Updates on everything, including my new alcohol problem.

I’m drinking whiskey right now. It’s 11.38am. And I am drinking whiskey. Delicious Jack Daniels. You know why I’m drinking whiskey? Because having a cold is a perfectly acceptable excuse for alcoholism.

In other news.

We have an actual proper full cast for The Raging Quiet. HUZZAH. And I reckon it’s probably the strongest cast all round that Directo and I have ever had. By the end of next week I think we’ll have roughly blocked most of the play, which is excellent progress. And the ‘making up a sign language’ is going really, really well – very proud of Alice and Nick for all their work on that so far. I think their signs are going to look really instinctive, which is absolutely right. The thing to work on is making them look coherent and deliberate – like a language rather than just elaborate mime.

I seem to have a moment with every play when I’m in a rehearsal, watching the blocking come together, seeing the actors do their stuff – and suddenly, despite the fact they’ve all still got scripts in their hands and all the furniture is made out of folding chairs, there’s a real sense that it isn’t a rehearsal, it’s a play. That those are characters, not actors. Characters I’ve been familiar with for a long time. And they’re suddenly real. And I remember why I love writing plays so much.

Anyway.

The step up from second year to third year is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. For one of my modules I seem to have ALL THE READING and for the other I have THE MOST HOURS IN THE WORLD. I still haven’t been ‘out’ out yet this term because with everything for the course and trying to fit rehearsals in between, I’m rarely getting out of the department before 9pm.

I’m dealing with everything at the moment. It feels like I’m balancing it well. But if this cold carries on, next week is going to be a killer.

My favourite auditions

Today, Directo and I saw the first few lovely auditionees for The Raging Quiet. There were some nerves, some giggles, and some wonderfully talented folks. And it reminded me how much I’ve grown to love the first stages of a play – the auditions, the casting, and that first readthrough.

When someone reads or workshops for one of my plays, I really genuinely want them to feel good about their audition. I want them to leave feeling confidant that they did everything they could. And really, my favourite auditions over the small number of productions I’ve put on at uni have been the ones where people came in smiling, did their absolute utmost, and tried not to let anything phase them. When auditionees properly go with the flow, it makes me feel like we’re not shitty at running auditions (and giving your prospective director and dramaturg a confidence boost is always a good technique for getting onto a casting shortlist).

And to be honest, the thing that really makes an auditionee stand out is if Directo and I just know that that person wants to be part of our show. Properly wants to. And wants to be part of our show. To be honest, we just want people to care as much about our play as we do.

I’m getting to a stage now where I feel less nervous about people actually reading my plays aloud too, which can only be a good thing. It’s not because I’ve got cocky (although I’m definitely more confidant about my ability as a playwright than I was when I started my degree), it’s because I’ve started to really trust the people we’ve cast. I know my work is in good hands.

So I’m thrilled that our first readthrough is on Sunday. Because I know that, by Saturday evening, we’re going to have a brilliant cast, full of people who are as full of giggly glee as we are.

Trying not to be complicated.

Audition rooms have been booked for The Raging Quiet. Excitement! And the meeting with Vicar Tom went swimmingly, so it’s full steam ahead for Directo and I.

I try really hard to keep my emails simple when I’m emailing prospective auditionees. But it’s been particularly difficult this time round because of how we’re structuring auditions for the part of Raver.

Raver (later renamed Raven) is a deaf character. But he’s also a deaf character before BSL. So he’s actually a deaf, frustrated, somewhat animalistic character who’s been treated with awful cruelty by almost everyone around him. A physical challenge for an actor.

Usually, when Directo and I run auditions, we do a short workshop in groups and then readings in pairs. We’ve found this works better than ‘cold readings’ because everyone has a chance to warm up, ask questions about the play, and experiment with some of the themes and acting styles we’re planning on using. For Utena, we ran workshops in which we asked everyone to regress to being an awkward teenager. For Neverwhere, our workshops were focused on big BIG characterisation.

But The Raging Quiet doesn’t have an awful lot to workshop with, not at an audition level at any rate. We’re asking for naturalism, realism. We’re mostly asking for performances of adults (or 16 year olds who have been living adult lives, which adds up to nearly the same thing). Readings are the only way to do it, which is a bit of a shame.

Except, of course, Raver.

So we’re holding 15 minute, individual, physical auditions for Raver in addition to readings. And if the blokes audition for Raver, they can audition for everyone else as well. Which seems easy to explain face-to-face, but is a bit of a nightmare to say concisely in an email. And it may turn out to be a nightmare to run these auditions too. But I really hope everyone understands and that everything goes calmly and smoothly on the day(s), because our aim in all of this is to give the actors the best chance possible to give the best audition possible.

Good luck to everyone auditioning. (And if you still want to sign up, contact me and bagsy one of the remaining spaces!)

The Raging Quiet – a venue, a notebook, and a list of auditionees.

It’s official – Directo and I will be putting on The Raging Quiet at St David’s Church, 25th – 27th of November.

Well, I say official. It’s official as long as Rev. Tom doesn’t have any major objections when we go for our ‘impress the vicar’ meeting. But we’re hoping that a church that hosted Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd will have no trouble with our content. At least no one dies horribly in The Raging Quiet. At least no one is horribly murdered in The Raging Quiet.

I really hope Rev. Tom is happy with it, because St David’s is an incredible venue. Firstly, it is MASSIVE. Secondly, it is BEAUTIFUL (I’ll try to get some photos up soon). Thirdly and most importantly, it has fantastic scope as a performance space. Within the main church there are actually quite a spaces which are separate but move fluidly into each other. At the moment we’re wondering whether this could solve a problem we’ve always had with scene changes – if each space is a different area within the play, perhaps we can get the audience moving rather than the scenery. For one thing, it’d be lovely to show off the whole church.

The official-ness of this project calls for something rather special – a ‘Raging Quiet’ tab in my new workbook. I’ve done this for every Directo play so far, since I generally take the role of ‘Dogsbody’ (Dramaturg), so copious note-taking and occasionally making unhelpful Buffy references is how I spend rehearsals. I can’t be the only one who loves writing in a new notebook. I even write in fountain pen.

And at some point I will write out our growing list of auditionees in fountain pen in that lovely new section of my workbook. If you want to be on it, let me know.