The Diary of the New Girl.

We started this week with a photoshoot around London with the 5 of us and the amazing Robin Savage. The photos range from “laughing – you love each other – front picture of a sitcom dvd” to “grungy moody brooding debut album art”. We make our way back to the rehearsal room for an afternoon of music, with the incredible Tom Chapman. Tom did music on a previous AFTLS show, and has also worked (as an actor) separately with Anna (Caliban, Gonzalo) and I, so the vibe is immediately chummy & relaxed – the perfect combination for vocal folds. We jump straight into three part harmony.

Let me tell you that I can SING like Mariah Carey… in the shower – in front of other people, those weird things called ‘nerves’ creep in and I seem to lose any hope of picking up a melody. The others support me, however, and we all work really hard. Tom is patiently plucking on his guitar (these harmonies are not messing about) and by the end of the day we could take our little band to X factor and have a good stab at being the next big thing.

By the time Wednesday comes round we’re pretty exhausted, having spent lots of the day trying to figure out how we create ‘strange shapes’ and a ‘magical banquet’. Lots of fantastic ideas are batted around and we try every one of them. Some don’t quite hit, or, they’re fantastic, but we don’t have time or bodies to pull them off as exquisitely as they deserve. In a moment of madness we try playing with ‘Laban Efforts’ under some sheets. Jokes are made about this being what we study at Conservatoires, and we try to decide if it’s slightly too silly or maybe quite genius. We zoom the American team, who are wonderful – answering all our questions, and head to the pub with giddy anticipation of the tour in our step. The other cast members relaying stories of previous tours, and I feel tipsy from excitement before the beers even touched my lips.

By Friday we’ve touched every scene of the play – we don’t yet have a proper shape to this thing, we don’t have costumes, we don’t have the answers to a lot of problems, but we have hard work, we have the text & we have each others backs.

Reflecting on this week, I am thankful for a lot of things; the patience of my other cast members, coffee, hats and string instruments, but mostly I am thankful for the people in this world who are silly enough to make shapes under a sheet with such unabashed commitment that an audience maybe just maybe will see magical creatures, and will be able to sit in a theatre with other people and disappear, all together, into our story for a little while.

Phoebe

The Diary of a New Girl.

Day one and I wake up 40 minutes before my alarm and lie there staring at the ceiling, Shakespeare’s gnarly act 2 scene 1 verse running through my head; I’ve slept terribly. Probably because I’m extremely nervous. Always one to have suffered from intense imposter syndrome, this is made worse by the fact I am the only one in the cast who’s never done a tour with this company before and I have no idea what to expect from the process. What if I ask a stupid question? What if they all hate me? What if I can’t do it? The kind of thoughts we all had before our first day of school. Being an actor is like having your first day of school every time you have a new job. I jump on the tube. 

Brixton is like a chaotic hug from a drunk girl in a bathroom at a club; smelly, hot, too much, a bit terrifying but also gorgeous and kind.

I arrive over an hour early (I know… I have a problem), grab an iced coffee (the London heat wave is not messing about), and wait (iambic pentameter ferreting around my brain). 

I’m a London girl born and bred, so I feel right at home where we’re rehearsing. The room however is like a sauna a couple of measly fans battling against climate change. The others, one by one, enter the space, and, not surprisingly, they’re all utterly charming, gorgeous & friendly (I am immediately more relaxed- maybe I’ll make friends!). Although, surprisingly, we had all dressed very similarly. We laugh about this and decide it is a good omen for our cast – same language different font. 

Day one already makes me feel calmer, but day two is when we really get the ball rolling with all five of us in the room something feels electric, and I start to get excited during our workshop with the incredible RC Annie discussing our shared language as a group and how we will begin to tackle this mammoth task.

We made all priorities clear as a group and write them on a whiteboard. These include honesty, kindness, direction, and beer.

Walking into work my third day from the station I start to contemplate how incredibly is it that I get sit in this room with four other passionate people discussing the meaning of this intricate story, and stretching our imaginations like a muscle. It really is a fantastic acting exercise I’ve never experienced before. We play with creating a storm using our voices, using our bodies, using movement. 5 very sweaty actors creating magic. 

We continue, fuelled by incredible Caribbean food provided by Francis & Arlene (our hosts at the rehearsal space),  to navigate our way through the play. It’s a bit like being in a tempest ourselves. Sometimes there’s calm waters, sometimes waves that we have to work together as a team to overcome, but by the end of the week we seem to have something resembling a functioning system which allows us to try ideas. As Sam (playing Sebastian & Ferdinand) so perfectly put it “we are holding each other to a high standard with kindness”. 

I get on the tube home on Friday, imposter syndrome has taken a back seat, this is one hell of a team and we all feel really excited about the next few weeks of discovering this island and the characters on it. Bring on week 2. 

Phoebe