Arabian Nights Director Amy Leach updates us on how our Christmas production is coming along…
We’re now past the half way mark to our opening night. In some ways, it feels like we have acres of time left until we welcome our audience in and perform the play for them for the first time. And yet in others ways the reality of performing Arabian Nights is looming large.
Week three has been a busy one. Alongside rehearsals, we’ve had to fit in the media launch for the show, turban fittings, a visit to our theatre space at The Lowry, vigorous dance calls, and weaving live music into the production for the first time. All with the second half of the play to put together and an actor with a bad case of food poisoning.
The hard graft has really kicked in. Whilst the playfulness of the first two weeks is still encouraged, we’ve now worked out the general shape of how we’re going to tell each story. So it’s time to revisit sections we’ve already created in order to polish, tighten and refine. We’ve started looking at the details, rehearsing moments over and over again in a mission to make the whole show tighter, clearer and as slick as we can. We’ve also started to run sections together, seeing how they feel once placed in sequence, and asking ourselves if the rhythms and tones for each story feel right once they are part of the whole.
I’m glad there’s lots of time left before we open – we still have lots of work to do before the play is ready for an audience. And yet, I also can’t wait to have a live audience for this production. At the media launch on Tuesday, we put together a short presentation of the opening two pages of the script to present to invited local press. As the first words of the script were spoken, “Long long ago, in a faraway land …” I have to admit that I got a little frisson of excitement. They are such evocative words, drawing you straight into a magical world where anything can happen. And they can only truly come alive when the magic ingredient of theatre – the audience – are added.
Arabian Nights runs at The Lowry Fri 30 Nov 2012 – Sat 12 Jan 2013. Family deals and children’s tickets are available for only £10 at all performances. You can book tickets online here or from The Lowry Box Office on 0843 208 6010.