Mr Lambert, Head of Drama, reports…
What an adventure it has been!
Like the play’s hero Conrad who runs from play to play in the Works of Shakespeare, the cast of Kill the Messenger have risen above incredible challenges to produce an incredible piece of theatre!
From the humble beginnings of the auditions in March, to the deft character work and brilliant line learning, to the coping with the vast amount of props and the fast costume changes and then the incredible preparations they undertook in the Greeker for the first performance; this cast have never ceased to impress and amaze.
Their resilience and adaptability became clear on the Thursday when we had to pause rehearsals for rain, and consider and plan for what would happen if it pelted it down. Thankfully the rain held off for the evening performance but it was a very different story on the Friday…
It was clear when we arrived at the Greeker to prepare for the Primary matinee that it would be too miserable, irritating and potentially dangerous to perform outside. We have performed over 10 times at the Greeker and this was the first time that the weather has been so unkind! So I made a very quick decision to see if we could move the play to a different venue. I had in mind the Bradfield College chapel which we had performed in before and contacted the college to see if we could move. Bradfield College were wonderful, they opened up the chapel, changed the signage and bent over backwards to ensure that the performance still took place.
This left the matter of redesigning the show for a very different space and this is where the cast truly excelled. We had just over an hour to fix all the entrances, exits, positioning, fights and battles for a considerable smaller performance space. The students rose to the challenge and performed an excellent show to Pangbourne and Englefield Primary schools before stunning the evening audience with what felt like a very different play to the one seen the night before.
I am honoured to have worked with this cast and look forward to the next show!
