely on the work of The Factory. Lots of pacing, playing, and chucking tennis balls around. Great stuff.
Tickets
Ticket sales are looking great, especially in Buxton. Some nights are filling right out, though others have plenty of availability. If you haven’t booked tickets yet, I’d strongly recommend you do so soon, especially for the last couple of nights in Buxton.
Composer
We’ve also just confirmed a composer for Titus. Sam Dunkley with be creating the music for Titus, joining our sound designer, James Percival. They’ve got some cracking ideas. Including a bit with a melodica…
Fans in Buxton might remember Sam from his six successive year performing award-winning gigs at the Fringe there.
Curtain
That’s enough for today. Don’t forget to follow @SmoothFacedGent on twitter for more titbits of our day-to-day developments. And get booking!
