Andy McGregor

Another great week of rehearsals with the A2's doing Much Ado About Nothing. Plenty of great pics here that I took today during our final rehearsal before the easter weekend. Really looking forward to getting stuck into the next week of rehearsal, then we're in the theatre tech-ing before the performances begin the following week.

I have spent the last couple of weeks on placement with Guy Hollands from the Citizens theatre.  He has been working on a collection of American one act plays that are to be performed at the Tron in June.  It was interesting to see him work and to get to know the plays, I spent most of the time observing but I had a chance to get involved when it was discovered that one of the plays, Boom Box, required a song to be written to the lyrics that were present in the play already.  It was meant to be a cheesy 80's ballad, so I came up with this !  I grew a mullet and everything... The National Theatre of Scotland have accepted my 3 proposals for their 5 Minute Theatre Projec t - we are doing one with LYT, one with GYT and one with a group I'm working with at the RSAMD, so that's in the pipeline for the next few months.  I've also finished writing a short comedy which we are performing at the Arches in June, it's called 'The Rise and Fall of Lucas Petite' and is...

The last few weeks have been filled with rehearsing with second year actors for their performance of Much Ado About Nothing. This has been my first experience of being an assistant director and I admit to being wary of what that could mean, but so far it has been really worthwhile. I've learned loads from watching the director (acting teacher Ali De Souza) work and have been allowed to chip in with ideas and at times lead the rehearsals, it's been a great mix of observing and doing.  The rehearsals are flying along, we finished a run through of the whole thing on Wednesday, and even though there is a lot of stuff to tidy up I don't think anyone can argue with how well things have developed so far. The play is set in a 1950's club which has allowed me  to compose suitable tunes to match the era, which is good as I'm doing virtually zero music just now. I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone looks when dressed up, the style of the 50s is pretty specia...

Well that's us finished our time at the Globe and it has been, I think it would be fair to say, a life changing experience. The knowledge that I have gained, not particularly in Shakespeare but more in directing in general, had been massive and will be applicable on everything that I go on to do - from Uni work through to youth theatre through to, hopefully, working with pro-actors. It was very helpful that Shakespeare was not held up as some impenetrable force that could never be tackled, but was looked on as just another playwright. The methodology works for him just the same as it would work for any other playwright. The most important thing that has come out of this for me is the idea of atmosphere. It can make a huge difference to what is going on in the scene and can really influence the actors and makes everything ultra-clear for the audience. It's such a simple concept that it's hard to believe I hadn't really thought of it before. It does require a great deal o...

We have under a week until our show next Thursday. Rehearsals have been running for a few days, it is an interesting (and challenging) way of doing things. The directors arrive with prepared scripts highlighting where the events in the script are. An event is something that happens that affects all characters on stage. We read the script from event x to event y. The actors then are assigned a task for this event ie "To force information from the King." They then think of a gesture that will carry them through this task, although the quality (moulding, flowing, flying, radiating) can change. The actors then move on to the stage and improvise the scene, using words that they remember from the script and made up words. The overall atmosphere has to move as well. It is then our job as directors to add in smaller tactics, to remind the actors about place and also time. Before we began this exercise we spent a lot of time on space. We explored the stage and looked at photos and de...

This is our day off and I shall take a break from the homework given to try and account what some, if not all, of the week consisted of. The week started, and continued, with the gathering of images and music that we thought could be related to Hamlet. It was interesting to see the other director's images and how each director had very different material, which was consistent to them and the play. It showed how challenging Hamlet is going to be, there are a million and one ways to deal with it. My images are here. Some of the music I chose was Britten's 'Dawn' from Peter Grimes, also Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb' , a glass-like Brian Eno tune and 'Kid A' by Radiohead which really brings up images of Ophelia in my head. We used improvisation this week to get some information, images and ideas. The improvisations were to be based on the larger themes of the play (altered states of consciousness, death, revenge etc etc) and were to be taken f...

This week started with Glynn's movement classes. She dissected peoples walks in seconds and, in the majority of cases, had people walking far more 'cleanly' than before. It was great to see how tiny tweaks can make such a difference. We then had text analysis. An interesting look at prose in Shakespeare. This is when, it was suggested, the characters have something to hide. They are playing with words and attempting to confuse, misguide one another. This makes sense and will be very useful to take into Much Ado rehearsals. Went to see 12th Night (Dame Judie Dench in the audience!) and it was a fantastic performance by Simon Callow, unfortunately he was dragging the rest of the cast kicking and screaming behind him! They were awful. It was all in the head and nothing in the body. Part of me wonders how someone like Peter Hall could direct it and make such fundamental mistakes. Today was again about exploring the directions and gesture. This time applying them to elemen...