Thursday 17th February

The final rehearsal of what has in many ways been a rehearsal process to remember forever . A play with no laughs . A play with emotional moments beyond comprehension , and a play with moments to saviour . A sadness seeped through the room today , as I trudged out the exit carrying the table on the first part of it's journey to being a big part of the show . Extensive work on the second half . Just the slightest touch here and there and a warmhearted feel among the cast was enough to leave a pleasing touch on the vacant for a few weeks rehearsal room . Things such as suicide notes and Guilty , Guilty , GUILTY may never breach the room again , but long into the future they will always be held in high regard . A beautiful Piece with some beautiful moments. Now all we need is an audience , so fingers crossed

Thursday 10th February

As much as I get a bit fucking tired of doing this journal every rehearsal , todays is actually a pleasure . Next week is the last rehearsal , but we're ready . I feel after next week , everyone will approach the show with a positive attitude . A very difficult play for the actors to evoke to the audience . A massive amount happening is such a short space of time . The thing I love most about producing shows , is that how a production continuously changes throughout , and also how different lines are differently interprated by different people . I need to find a new style of writing this journal instead of monotony being it's best asset . Highlight of the day : Definately Harry telling Sean to act like Clint Eastwood

Thursday 3rd February

Finally , after all those weeks , I had the moment . In every rehearsal process , there comes a time where you sick back and say ' good , it's really coming together now ' . First full run of the show . Clocked at 1hr 17 mins , which I think is the perfect running time for a show . Was kind of staggered , with not much line calling . Odd bits to work on afterwords , but on a whole , a pretty competant run . A big shout out has to go to sean . He has clearly been working hard on his character . His consistency today at times was brilliant . Have got the sounds aswell , and without giving the story away , a half decent, believable knife . EEYA

Thursday 27th January

An interesting rehearsal today . First time we've been in the small room , and I think the stage setup was a bit smaller in length than the actual stage , so hopefully all could ignore the odd moment where actors got in each others way . Delighted to have blocked the entire show , and have three long rehearsals to hopefully fine tune the bits not quite working . I think sean found his true character at points in the second half of the rehearsal . Angry definately suits him . The end was quite easily blocked , but needs serious work . Hopefully everyone can be off book for next weeks first full run . I understand it will be rather intermittent , but then one expects that from the first run . I feel the main note for today is ' One must learn to think deeply about what they are saying and excercise the actors pause

Thursday 20th January

I am very aware of reiterating and repeating everything I've said the last few weeks , but once again , today , we worked our little socks off . Being able to put the first half of the show to bed and focussing solely on the second half will be very good next week . Unfortunately we had to rush some of the blocking towards the end , but seans progression today was something he should definately be commended for . It's great watching a show , knowing it's suppose to be an hour or so , and the time just flying by . There is a huge amount of work still to do in the second half of the play , but it should all be blocked after next week and then we should have time to just concentrate on the wee nitty gritty bits . Poster in progress , programmes in progress and on the hunt for set . What does that tell you ? That's right , it's nearly show time . Nice one

Thursday 13th January

Today I went with a goal , and accomplished this . Moving into the second half of the piece was very different . It almost feels like the beggining of a new play . A huge amount happens before Peter enters , and when he does the story changes somewhat . Even in the five pages we blocked today , the audience still don't really know anything about Peter and undoubtably how significant to the story line he turns out to be . Sean ahs been itching to get on stage and having waited so long shows a keeness that stood him in good sted . The plan is to finish blocking by the end of the month and use the remaining rehearsals to tinker with bits , tighten up certain areas , go over what works and what doesn't and hopefully focus on getting everyone into the right mind set for the show . Doing the hotseat today was very interesting . A very intimidating , emotionally arduous excercise , especially without doing a huge amount of rehearsals , but everyone coped with it amiably and hopefully took something more about their characters home

