Watch The London Workshop Performance

All right. Here is the video of the London workshop performance.

Why is it important that i clarify that this is a small workshop performance in a small space, with a small budget and only 9 days of rehearsal?

I get email from people who are excited about the album and dream of it as a theater show. And their vision is EPIC. Big and epic. Vast and grand. When they expect to see the show, that is what they expect to see.

My vision is also big and epic.

So for those who are expecting big and EPIC, i just want to let you know that we want big and epic too, but we must first get there. This is that first step. And the first step is a small workshop performance. In order to appreciate the challenge, i would ask you to imagine the album being staged in a room the size of your living room. How would you do it? This is how we did it.

The sound is awful and there’s no way around that. You’ll just have to live. And videos of live theater are always pale reflections. But if you want to take a gander despite all that, have at it.

This video was edited by Nadia Adame and i would once again thank the crew and cast.

Okay, there’s my pathology out of the way. Here it is. Your moment of zen:

 

And So Friends We Bid Adieu

Our first workshop has ended.

Now we must say goodbye to the people we’ve been basically living with for the past 2 weeks. We’ve cleared out the space, had our final drinks, and off we scatter to the wind.

We’ll keep some tabs on some of crew as they do other interesting things out there in Reality Land. Our Steampunk Opera Motion Photography Dept is working round the clock to make a video of the show we can shop around to producers and interested parties. We’ve had great feedback and very positive responses. It seems fairly certain that there will be a future for the show one way or the other.

I am aware that some of you fine folks out there will want to see some video. I will post some video. I’m not sure exactly what, but i must warn you, it is going to take some time. The video must be uploaded, converted, compressed, edited… it’s gonna take a bit.

Here is the very last round of photos from the show. (Surely we must be tired by now of photos from this shebang, but i am still going to post away)

I’m going to fly home (SLEEP) and i’ll be back in a day or so with a post dedicated to the Russian fan base out there who sent a representative to the show with gifts and tidings and who deserve their own post of thanks and gratitude.

Without further ado, some more photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Final Performance

Here we go, folks.

Tonight shall be the final night and i believe, our finest moment.

Thank you to everybody who has come and everyone who has been following this here on the blog. We’ve had an absolute blast and i hope this has given an interesting insight into what it’s like building a theater show from the ground up. I hope there will be another series of posts soon enough detailing the next stage, but for now we’re going to prepare for our last and best night. We’ll be videotaping tonight, and when i eventually post footage it will from tonight that you see.

To all who are coming, i look forward to seeing you, please feel free to introduce yourselves and share your thoughts about what you see during the talk back, and i hope you enjoy what shall be our last and by far finest hour yet.

Here are some pics, cause pics are fun. See you tonight!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Day They Come

Well folks, we have arrived.

I don’t have new pictures for you today or anything, i may have a couple over the next few days, but chances are the next few days will be pretty light blog wise since we shall otherwise be engaged in performance.

Even though it’s only a “workshop”, a lot of talented people have been working very, very hard to make this an enthralling and engaging experience, something far better than simply the staged reading of the show this could otherwise have been. I believe we have succeeded in actually making a magical little moment of theater, that presents not only the possibilities The Steampunk Opera has as a larger future show, but as an enjoyable evening of story and music in its own right.

Our actors, Lauren Osborn, Kate Young, Oliver Marsh and Mikey Shearer are top notch and turning in razor sharp performances. Our puppeteers Faith Brandon and Joni-Rae Carrack have brought Jasper eerily to life. Wait’ll you see our dancer Jorge Crecis dancing some bits by choreographer Nadia Adame. It’s killer. The band, MIljen Aljinovic, Tommie Ross and Ben Assiter, playing at probably the lowest volume they have or will ever play in their lives (no mics on the singers!) are killing it. Our designer Lily Arnold and lighting designer Zoe Spurr have created a magic little world in a black box to lose yourself in for 90 minutes. Jennifer Harding, our stage manager is literally the one holding this all togetherwith the help of production manager Tom Lee, and of course, all of this was taken from the aether and put forth upon the material plane by director Mark Swetz.

Workshop or not, we hope we have created a magical little experience. The time has come to open the doors and let the seats fill up. Here is our beginning and let’s just hope the future is on its way.

Thanks to everyone involved and of course my big thanks to everyone who has supported this endeavour out there in internet land. I do so hope one day we shall come to your town. In the meantime, here is the single step that begins the journey.

Wish us luck.

-Paul Shapera.

 

TECH

Ah, tech. A special time for anyone in theater. For the cast it’s not only the beginning of the last stretch into performance, but the first time most will actually meet and get to talk to various members of the technical staff like the lighting designer who suddenly appears to make everything really pretty.

