A Week in the Life of a Chorus Girl : The Tech Rehearsal
Holly Lucas
About 12 years ago, I headed along to a little hall one evening after seeing an advert for auditions in my local paper. 'Disco Inferno' was to be performed, and at the time I was looking to get more experience of performing on a bigger stage rather than just in my school hall. Since then, I've performed in every show they've done and made a heap of lifelong friends who I couldn't be without, and the time has come again for us to perform our next production; 'Made in Dagenham'. That's right, it's show week! The perfect opportunity to give you all a little insight into the world of am dram - a week in the life of a chorus girl; the tech rehearsal.
Monday evening; our first night in the theatre itself. When we arrive the set is built and has a real industrial feel to it with heaps of scaffolding and clever touches, perfect for the factory setting of the show. There's always that slight trepidation when you get there of how good the set will look - sometimes it's not quite what you envisioned...
Soon we discover there's an awful lot of set in the wings as well. Now, the theatre we perform in is fairly small on wing space as it is, so with 5 sewing machines, tables, chairs, sofas, beds, cupboards, trunks, statues, and a huge car all squeezed in, we already know it's going to be a tight squeeze.
The plan had been the evening before for the tech crew to do a dry run of the show with no cast, working out exactly what was going where on stage, marking it up and practicing scene changes so at this tech rehearsal we could run the show. Alas, this was not the case, as the crew spent 13 hours putting all the set together and figuring out what they could compromise on to be able to fit it into the theatre. So this tech run was their first run, and with so many complex scene changes, the tension was high.
We headed to the changing rooms to get our first costumes on and started the run, albeit a little later than planned as we figured out what props and set were coming on from where.
We stopped numerous times right from the start, what with gauzes flying in, set trying to get on and off without trampling anyone, the props team figuring out what needed to be where (and let me tell you there are 3 huge tables brimming with props in this show), and we cut a lot of songs and dialogue so we could get through as much of the show as possible, meaning there was a lot of hanging around.
Despite that, we knew this rehearsal was for the crew, but it was perfect for us to figure out what props we needed to pre-set, where the hell we were going to do costume and mic changes (especially as the band are also on stage at the back of the set) and what we needed to change from our rehearsals now we had real things to work with. The opening scene, for example, we'd all been pretending to fiddle with tools, clipboards, mopping floors, but it turns out none of that was there. So we improvised. I brought on a cloth from another scene and shined some bumpers, someone else found a broom, someone read a newspaper - anything we could get our hands-on. Others decided they could bring in something the following day to use.
What we've discovered over the last few days is that everyone is willing to help with anything. Where we found things didn't work or we needed extra props, someone would be able to help out or offer something to make it work. We're a team after all.
By the end, we hadn't even got halfway through act 2. Though that is common at tech rehearsals, we could tell the production team was really disappointed. They made the decision to send us home early so they could spend the last half an hour in the theatre working out what bits of set to compromise on to make it work. I don't think many of them got much sleep that night.
Look out for the next installment to see how we fared at the dress rehearsal!