KEEPING CONNECTED DURING LOCKDOWN
DRAMA
I normally start planning a show a couple of years before we open, but seldom have I had such an extended and challenging rehearsal process as we have had for this show. Auditions for Urinetown (a very clever and funny ‘meta’ musical) happened in November 2019 and we cast some incredibly talented young performers, looking forward to another CGS CGSC partnership. Work commenced with a series of singing workshops, organised by Mr Bishop, and comprehensive design meetings where the creative titans Mrs Jennifer Bennie and Mr Mark Wager helped fully form my interpretation of the show. It was an auspicious start. Term 1 2020 launched our usual busy rehearsal schedule as we created and refined our show. Ms McDonald created some truly fantastic routines, and our guest choreographer Jack Migdalek brought the Fiddler on the Roof inspired number at the beginning of Act Two to energetic life. Mrs Bennie and her assistant Breanna Handfield made and adjusted costumes creating characterful individual and group looks. Our Production Coordinator and Assistant Director Ms Jess Doutch filmed rehearsals both on and off stage as has become traditional keeping footage for a cast memory documentary of the process, as well as keeping an archive for those who missed rehearsals and for checking choreography later in the process. Mr Mark and Thomas Bevans built, painted and textured the physical world of the play. Mr Bishop pulled the chorus and numbers together in his forensic, fun and energetic manner. Drama classes continued as normal and Ms Wood continued to
plan the Middle School Play and audition roles for The Great Gatsby. VCE Theatre Studies students were given their assessment plays and some workshops by the inspirational Emily Godard who shared her passion for the highly physical and satirical clowning theatre style of Bouffon. Year 11 developed an interpretation of Agamemnon set in an aged care facility, and Year 12 interpreted A Clockwork Orange with great physicality and dynamism relishing Burgess’ highly mannered language and confronting tale. Public performances of these pieces were heartbreakingly cancelled due to the first of the pandemic restrictions. Themes of state control and aged care resonate in retrospect. Worldwide lockdown arrived with the Senior School musical about two thirds developed needing a tantalising few weeks of work to complete.
The uncertainty of when public audiences might be allowed led us to move both the musical and the Middle School Play to later in the year, and the difficult decision was made to change the House Play Festival into a House Film Festival as Term 4 looked to be filling with rescheduled events. Drama classes went online into theory, the viewing of the many fantastic live captured streamed dramas from around the world, and to monologue and storytelling pursuits. We experimented with Zoom rehearsals for the musical but the cast found them initially unappealing and plans for a couch choir version of one
Spectemur | Issue 3 - 2020
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