Dress Rehearsal

Today, my day went like this: in the morning - attaching reflective backing on to shards of mirror; sticky pads on the bottom of the orchestra chairs; camping lights on the pulpit staircase; pots of tea and plenty of washing up.  In the afternoon, our final session of working notes with the singers, when we pared back some action and made the two ensemble scenes look a bit less crowded, to help the audience see more clearly.  Then in the evening I got to do some simple bits of make-up (making London's feet dirty, for example!), which was great for calming my nerves, and then we did our final rehearsal - lights, costume, orchestra, singing, and a small audience of friends and family.  My biggest fear was that the singers would be blinded by the lights, which were new to them, but actually the challenge was that the conductor and orchestra were under-lit - a massive challenge for them at the time but thankfully an easy one to solve for next time.  After the rehearsal, we all breathed a big sigh of relief, then the lighting designer, lighting technician and I spent a couple of hours tweaking the lighting states and making the fiery glow a bit bolder.

Tomorrow - world premiere of *And London Burned*.