We have now finished our rehearsals.  It’s hard to believe the three weeks are already over.  Here are some photos from the rehearsal room: Stefan D’Bart and Polly Whybrow rehearsing Michael Hart’s “No More, Salvator.” And here’s our Director, Ellie Joseph, with her Assistant Director, Vikki Alexander, overseeing everything.

Now it’s time to get these actors in front of an audience.  But before we can do that, we have to do what is aptly called “The Get In.”  Yesterday, my CurvingRoad partner, Sonja Rein, and some of the production team drove a van all over London picking up everything from trees out of a local park, to cables and lights from the electrics company.  Today, everything gets dropped off at the theatre and the get in begins.  The back wall is painted black.  The wardrobe is organized and put backstage,  the entire set is created which, in this case, means a small space will be converted first to a forest outside of Chicago and then to a room in the Louvre.  I’m okay with words, but it’s beyond me to figure out how one stage can hold two sets at once, hiding one and then the other.  (Thank God for our set designer, Lucy). Our intrepid lighting guy, Mark, will start programming all the lights along with George, our hugely talented composer/sound man so that our stage manager, Amy, can sit in her booth each performance and make it all happen.   The work begins at noon and will likely go on until near midnight.  Then, comes “the tech” where each moment in each play is coordinated with it’s own sets of cues for lights and sound.  That will also take an entire day.  So by the time we open on Tuesday, the 8th of June, the production team will have already been working for days in the space.  It’s fun and exhausting and, I must admit, occassionally stressful.
  In the meantime, the publicity machine has been working getting the word out, inviting reviewers to Press Night, trying to place articles and interviews about us. There’s a lot of competition for a limited amount of column inches devoted to the theatre in London’s papers.  So we were absolutely thrilled to find that an interview I did for The Stage turned into a full-page article complete with (horrifyingly enough) a very large photo of me. Unfortunately, the article isn’t on their website yet and I can’t figure out how to place the pdf I have here.  So, I guess you’ll either have to trust me or buy a copy.
   The next time I’m here with you all the preparations will have been completed, we will have had two previews and Press Night. Wish us luck.  But I won’t be talking about the play then.  Then, I’ll be hosting a special guest who’ll be answering some questions about his work and recently published book.  I know, isn’t the suspense killing you?