The Show Must Go On
“The dream is to keep surprising yourself, never mind the audience”
– Tom Hiddleston
Almost 9 months ago now, I received a phone call from Bruiser Theatre (bruisertheatrecompany.com) asking if I wanted to take on a two week intensive intern position on their summer drama course. Two whole weeks? 9-5? In the SUMMER? With TEENAGERS? Honestly, it seemed slightly nightmarish at first consideration, but of course, I panicked on the phone, and spurted out an enthusiastic yes, which actually ended up being one of the best yeses I’ve made in my uni career.
For this final blogpost, I will be using Gibbs method of reflection, when breaking down and discussing my workplace experiences.
The first few days of my placement where a breeze. It was myself, Rob (head of the course), and Declan (another intern). Both Declan and I where tasked with assisting the training, co-directing, supporting the cast, taking warm-ups, stewarding the young people around the building, and insuring Covid-19 restrictions where being followed at all times. In the mornings, myself and Declan would do a headcount, take each of the performers temperatures, run through all the fun Covid documents, and then take a short warmup before Rob started the class. Throughout the first few days we would play very physical drama based games, and started getting to know each of the young performers a little better. Splat was a personal favourite of mine and the young peoples, as it spiked energy and concentration levels, whilst helping the kids with their projection and physicality. Due to Declan’s natural energy to work with a younger group of people, and his overall fearlessness / confidence, it allowed me to kind of take a back seat within those first few days. I wasn’t as immersed in the experience as he was, and was definitely a lot more reserved / shy. Declan was up on his feet a lot more , engaged and bonding with the summer students, whereas I sat in the back at times, taking notes instead.
On day three, the programme began to get a lot more intense. We began to work on the first piece titled ‘Mobile Phone Show’, and had our first musical theatre session with MD Wilson Shields to prepare arrangements for ‘You will be found’ from the musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’, and the fast paced ‘My Shot’ from ‘Hamilton’. Towards the end of the day, a choreographer was brought in to stage the Hamilton piece, where the performers where split into different sections, with different cues, and different movements all together. At this point, I was even struggling to keep up with all the harmonies, lines, and jazz hands, so I cant imagine how overwhelmed all the kids where feeling. But thankfully, Declan had already memorised the dance piece, each groups harmonies, and had even highlighted each performers lines with a variety of coloured highlighters. So no matter what, we where going to be just fine, fully ready and prepared to take on rehearsals the next morning.
“Hi Tabitha, Declan here. I’m absolutely gutted but I’ve tested positive for Covid! Can you let Rob know I’ll not be there for the rest of the cou…”
You. Are. Joking Me. The stress that flushed over my body waking up that morning was otherworldly. We had barely scratched the surface of any of the performance pieces, and the person I relied on the most for keeping me right, holding the fort, taking the warmups, and who was also my main source of company, was now a victim to the dreaded double lined lateral flow.
To describe this worst case scenario situation, I was now left with all the responsibilities that myself and Declan usually would have halved (or if we’re talking metaphorically and involving a cake, Declan always happily took the larger slice). I was now fully responsible for insuring each of the kids had their temperatures accurately taken each morning, all their COVID19 documentation was correctly filled out, and of course, take the warmup, by myself, with the entire group
I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I hadn’t established the same relationship with these kids as Declan had. I didn’t had the confidence in the first few days to put myself out there more, and had allowed myself to fade into the background. Besides for Rob, I now had full responsibility to not only help put on a fantastic show in the space of ten days, but I also had the responsibility for the welfare of all the young performers.
The first course of action was building a greater bond with the performers. I sat with them everyday for lunch, took my breaks at the same time as them, and started to come in earlier, so I could sit with the few that had to get the early morning train. This helped strengthen a sense of trust between myself and the younger people, as they felt more confident confiding in me, and allowing me to help them when I could.
Keeping on top of five entirely different showcase performances, however, was extremely tricky. Due to Bruiser’s style, there was so much going on in terms of movements and gestures, with each physical element being crucial to the performance. As Rob began splitting the kids up to work on different pieces in smaller groups, it was crucial I stayed on top of things. I had memorised and learnt each of the dances, recorded all the individual harmonies for the musical theatre pieces, and knew almost all the scripts off by heart. I found it difficult in the first few run through days maintaining the performers’ concentration and energy, so I began utilising our warmup games at intervals throughout rehearsing, and always encouraged the kids to keep trying new things. As I also began to prove myself to Rob, I was allowed to act as a somewhat assistant director, allowing me to have a stronger creative input within rehearsal. Specifically for ‘Mobile Phone Show’, I was able to intertwine my dance background into the performance, by creating some of the movement sequences in the performance.
“Drama is a multi-model art form, and necessarily requires students to use visual images, movement, and sound as well as words”. (1)
To conclude, I have genuinely never been in such awe of such a young and talented group of people. Despite losing an intern, a cast member dropping out last minute, 5 physically demanding drama pieces in two weeks, and me running about like a headless chicken half the time, its safe to say the final showcase was a huge success.
My action plan for next time is to just stop taking the back seat on things, and allow myself to fully open up and get immersed in the experience right of the bat. I will ensure to build strong bonds with the people I’m working with from the very first day, and be fearless when taking on a leadership role.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1) Helen Nicholson, The Show Must Go On, Continuum (2000)
