Our Rehearsal in a Garage

A couple of photo's from our rehearsal in Blair & Deborah's garage yesterday. Those of you who have seen the play in Blackwood you will notice that Blair has re-created the set exactly as it was at home.

Godfather Death - The Travelling Band

The Godfather Death’s Travelling Band

Hi all.
Here is my first blog from Canada. Well this certainly has been a real eventful past 48 hours since our departure.
Not sure if news has filtered through but the Maidmans started the event by realising, after they had left home and were sitting in Newport waiting for Steve Wride that they had left an overnight bag back in sunny Aberdare!!.
Everything for a reason they say because after they had delivered Steve to car 2 (comprising Myself, Nye, Sarah and Shelly) and were merrily making our way along the M4, Nye had realised that the web cam for the broadcast was sitting happily back in Blackwood (along with my cane I hasten to add). So after some frantic calls between various houses and cars car 1 (the Maidmans) were swinging by Blackwood on their way back to pick up the items on their way through as my good lady Ros along with my youngest daughter Sally met them at the rendezvous site to transfer the contraband.
This was happening whilst car 2 was merrily making its way to the refreshment stop (The Spring Inn) just outside Newbury. Very nice it was too.
So eventually Cars 1 and 2 met at Reading services to make their way to the Travel Lodge in gatwick. Beers were swilled and stories of the night were exchanged.
Wednesday morning arrived and we made our way to Gatwick after I decided that I would drive everyone round the perimeter of the airport as I missed the turn to get to South Terminal. My excuse being that I wanted to show them exactly how large London's 2nd airport was.
The flight went well and was pretty uneventful. However I did wonder what the average age of the people was on the plane as for a moment I thought I was on a remake of Cocoon!!
Usual bland airline food and the philosophy of if we can sell everything on this plane at exorbitant prices we will!!
Landing was good too as we were warned of turbulence coming in over Halifax but I think the pilot was just wanting to see the look of panic in everyones eyes when he said it as I thought it was pretty good.
So we made our way through customs. Everyone through ok but guess what. Steve Wride was no where to be seen. On looking through the glass that separated the arrivals area from those who went through immigration. We could see Steve sitting quite comfortably filling in his 2nd form as he had left the one we were given on the plane!. For a moment I thought Steve was making himself comfortable for a while. A security guard went over to him to check he was ok and in his usual relaxed style just nodded, smiled and said he would be done soon.
So out of baggage claim and into the airport. Met our drivers and made our way to Liverpool. One and a half hours later were delivered to the holding point, The Curling Club. Registration made monies paid by us and some purchases of the festival goodies we  were driven to our billets.
Settled in we then made our way back to the Astor Theatre for the opening cerimonies of the festival.

 Flags paraded for each country anthems sung and speeches made we settled in for some scenes from the Full Monty. I’ll leave my thought to myself on that. Suffice to say my retena is now scarred with images I should never have seen.
Opening play was by a local Canadian group and I thought it was a very good piece even though I ddnt understand a word of it.
We adjurned to Lanes for an opening party but in view of the 2 days we had traveling many of us decided that as we had a long day ahead of us headed back to our respective billets.
So Thursday has dawned and we are just about to head to Deb and Blairs place to rehearse and then get the 5 tons of wood over to the Astor Theatre.
Feeling a little nervous now as the time approaches but its a great experience.
I know this has been a long blog but trying to get things down for people to read and catch up on where we are now. All being equal should be able to add items on a more regular basis.
Dont forget we are hoping to stream live from Canada and will be ‘going up’ 8.30 pm here 00.30 am Friday UK time. I hope some of you can catch it!! - www.blackwoodlt.org.uk - click on Live Stream !
Cheers from us all.

Jerry

BLT LITF Day 1 - Travelling to Gatwick

Tightening The Tale To Travel.

