Monday, November 14, 2011

Dressed for success

A couple of missed rehearsals as I take my stinking cold to Vancouver for birthday celebrations. Not quite the same as hopping on the Eurostar for a weekend in Paris (as I used to do when I lived in London), but staying with my friend Krys (in town for a conference) at the lovely and surprisingly continental Sylvia Hotel is a very close second.



An excellent exhibition and a couple of films add to the feeling of getting away to the big city.



But the best thing is, of course, spending time with lovely friends.

Back on Gabriola, an e-mail informs me that we will be rehearsing all of act one in costume.

Mine (sorry, no photo) is a trenchcoat, white shirt, bow tie and fedora, complete with rat ears. (Happily, the furry legs seem to have fallen by the wayside.) Certainly not the greatest challenge facing our excellent costume department.

They’ve gone to town on Sonia’s Widow Wobbly ensemble.



Michael’s not entirely sure why Rattles is wearing lederhosen, but, oddly enough, it works.



Herb and I may have escaped the furry legs, but Ginny’s General Scurvy gets ’em. Rather her than me.



And Jean’s Mayor Stevens is coming along nicely.

Did I mention that out of eight male roles all but two are actually being played by females? I’d say it was a deliberate piece of panto gender bending, but it truly is a case of needs must. For whatever reason, 90% of the Gabriola Players are women. (Makes finding plays a bit of a challenge.)

So, we’re all costumed up and the rehearsal begins. A considerable reduction since last week in the number of times people have said “Line” to the prompter, which speeds things up to slightly longer than we want act one to be. People need to pick up the pace a bit.

We await the director’s verdict. She wants to run through two of the scenes again.

Neither of the scenes involve the rats. Yes! Ginny, Herb and I exchange high fives. The rats continue to be perfect. (Well, more or perhaps less.)

Next rehearsal is all of act two, in all of which Herb and I share a one-word line. I think we can probably manage it.

Thursday we will be doing the full play.

And then we move to the actual venue for technical and dress rehearsals.

Oh, my god. It’s coming up fast.

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