Proms and Petticoats

Since I left my job at the end of June, any chance of a rest have been non-existent. In fact, I think I’ve been busier since leaving work than when I was working. But one of the reasons I left — though I’ve not left permanently, sorry fellow tutors, you just can’t get rid of me — was because I knew this summer was going to be a big one. I had a dozen shows lined up, holidays planned, and rehearsals to power through. It’s been an unforgettable few weeks. I’m terrible for letting amazing experiences slip into memory, so more for my own sake, I wanted to keep them all stacked neat and tidy where I can revisit them. Once uni life hits, this summer will be a blur. It would be a shame to forget it.


I was lucky to join my current theatre company last September/October time. They were closer to where I lived than the last theatre company I’d previously been a apart of, and I’d watched CYT’s work for a while. I’ve been given some incredible opportunities over the last year, all of which I’ve happily taken; I’ve learned and grown as an actor each time I've been pushed out of my comfort; I've had the privilege of working under great directors and alongside fellow cast members. I've felt, for the first time in a while, that I was collaborating on something exciting. Every show has been incredibly professional, and unforgettable.

• Right at the end of June, I performed at Northycote Farm in an adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd. We’d been working on the show since autumn last year, and it was so rewarding to have everyone’s hard work pay off. I’d not performed in a site-specific, outdoors project before; every project with CYT has added a little bit more experience to my resume, and I've gained more in a year than I’ve gained anywhere else in four years since leaving school. From performing a preview of the show in Wolverhampton’s literary festival, to delivering the full show to an audience of 80, crammed onto that the tiny farm -- it was a great experience for my first show with CYT.
• Lovely girlfriend that I am, I dragged my (very patient, amused) boyfriend to see Titus Andronicus with me at the RSC. I love the RSC, it’s my holy ground of acting (in ten years time, if I’ve played a role or two on the boards of the Swan Theatre, I’ll have made it as an actor in my eyes). It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something in Stratford — and you have to make a day of it, if you’re going to Stratford, I’d recommend The Encore pub — but the RSC never lets me down. All I wanted to see was the famous line in Titus:
  Chiron: “Thou hast undone our mother.”
  Aaron: “Villain, I have done thy mother.”
  Thank you, Shakespeare, for the original Your Mom joke. Titus was naturally bloody and brutal, but I was also taken off-guard by the moments of dark, twisted sarcasm and mad irony peppered throughout the play. It’s vital to see as much live theatre as possible as an actor; learn from what you see, etc. And a trip to the RSC means learning from the best.

• Not long before that, I got thrown in at the deep end with another type of performance I’d not yet experienced — a murder mystery. Comedy is not my strong suit, but I know that to grow and hone my skillset, conquering comedy is pretty important. If you can do comedy, you can do anything. I’m still getting there, but the murder mystery was a hell of a funny night. We performed in a local working men’s club for an unabashed drunken audience, who had a great time (if all the singing and drunken roars of applause were anything to go by). It’s something different entirely to a serious, period piece — there’s a lot of audience interaction, a lot of over the top gasping, and flicking your feather boa (or that might have just been me). I thought this kind of show wasn’t going to be for me, and I struggled at first with the exaggerated, caricature acting. I was proven wrong, however; I left the show wishing we could have done another two nights of it. The audience was fantastic, and even more rewarding was performing a show that we — the cast — had written and developed ourselves.

see: feather boa

• A while back, when I was part of a different theatre group in Birmingham, I met Danielle and played a goth, lesbian Hamlet to her fiery, feminist Ophelia. Just from that, you get an idea of what a good show it was. Danielle went on to study for a year at Birmingham School of Acting (yassss, girl), and recently we met up for a well overdue catch up after over a year apart. Danielle told me about the one-woman show she’d written, and was a few days away from performing at Birmingham’s cosy Blue Orange Theatre. Luckily for me, I was free to see the matinee of her show, The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe.
  During our catch up, we’d had a long, gratifying talk about the realities of this industry. I was a step behind Danielle - no real acting training just yet, or experience with finding “real” work. There’s so much more to the industry than auditioning and hoping your talent will carry you through. I had a similar conversation with a brilliant director of mine just a few days ago. It’s more than turning up to the audition and expecting the role, because damn it, you’re good enough and you deserve it -- right?
  We all deserve it. We all know we’re good enough. But it’s so much more than that now - if you’re an actor, you are self employed; you're selling your own talent and face as a small independent business. You have to be manager, CEO, and receptionist all in one. You have to have people skills, know your casting, and have the integrity and personality people want to employ. And it’s so much harder for us, up here in the Midlands, if you can’t afford to get down to London where all the work apparently is.
  But what I learnt, from watching Danielle’s show, is that first of all my friend is incredibly talented. I was blown away by the sheer talent in her little finger alone. The acting, the writing — cos don’t forget, she’d written the whole show herself — the amount of work that had gone into producing an hour of sheer bloody compelling drama was spectacular. I was so inspired -- and reminded that yes, this industry is hard. It is brutal, unforgiving, and often exclusive to a few. But there are people like Danielle, paving a way for themselves despite that. I felt incredibly privileged to watch that show, and to have seen Danielle’s acting grow into something powerful, all the way from Ophelia, to Marylin.
• And then finally, last Saturday 5th August. The National Arboretum — stunning, impressive, and solemn — hosted an event to mark the 100 years since the Battle of Passchendaele. CYT had been asked to perform as part of the Home Front Proms; a huge event, with performances from The King’s Division, soprano Iona Fisher, and little old us.

Iona Fisher singing us out

Little Poppy and Adult Poppy before the show!

The audience was in the thousands, and even the weather stopped being a tempestuous little shit and provided us sunshine for the performance. I’ve never performed in something that big. Like, the BBC were there, can we just take a moment. It was such an honour to be a part of the occasion, and I think we held our own. We’re taking the piece to Wales next month, and honestly I’m so excited to perform it again — in a completely different space, this time in a tiny little black box studio for a much smaller audience. That’ll be another experience altogether. There was nothing like the thrill this weekend; the size of the audience, the importance of the occasion, and the work put in by an incredible cast.

After Wales, it's straight on to uni. The last two months have been an education, but if they're an indication of what the next three years hold, then roll on September.

I’ve managed to do so much in the last few months that I completely forgot I have a holiday planned (not entirely forgot, but definitely haven't packed yet . . . I was hoping there'd be more than 24 hours in a day by now). So at the end of this week, I’m jetting out to sunny Playa Fanabe, feeling a little smug I get to escape the shitty rain and finally taking that day off I’d planned.