With just four days and one rehearsal before the flight leaves London for Halifax, Nova Scotia taking the cast of Godfather Death and it's Technical Director, but, alas, not it's Director and Devil, to The Liverpool International Theatre Festival, it is time for reflection. Have we done with this play what we wanted to do? We wanted to redefine it from the predominately two-handed, virtuoso piece it was originally written as, into an ensemble piece, which admittedly had less obvious possibilities for humour, bur with greater opportunity for atmosphere and Brechtian interplay as cast moved from audience to a storytelling event, into figures in the tale, guided and manipulated by the, now elfin, Stranger. Feedback is interesting. The set and lighting is certainly a triumph for the BBC's Nye Brown and for Peter Musto. It and is used well and worked hard by a well choreographed production. The production came within one mark of winning the Gwent Festival but in order to win in Canada, or indeed in the Wales Final, it will need to be more confident in itself. What the production lacked, and I can say this as the man responsible, was absolute belief in themselves from the whole cast. They will need to be bigger and bolder to take this from a very good production to a superb one. It needs a swagger in it's step: bigger, bolder performances from all. This is a play of two halves - the first rumbustious and comic - the comedy needs a little more underlining with timing, exaggeration and greater projection of energy in places. The second half of the play is tender, reflective and involves a change in pace and mood. This is almost there, but again needs a little more underlining. All this is about work at the margins. A strong group of actors, buoyed by their success will now make the necessary slight changes to take this on. I wonder how the Canadians and international groups will enjoy this Brechtian piece - a style of theatre which is not for all: some preferring the sense of sustained illusion and realism. I remember a wonderful German piece four years ago not being well received at all by some of the audience and certainly by adjudicators not familiar with the Brechtian tradition so strong in European theatre. So, tomorrow, in our last hour so or to address these things, we'll try and tighten it all a notch again. The cast will doubtless be more focused on lines and transporting props and costumes while I fret over polishing and squeezing a bit more out of this old tale. Hwyl. Bon voyage and Guten Nacht, meine Lieben. Vic Mills.

The Gwent Festival.....Winners again, but not Godfather Death this time....Twas the Biscuits (and the Spoon) what won it!!

Today, I woke up with a very strange feeling, which I have not experienced before over the years that I have been competing in Theatre festivals.  BLT have won plenty of things over the years and we have also had our fair share of losing too.  Both have their own, separate emotional responses.  Today I am experiencing both!

To explain.  Godfather Death performed last night and did really well in the adjudications, with only one minor costuming point raised.  The night before, Biscuits - the other play entered by BLT and featuring Vic Mills in the leading role had an amazing night, with a completely faultless adjudication and the audience loving it.  I am the director of this show....I am chuffed for the cast, crew and for me!  When it came to the awards, BLT walked away with virtually everything that we were eligible for - Vic Mills won best actor, Gwen Livingstone the Adjudicator's award, I won best director and we picked up the Gwent Festival title too for Biscuits.  To have been playing one of the lead characters in GD and that to have lost - even though it was losing to ourselves, is a weird feeling.  I am both elated and slightly deflated.  I know that the same would be said if the decision had gone the other way.   I do know that these feelings are very temporary and totally illogical - we won!!  Team BLT won and it was in a play that I directed!   Having said all that - there was only 1 mark between our two plays, so perhaps we will both get to the final in a few weeks time?  Let's hope so.

Strange feeling for me or not, it takes nothing away from the amazing efforts of my fellow actors, crew, technical directors, foh teams and everyone associated with these two, very different productions. They have worked extremely hard - and sometimes our patrons and followers (and perhaps some of our competitors) don't realise the effort it takes to rehearse both these shows and be involved in running the theatre and take part in the full length play too.  Amazing stamina and fortitude by everyone involved - I salute you all.

