ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how you put the play on its feet. This work will take around 60% of your rehearsal period. It covers everything from the analysis of the action of the play to the last run-through in the rehearsal room. It includes advice about the following:
Analysing the action of the play with the actors The mark-up Improvising the trigger event and immediate circumstances How to structure the rehearsal day Rehearsing a scene for the first time ‘Blocking’, or making the action clear for the audience The second and third rehearsals of a scene Run-throughs How to manage the final days in a rehearsal room Working on set, costume, sound, lighting design and music during
rehearsals How to do all this with a short rehearsal period
Analysing the action of the play with the actors
The group will already have read the play once through for facts and questions about everything that exists and has happened before the action of the play begins. Now, you will read it through together again with four specific tasks in mind:
isolating the events and giving them titles writing down the facts and questions about what happens between each act or
scene writing down the facts and questions about the immediate circumstances of
each act or scene (i.e. what occurs in the 24 hours preceding the action of the scene)
finding a name for each act.