Yesterday was a long day. Lots of rigging, spotting, rehearsing…. tech involves rehearsals that will stop suddenly every 7 minutes and require the performers to stand in their spot for 5 to 10 minutes (or 20) as various lighting and technical issues are worked out. It is the day where reality vs. intention meet and must duke it out to see which one will prevail.

I thus present to you another slideshow to commemorate the day.

Today we begin out last day of rehearsals before tomorrow’s performance. Hopefully i’ll see you tonight for another run through of events.

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Performing In A Shoebox

Well we got in the space today. And Just as advertised it is SMALL. it’s a black box all right.

The issues this presented are all ones we’ve been waiting for. Working out performer placement, musician placement and orchestration given the ease with which the band can drown out the singers was of course of major concern, although none of it unexpected.

I’ve had some back up plans i place for days now, such as canning the band during all instances where the Narrator sings and having her always accompanied by only acoustic guitar. This does work and one must remember, in a workshop performance like this, you are looking to show off the story, characters, lyrics and melodies. As much as i would like full orchestration, if the lyrics and story are lost, it is all in vain and the show’s future dims.

So we are doing our best to accomodate. And one more day ticks away.

Tomorrow is tech. Performers run through in the afternoon and full personnel run through occurs in the evening. We’ll hope all the adjustments made today stick in the bands’ heads. The performers should be in good shape and truth told, they seem to be given the insanely short rehearsal process.

I’m throwing up a few videos here which not only show a bit of the day, but illustrate the auditory problems. You can here how the singers cannot be heard in some cases and how with gutted instrumentation the problem is corrected.

 

Week 1 From A Puppet(eer)’s Perspective

I actually had a day off yesterday. The Planets aligned, i didn’t need Lauren and Oliver for the vocal rehearsal scheduled (they’d be much better off going through blocking and second to second character movement motivation). So i ran all my errands that i shall be running in London in that one day, which, nobody informed me before i left the flat, was the year’s most utterly insane shopping day.

So no post yesterday. There will be one tonight/tomorrow as today is our first day in the actual space with band and cast and production team. Yay! Today is the fateful day i will find out if the performers can actually be heard when the band plays. Which is not looking good. Small space, no mics, it’s been a serious concern and i have a number of severe back up options if this is the case. We’ll see.

In the meantime i thought it might be nice to see the week from the perspective of someone else in the crew, the puppeteer Joni-Rae Carrack who put forth her perspective on what she’s doing on her blog.

http://joniraecarrack.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/dolls-of-new-albion-week-1/

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna finish my Sunday morning tea and get a move on. See y’all on the other side of the day…

 

We Rock On (and The Turkey Hat Of Shame)

Rehearsals continue. Quite fun, actually. Today was a very good day. I shall mostly post pics today, but a vid or two introducing the Turkey Hat Of Shame is warranted i believe…

However, as i don’t have time to upload the video explaining the Turkey Hat of Shame, i shall explain that during all run throughs today, if a performer forgot their lines, they had to wear the Turkey Hat of Shame (and go get someone some coffee). If no one forgot their lines then i would have to wear the Turkey Hat of Shame while getting the cast coffee.

The results of the challenge can be viewed below. The last photos document the end of the day score.

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Puppets and Actors

We have the basic Jasper puppet, although he’s still in need of a face and some general meat on his bones, which is forthcoming. Joni-Rae Carrack and Faith Brandon spent the day working with him and we have much to show on that front.

The puppet was built by Isabel Lyster and in these photos you can see Paul Piris a puppet director helping our puppeteers bring Jasper to realization. Paul has a company called Rogue28.

As for our fearless Puppeteers, i highly recommend checking out Joni-Rae’s blog, joniraecarrack.wordpress.com

AND you can check out Faith Brandon’s fascinating blog at faithbrandon.blogspot.co.uk

It is a crime i’m not giving these blogs more attention, or even their own seperate posts, but a lot is happening here and time is vaulting at breakneck speed towards the performance.

I’m also going to include a video or two more or Mark working giving actor notes. You’ve seen plenty of this, but i feel it’s noteworthy in order to show where this kind of thing stands at this point into the process.

From here we are focusing on getting the cast to make it through rough runs of the show paying special attention to selling their character and the minimalism the show is focusing heavily on. On Sunday we put the cast and band together in the actual space and things get real.

 

The Boys In The Band

Here are vids from the band practice yesterday. We’ve got one more practice before we bring the cast in on Sunday and actually rehearse all together.

As usual, i am immensely rushed for time and can’t check out whether these videos work properly or are repeats or anything so i just hope they work. I’m just pasting, publishing and then i must run off to work with our Narrator Kate and then conduct another band rehearsal before going back to the space to accompany Lauren and Oliver as Mark blocks them.