Simply the best!

 With only about a month to go things are getting busy. Time has passed quickly. It seems like only yesterday we were sitting there, frantically trying to decide who we were going to cast. Now we're running through the entire show rather smoothly, and within the week hopefully our brilliant cast will be off book (providing they've done their homework).

 As I just mentioned above, before half term we managed to run the show in it's entirety with a nearly full cast (we were missing Oliver, but he's only the title character). It all went swimmingly, the actors remembered where to stand and kept their characters throughout. It was all brilliant! I have all the faith in the world that this will be a fantastical production. We just need to fine tune things now but we have 3 WEEKS for that, which is great. 

  After the run through we went through some blocking and character bits that needed to be polished. This included me going through some of the Brownlow scenes, rehearsing in our newly acquired Rose, Emily Cheshire, a current member of our cast. After this I then went through Fagin's speeches with him, trying to highlight and fine tune the emphasis on certain words and find the bits where he goes mental. It all looked great!

  I'm really looking forward to the finished product. It's been a pleasure to work on so far and I see no reason for that to change. Hope everyone's enjoyed the break over half term and I look forward to seeing the cast and crew again soon! we got singing next week!

It's all A-OK!

After Saturday's fairly succesful run through things were in full swing again. On Tuesday we were not able to rehearse due to dramatic edge's wonderful launch night, which I had the pleasure of attending. During the course of the night Louise gave several wonderful and encouraging speeches (LOUISE ROCKS) and we were given a sneak preview of 'Oliver Twist', involving Oliver's escape to London accompanied by the Artful Dodger. This was an especially magical performance because our usual Dodger (Matt P) had to be replaced by another member of the cast, Matt R, who is playing Bill Sikes, as Matt P had another part to play in the performances that night. Despite having to replace Dodger and giving Matt R only a week to learn the lines for that scene (essentialy a 3 page monologue for Dodger) the performance went brilliantly, and I'm sure it gave a positve impression to all the potential audience memebers viewing it that night. I'd also like to congratulate Matt P on his performance that night in an extract from Alan Ayckbourn's 'Round and Round the Garden'. It was done well and I'm sure your final GCSE piece will be great.
On Thursday we started powering through blocking for Act 2. As Louise worked through blocking in the studio, scene by scene, I took the people who were not needed for the scene away and worked through physical character with them. I tried to get them to think about each character they played, no matter how small, and give them a definitive physical stance, something that I think would help alot, especially with the crowd scenes. The finished products were very useful, giving each charcter a distinctive shape. Even bystander 2 had a charcter now, and you could tell the difference between them all. After that a flood of people arrived so they worked sparately on ther own little scenes, and I tried to get round to them all and offer help if needed. They all got on quite well running lines and walking through there scenes. I got the chance to stand in for Oliver in a fairly tense scene betweeen Nancy and Bill, which ended up being quite scary, but good. Just gald I don't have to be Oliver for real (poor Tommy). Our new Rose also arrived midway and settled in quite quickly. She started running through some scenes and became up to scratch with the blocking and charcter fairly quickly, which was useful.
On Saturday we continued with the blocking. Due to public transport being rubbish I arrived a bit late and when I walked in everyone was standing around in pairs counting to 3 between them. I thought Louise had decided to give them a basic maths lesson but soon realised that it was just another warm up game. After a few more games we cracked on with the blocking. That day I went through people's lines and focused on their speech making sure everyone was happy with how they were saying things and encouraged them to say the lines in different ways to see what suited the line best. I also got them to try and focus on the style of writing and the punctuation. One excercise I went through involved them walking round the space, picking a short line of theirs and asking them to try saying it in different volumes, ways and speeds, such as opera style and rap (that one was just for my amusemet). This all seemed to help.
At present everything seems to be going well and I think we have a brilliant production on our hands!

Back again and ready for action!!!

 After taking a brief hiatus from rehearsals for work last week I bounced (bounce, get it) back into the production this tuesday. We started with a game of 'bang' which was very fun, if a bit scary and stressful for me. It was a new game for me and it was a pleasure to be introduced to the game of bang by the students of HCC. It quickly got everybody's energy soaring and we were ready to start another rip roaring oliver Twist rehearsal.

