I have finally resolved to create a personal blog in order to promote my work and share information with anyone interested in creating or painting or generally chatting online!

You can view my first post and any more I may have done since the initital one  clicking here: http://aitch-aitchblog.blogspot.com/

I am new to this so it may take a while before I get everything set up as I want, but it’s still good to get it up and running! It will probably take longer to write up than I imagined, too. I have always promised myself I will keep a diary, but never lasted longer than a year with the type you have to physically write in so it will be interesting for me to see how long I maintain the input!

Look forward to seeing you there – please pop in and add a comment if you can, or become a follower.

Rehearsals are now stepping up for this show, as it is due to go on at the end of October, so only just over 4 weeks left to go now! Sunday rehearsals are in addition to the weekly Tuesday night rehearsals, and we are all in the process of having our costumes fitted. Last Sunday I tried mine on and loved it – I am one of the prostitutes in the show and my outfit is red (my favourite colour)with black lace. This weekend, Keith, my husband, will be taking photos of the principal characters ready for preparing the programme, which I will most likely be preparing over the next week or so.

Tickets have been printed and the posters for both venues are already out, some of which have been posted up across the region. Several hundred fliers have also been produced in order to maximise the publicity for this show.

On Thursday evening last week, a group of us from Hull Musical Society visited the Academy Theatre in Birdwell, Barnsley, to see their production of the show. It was very well produced with some outstanding performances from the principal characters. Their stage, in the Take 2 Centre, was about the same size as the stage at the Floral Hall in Hornsea where we will perform for the first two nights of our run. However, the company in Barnsley had about twice the number of people on stage as we will have, so we will probably be able to move around a bit more!

We are also planning our Christmas concert, which will take the form of a selection of songs rather than a show as such, and we are hoping to use 3 separate venues for this, including the theatre in Bilton where we stage the plays for Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society.

This new hobby of mine is proving more time-consuming than I first planned, but I am loving every minute of it and hope to be a member for a long time yet!

Tuesday was a day of mixed activities for me. I started the day early as I woke up with a stinking headache at 7am. I have been trying to avoid taking painkillers as I think I have been a bit too dependent on them for my headaches, but Tuesday morning was an exception. I did the usual morning routine of feeding the fish in the pond in the garden, which is when I tend to sit and relax for a while on the bench next to the pond – I love to stare at the fish as they effortlessly move for their food. Then it was cat-feeding time, followed by their daily grooming (I have two long-haired cats so they need regular brushing and de-tangling to reduce the amount of knots and hopefully the amount of fur-balls they inevitably throw up everywhere!!!!).  Then I spent some time doing a bit of painting on my 3rd in the series of abstract geometric designs for the gallery in Bridlington.  By 8.30am I was ready for some breakfast. After that I switched the PC on and made a start on locating various poems for the Junior/Youth section members as part of their entries for the Hornsea Speech & Drama Festival. This took longer than I anticipated, as ever, as I was still at it later that morning, 11am. In between painting I then spent the rest of the day finalising the design of the ticket and posters for the show. This was not as fruitful as I expected, but I managed to complete all by late afternoon. Then I was starting to feel hungry as I had forgotten to get any lunch. I rehearsed a couple of the songs ready for the rehearsal that night, and by 6.30 I left for a meeting with the Secretary prior to the rehearsal.

The rehearsal on Tuesday night was the first “Floor” rehearsal. It is a first for me, as I have never been in a musical show before, but it is very similar to the early rehearsal we have at Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society for our plays. We call the process “blocking the play” and essentially you need to have every move on stage written in your script to remember along with your lines.

I was cast as one of the girls in the “Pro” line (yes, a prostitute!) which actually quite pleased me since it means that I have a little bit more to do than I would have if I’d been a chorus member alone. We had a lot of fun flirting with the male characters in the scene, pretending to steal them away from their “wives” (maybe they’d spotted a talent in me based on my real life experience!) and generally be quite forward! A bit of “movement” was included in all three songs, not really any dancing as such, but it was all choreographed throughout. I found the whole evening was hard work, but lots of fun! The three songs we rehearsed were “Twice In Love Every Day”, which is the opening number, “I’m A Busy Man” (Barnardo’s solo piece) and “We’ll Get Him” . The next rehearsal for the chorus isn’t until a week next Sunday, as the children’s rehearsals are taking place next Tuesday.

I can’t wait, but in the meantime I am busy preparing publicity material for the show in order to ensure we get as much coverage as possible!

We were joined by a prospective new member last night, which is always good news for the Society, but he is testing out several of the local societies to see where he wants to belong, so we are hoping we made a good impression!

This play will most likely be our next production in January 2010, provided we can cast it. I really hope so, as it is such an interesting and thought-provoking play, yet still has lots of humour and emotional scenes for the actors involved.

We will be meeting again next week to finalise the cast.

The second play was called “Sally and Jack’s Death Day Party”, also by David Walker. Set in limbo, where several workers help to staff the place and prepare everything for any newcomers, it told the tale of two young people who had arrived by mistake for a Death Day Party. The Queen of Limbo eventually decided to let the children go back to being alive again after the party, which pleased everyone. Once more, this was a very accomplished performance by them all and it was worth all the hard work beforehand to hear the reaction from all the people who’d come along to support them. The costumes and make-up were well done thanks to Nikki Grannon who directed that particular play, with assistance from Amy Fletcher, Amber Burton and Laura Jones (3 members of the Youth section at BADS).  Another youth section member, Lauren Trim, operated the Sound & Lighting.  A great way to end the summer term!

The Likes of Us is the story of the life of Dr Thomas Barnardo, a man who was evangelical, entrepreneurial and philanthropic, and whose crusade to rescue children living on the streets became world renowned. Described as “a musical that has existed for 40 years hidden away from view” The Likes of Us is Oliver!-esque in style and is best known for the much-quoted Tim Rice lyric:  “Here I have a lovely parrot, sound in wind and limb, I can guarantee that there is nothing wrong with him”.

It was a very enjoyable evening last night and I look forward to learning all the songs for the next performance which is in the middle of May. We are doing a medley from My Fair Lady,  two songs from Les Miserables (Bring Him Home and Do You Hear The People Sing), The Rhythm Of Life,  Can You Feel The Love Tonight and several more.

I need to work on hitting the higher notes and practise my breathing techniques a bit more, but I am sure this is going to be another all-consuming hobby!

The next production is not until the end of June and even though this time I am not in the play I am still involved with building the set and sourcing props for it. Last week Keith (my husband and director of current production) and I bought a second-hand wall unit from Oxfam. It arrived mid-week but was not stable enough to use at first. So, yesterday afternoon we spent our time using wood glue and screws at various points to make it safe and ready for re-positioning at rehearsals.  We also borrowed a side table from my parents, which we collected and took to the theatre. The rest of the time was spent in altering an old hi-fi unit to make it look something like an old-fashioned TV cabinet and carting a host of spare pieces of furniture from the wings to the wooden container we use as a storage area.

I have recently painted on an old glass decanter with some burnt umber acrylic paint to make it look like a tobacco pot. I’m hoping the paint does not peel off, but will see how it goes at rehearsals.

The next stage of set preparation will be masking off any small gaps in the flats ready for decorating. That will be done within the next few weeks, since we have the luxury of our own theatre rather than having to rent a rehearsal place.