Mansfield Park & Ride Week 2

Week 2

People aren't really sure exactly what an assistant director is meant to do. Are they the personal assistant of the director? Are they just there to help the actors with their lines? Do they just make the tea for everyone? The philosophy I was taught, and have always experience as the best, is being an assistant to the production - or basically everyone's assistant. So, you could do all of the above, or none, if that's what the production needs.

The other fun bit about being an assistant is that from time to time you get to have some creative influence over something in the show, and my duties for this show included devising the little "dance" numbers for the songs, and rehearsing the music when our composer, Richard, had taught them to the company. This usually means having a vocal warm-up after lunch, and then singing the songs back to back - with some room for working on particular bits during that. Some days we'll focus on one song, and devise the dance-y bit for it, and others will just a recap, doing the songs quickly so we can get back to rehearsing the play itself. The company have done a great job at taking responsibility for their songs though, which has helped rehearsing them no end.

Greg Wagland and Vera Chok have shared piano duties, and have both done an amazing job at getting up to speed with Richard's score, which hasn't been easy! ‘Costume drama', ‘Great Yarmouth', ‘What's to become of us?' can be quite complicated at points, and sometimes very fast! Still, the songs are really funny, which helps, and are never a chore to hear once more - you'll be singing them on your way home, I can assure you!

Today was the day we finally worked through to the end of the play. With all the scenes blocked and in their first stages our next aim is to go back to the beginning and polish them up, fixing any moments that don't feel right and sorting out any problems with blocking... and if in doubt, just make it funnier. This stage is all about getting the actors to really own what they're doing, rather than just standing a speaking where and when the director/writer wants.