02 Thursday Dec 2021
Posted in Scribbling, Theatre
Once upon a time, December used to be a rather non-writing month, all given to Christmas preparations. Crafting ornaments and decorations, trimming trees, baking Lebkuchen, making the pudding, searching for presents, listening to carols… this sort of things.
I just believed – in all naive honesty – that there was no time to write in December… Continue reading
25 Thursday Nov 2021
Posted in Theatre
Tags
dress rehearsal, Noises Off, Opening Night, Philip Henslowe, Shakespeare in Love, stage superstitions, theatre
Us – after dress. Or tech. Or whatever it was.
So the play opens tomorrow night.
We had dress rehearsals, last night – or perhaps not quite… I mean it in that Noises-Offish way, you know: if this is tech, when do we do dress? And if this is dress, when do we do tech?
Yes, well… Continue reading
05 Friday Nov 2021
Posted in Theatre
The real-life Bea
Oh dear. Oh goodness me. Oh Spirit of the Bard…
I’m going to play again.
As in, on the stage. On the Tiny Theatre’s stage. Before an audience.
I’m going to play Bea. Continue reading
15 Friday Oct 2021
So they’ve been tidying up the Company’s extensive collection of books, plays and whatnots over the summer – and, as has become the case these past few years, everything and anything that isn’t in Italian has been set aside for me.
And I really mean anything: I once ended up with a book of plays in Serbian. Nobody had an inkling of when, how or, more relevantly, why on earth it had landed in the Company’s library – but, quite regardless, it went in the “Clara” box. That I don’t know a single word of Serbian didn’t seem to matter much. For the record, the book is still somewhere in my shelves – obviously unread but there… Continue reading
24 Thursday Jun 2021
Posted in Theatre
Tags
And tonight we debut Il Rumore delle Ali – that is, The Sound of Wings – my own Amelia Earhart play, the one I’m co-directing together with Nina…
As usual, I want to emigrate to St. Helena, and the natural condition of theatre, and all that – but, for once, not really. We had dress rehearsals last night – well, tech rehearsals and then dress, in quick succession – and it was all the tiniest tad Noisesoffish, in that I’d be hard put to say which was which – but in spite of that, it all went… dare I say it? No, I don’t, of course. One never does, for fear of jinxing things. Let us put it this way: when I say that I want to emigrate to St. Helena, I might be slightly overstating the case. Continue reading
18 Thursday Mar 2021
Posted in Theatre
Yes, I’m a director now.
No longer an assistant, no – a full fledged director.
I won’t say it wasn’t in the air, because it was. Has been for some time perhaps. After the last summer season – which was a test I passed.
And now… Continue reading
12 Thursday Nov 2020
Posted in Theatre
Every day I seem to realise a little more how much of our lives has moved to the realm of distance connections – even when the distance isn’t much at all. I told you about how our drama school moved all classes and meetings to Zoom, and then there is my mother doing her yoga practice via GoogleMeet, and the Company’s similarly organized cycle of Sepulveda readings… Continue reading
06 Thursday Aug 2020
Posted in Theatre
This is going to be a rather celebratory post, I warn you.
Because, you see, the Summer Season is over. Continue reading
09 Thursday Jul 2020
Posted in Scribbling, Theatre
Tax-rolls for the names, the Agas Map of London, rope (or not rope) ferries, lute music, woodcuts and their elements, leagues and miles, Estienne’s Guide des Chemins de France, post horses, ruffs and collars, the (not very long) way from the Quai des Bernardins to the Rue des Anglais in Paris, the right way to take a bow, original frontispieces, light hours in November, and Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, Cadiz 1596, wives inheriting, Channel crossings, Thomas Platter… Continue reading
11 Thursday Jun 2020
Posted in Theatre
So – are we back yet?
A little hard to tell. I mean, theatres are opening again next week. Opening with all sorts of restrictions, as was to be expected – like playing with gloves whenever there are props to be touched, and masks when the actors need to go near each other, and keeping safe distances in the audience, and onstage, and backstage… As I said, nothing truly unexpected, but it will be hard to get used to… Continue reading
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