Thursday 6th January

The very fact that todays rehearsal went past the requisite time of 6 o clock , is an indication of how much was achieved today . Basking in the grandeur of the fully blocked first half of the play and still being able to run over things blocked last week was very enjoyable . I felt a real progression in the play today . Mainly because George and Tam have both had a chance to express themselves and get their side of the story accross , and mainly because there is a real growing relationship there . Next week will be tough . Having three poeple on stage at the one time all involved in the one conversation can be tough for all involved , but I see no reason why everyone can't rise to the challenge . It will be great for Sean to finally get in on the act and start learning more about what his character has to offer . On a negative note , I did try and invent a game called ' High five , fuck it big tens ' , but it was awful and will probably be banned from the rehearsal room . To be fair , it did get the heart rate up . Another succesful day in the shand room of gags , teabags and most importantly : dictatorship of the highest and hopefully non patronising manner

Thursday 30th December

A good rehearsal today . Lots achieved . A difficult thing working on the script rather sporadically . Because Harry wasn't here this week , we jumped ahead and done a lot of work on the ending and leading up to the end . It has been tough for sean so far , becuase he hasn't really had the chance to chronologically block any of his stuff , but after next week , we will be up to his entrance and then the whole production will fit into place and all the small links will intertwine . I feel like we have accomplished a huge amount in the few rehearsals and although there is a slight lack of the fun element due to time issues , it is very pleasing to still be achieveing such a vast amount of quality rehearsing . Hopefully the new year will bring even better results on stage . The end of what has been a fantastic year . Bring on 2011

Thursday 23rd December

A hugely productive day today . One of the most productive in all my time rehearsing . Due to a lack of rehearsal time for this show , I have made the conscious decision to have less lingering and more work . Although my philosophy has always been ' having a laugh whilst getting the job done' , this has been slightly reigned in due to the pressures of getting the piece on its feet . Sfter today however , I feel a lot more relaxed . We ran the first 23 minutes of the piece and what a journey so far . It's amazing because when one talks of a one act play , they think of a story that could conclude but also be added to . They forget that in this one act piece , there is only three characters , two of which have a 30 minute conversation before the other enters . I feel Harry and Mark done very well today , especially in the static pieces . Holding an audience is difficult at the best of times , but they have stage presence in abundance and seem to have formed an instantly good coherence on stage . This pleases me , as to me this is more imporatnat than the quality of the acting . Being as one on a stage is pivitol in any production . I left the rehearsal room feeling very content and suddenly had this overwhelming urge to see the finished article already . Roll on next week

Thursday 16th December

Great to get the show up on it's feet and glad it looks like we will get a decent amount of work put in before the end of the year . Many things achieved today . A harmonious feel among the cast growing by the day . A good look at what must be done to achieve believability at the end and also managed to blcok and run the first 5/6 minutes of the show . There is an air of excitement about this piece . I feel because it will only be about an hour , certain things can be worked on very specifically , without being too blocked . Just watching the first few minutes of the show felt great .  Of course there is no humour att all in this show , so keeping the audience engaged in the storyline is the biggest task at hand . I have a lot of belief in the people I'm working with and am looking forward to what I feel will be an arduous , but creatively exciting process . Not as much scope for procrastination this time round , but who's to say that's a bad thing...

Thursday 9th December - Read Through

It's great to start a new project . Always a wonderful feeling , sitting listening to the script being battered out and knowing over the course of the next few months things will be said , feelings will be felt , points will be put accross , some agreed with some disputed , the cast will be on the periphery of madness and the edge of aesthetic joy , the director will go through a mixture of fury , anger and creative enlightenment . These are just a few of the things one experiences when getting involved in an arduous Michael Shand production , but this is why the process is so endearing and this is why we produce what we produce . In order to produce great theatre , one must push themselves and take risks that may well work and may not work , but will at least be tested and never ventured upon again . The stage is a place full of a thousand little squares , each one needs to be touched and each one will be touched in this new show . I'm excited , very excited.