 We entered competition in 2004 with GD and since then have competed in every Wales Final.  I have been fortunate enough to be involved in every one of those productions - in some shape or other.  Since 2004 we have had 11 plays in Wales Finals, with 6 plays in the past 3 years.  If we were to get both into this year's final, that would be an amazing achievement.  We shall see - the results of the top 6 plays in Wales will be announced at the Torch Theatre in Milford Haven, next week - Saturday 5th May....so we will know all then. I shall be attending with with both a BLT and a DAW hat on.  Busy times for BLT with a Canada trip and potential Wales final and then there is Dad's Army!

Well done again to everyone at BLT.  Please keep your fingers crossed for us, next weekend!

Cheers

Neil

First appearance in a Festival

Ok well here goes. This is my first attempt at 'blogging'.
I read for Godfather Death a little while ago at Blackwood Little Theatre. It was with delight that I had the news that Vic Mills decided to place his faith in me and cast me in this one act.
Although I have trodden the boards for more years than I care to remember (36 years to be precise my first years up in North Wales with Caernarfon Rep and then with Theatr Fach in Llangefni) this will be my first foray into competition. My daughter Fay has beaten me to this 2 years in a row. Pity she will not be here to see her 'old man' and pass on her experience (she is on holiday cruising around the Med lucky thing)!!
I have found the rehearsals to be quite intense and enjoyable as every move is thought through to ensure that the production flows from beginning to end. This, I realise, is to ensure that every precious minute is used to its full capacity for the short time that the play is running. It has brought new challenges to me as I found that I had to think carefully about the character I am playing. Even the dialogue throughout the play has been looked at ensuring we are phrasing and placing the right emphasis on what we say.
Last night we managed to run the play twice over. This has helped all of us cement everything we have rehearsed which resulted in a happy director (well that’s what he said last night) having said this there are still one or two areas that we are refining to make sure we get the most out of everything.
Next time I tread the boards will be at dress rehearsal. I am looking forward to seeing it all come together.
It will be new experience for me to have someone adjudicate a production I appear in. I look forward to hearing what is said about our work (I hope culminating in getting through to the Welsh finals). I know that it will be a nerve racking experience for me but in a sadistic way I am looking forward to it.
As mentioned in other blogs if you have a chance please come along. Your support would be appreciated both by us at Blackwood Little Theatre and by the Festival organisers ensuring that local amateur theatre is supported.

Cheers

Jerry

Godfather Death Tech Rehearsal

My first encounter with Godfather Death was back in 2004 (I was 16 at the time !) - It was one of my first plays with Blackwood Little Theatre and certainly my first experience of a One Act Play. 

If I am totally honest I don’t remember a lot about the Lighting of this play the first time around, I obviously didn’t care much for drawing rig plans and keeping records of what I was doing in my younger days.  I do remember the play at the Congress Theatre, Cwmbran and having to light the large rotating moon using a follow spot as there were no other spare lanterns, it wasn’t ideal but we had to work with what we had - at the start of the play the follow spot swung around the Theatre a few times trying to find it’s intended target !

The Lighting design this time around is fairly simple and a lot of the play happens in an intentional shadow, there is a lot of blue at low level with just a touch of front light to create a facial shadow. I have experimented with a number of different tones of blue throughout the rig which seems to be effective, especially at the beginning of the play. I have chosen color from the LEE Filters 700 series and specifically a shade of blue which is designed to be at it’s best at low light levels designed by David Hersey the Lighting Designer from Les Miserables, Evita and Cats in the West End !

The challenge with this play from a lighting point of view is to compliment what is happening on stage and create specific moods in a quite sympathetic way, but the action all happens quickly therefore not a lot of time to build cues and states.

Yesterday was Technical Rehearsal and as the play is part of a One Act Festival there are strict rules as to what can and can’t be done technically - the biggest challenge is the one hour time limit to plot cues and rehearse all things technical. Our Tech hour flew by but luckily it all went well and Vic, myself and the cast used every second of the hour to get all our cues in the desk and walked through.

All we can do now is look forward to next weekend when we can see if it all works !

Aneurin - Technical Director BLT