Not Yours, Mine @ Oldham Coliseum Blog 4

‘Ello! Ned here, playing LEWIS in Not Yours, Mine. The second week of rehearsals are coming to a close, and with that we’re now starting to run the play in its entirety more and more. This is a great way for us to get a good idea of which scenes need a bit more refining and adjusting before we open on June 1st. We have a slightly unconventional rehearsal schedule in the sense that we won’t be meeting next week until Friday afternoon, for a day and a half of tech and dress rehearsals, and then our first performance on Saturday evening. I reckon it’s inevitable we’re all going to be a little nervous getting back to it after a few days off, but rehearsing so intensely and constructively for the last two weeks means the piece is in a really good place, and I’m confident the moment we’re all back in the room, everything will fall back into place as though we only finished yesterday. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have had the chance to play the role of Lewis. In plays that tackle serious subjects, it can often be difficult to find the joy of a character, but Lewis’ glass half full approach to life and his reluctance to grow up means that there is a real natural balance to his light hearted demeanour. Refining this has been a huge part of the rehearsal process for me individually, which has been helped massively by Rachel’s directing; we’ve done ‘Fun Runs’ of scenes- a version of the scene in which all the blocking and naturalism is thrown out the window, and we’re given the freedom to follow our instincts and see what comes of it. This has been so helpful in helping discover the playful side of the characters. The final few days of rehearsals have also involved ‘Speed runs,’ essentially a run of the whole play but with the fast forward button on x32 - this has been great for injecting some more energy into every scene and ensuring that every scene transition or piece of movement is second nature to us. We’ve also done some improvisations of scenes that take place before and during the events of the play to help refine our character relationships and journeys, and some good old detailed scene work on sections that we feel need it. It’s been a cracking two weeks with a wonderful group of people. Roll on show week!