From the Rehearsal Hall 4/27
Ah, the excitement of being a small itinerant company! The Boston Conservatory has generously donated a rehearsal room for King John - a good sized room with relative quiet, a good floor, some light, a place for actors not being used to hang out. Well, until this weekend. A fire alarm malfunctioned on Friday, and suddenly our rehearsal space was locked down for the weekend, with no access to the room or to any of our stuff - rehearsal props and costumes, etc.
BoCo scrambled to find a place for us to rehearse - thanks to Katie Shinay in the Theatre Office - and we ended up in a dance studio in the basement of the performing arts building. We can hardly complain, because at least we had enough room (barely!) to work, but it sure was an interesting weekend. For much of our rehearsal time this weekend we had either piano waltzes, or, more frequently, incredibly loud music from Hairspray or Chorus Line blaring through the paper thin door from the studio next door, not to mention exuberant BoCo dance students whooping, hollaring and chattering through the halls just outside. Add to that a loud car alarm, two tow-trucks and an insistent leaf-blower, and you begin to get some sense of the challenge that we faced.
So my hat is way-way off to my flexible and resilient actors, who not only survived this sonic onslaught, but got a lot of great work done in the process - and to my ingenious stage management team for digging up enough chairs, tables and makeshift props to get us through. If only there had been a street percussionist banging his trash cans out there as well...
Ben Evett
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