  This rehearsal was a basic blocking rehearsal of one of Fagin's dens scenes, but Louise had assigned me to do some extra character work with Suresh and Kit who are playing Mr and Mrs Bumble respectively. We needed to explore how the characters relationship changed throughout the story, from humble work colleagues to embittered married couple. So I took the two of them aside and got them to read all the small scenes they had together. After that was done I got them to look at and think about they're beginning scene together, in the workhouse, and they're last scene together, as a disfunctional couple, and ask them how they felt the relationship had changed between the two scenes. This was followed by an activity where I got them to improvise a small scene where Mr Bumble proposed to Mrs Corney to bridge the gap between the two scenes, which Kit and Suresh did very well. After that I felt my work was done and we blocked the next scene with Mr Bumble and Mrs Corney all prepared.

  Today (Saturday 11th October) we finished off the last bits of blocking for act 1 and ran it for the first time. I was once again assigned to work through small bits of character and voice work with some of the cast that weren't needed for certain points. That all went well and then we ran act 1 in it's entirety for the first time. It had its hitch ups but for a first time run it was very good, especially since we didn't have everybody there. Cant't wait to next time when we shall approach act 2! It's gonna be great!!

Day one in the Oliver Twist house (read through)

Our read through went swimmingly well last week despite having only half the cast there. After all our deliberating and pondering over who to cast I think we've done the right thing. We did worry that, since the people we did have didn't really know each other, that there would be many awkward silences when we first sat down together. But we as soon as they sat down it was as if they had been in the cast of 'Oliver Twist' for eternity. Every one seemed to get on famously with each other, and everyone slipped into their characters fairly easy, which is always a bonus. Apart from the part where I read in for Dodger and he had a two page monologue it was one of the best readthroughs  I've ever been through, a really nice atmosphere. Can't wait for my first proper rehearsal!!!

Decision, decisions (why's it so hard?!)

Last night we conducted auditions for our christmas masterpiece. As soon as I arrived I could tell it was gonna be a long, hard night. There were much more than I imagined there would be and they all seemed so lovely, nice and enthusiastic. I didn't know what we were gonna do.
So we started auditioning them. We got them to play a few games before doing some group work. Usually at auditions I've been to or sat in on, by this point you can definitely see a few people who you don't want a and a few who you reallly do. This one was different. At this audition at this point I wanted to ignore the script and just cast everyone there but unfortunately I knew that wouldn't work and would cause problems in the long run so I started to try and think a little more harshly. And I really had to try.
Soon the auditions were over and me and Louise had to make some of the hardest decisions we've ever had to make. It took hours of deliberating just to decide who we wanted and could realistically have. After that we then escorted ourselves to Starbucks to futher tackle the problems of who gets who, where we still wanted to stuff all the people who we hadn't cast back into the cast, but we then faced up to the problem that this would be impractical. After an hour and a hot chocolate we finally had a cast list which were satisfied with. But as we walked away I still wish we could've used everyone. Everyone who attended the auditions was great in ther own way. I could've seen each of them taking a role but alas we had no more room. To anyone who's reading this who audtioned but didn't get in you were brilliant and please don't let this put you off acting, especially with Bounce. It was so hard and I didn't sleep well last night as a result. Don't give up, you were great!

I'm so excited (and a bit scared)!!!

Hey all! My name's Dan Ramsden and I'm proud to say that I'm assistant director on Bounce's winter show this year, 'Oliver Twist' by Neil Bartlett. Having only worked briefly with the company a few times before it will be a pleaseure to get as stuck in as this. All the past shows I've worked on have been an amazing experience, the company are so friendly and professional. The text seems amzing and it will be honour, as usual, to work with Louise again. With only a week to go till the auditions the pressure's mounting but I can tell aready that it's gonna be fun.

Getting the job

Bounce Theatre have asked me to assistant direct their next production of Oliver Twist.