A gift of a Saturday...

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Yesterday was a glorious youth theatre day…I have to admit it didn’t have the most auspicious start as I’m sure the members of Gold Company would agree.  Still I like to think we brought a bit of life to the Eastmoor estate as we played Killer 12 in front of the community centre.  I remarked at the time to the company and then later that afternoon to my family that a lesser group of young people would have let the circumstances get to them…not Gold Company – there was no unruliness or rebellion and despite the inclement temperature there wasn’t even any complaining…

Before too long we were in the rehearsal room and straight away we were fully absorbed in Christmas show rehearsals.  Over the two and a half hours that followed the whole cast worked so hard.  The result?  The massive achievement of finishing the dance that represents the ball where our 12 Dancing Princesses ruin their shoes and exhaust themselves every night.  The spontaneous cheer that went up when the last notes of the music played and we reveled in the fact that we had got it done swept me out of the room and onto my Saturday evening with a sense of accomplishment and joy…all that and we managed to tidy up the final scenes and have cake – happy birthday Rhiannon by the way. Also as a special treat I was able to look into Crimson rehearsals – just very briefly – Sleeping Beauty looks like it’s going to be a treat.

The gifts of Saturday were not over – after a brief break during which like a geek I revised vocal exercises – I had the joy of the first “proper” Hacktivist rehearsal after the joyous read through last week.  Inspiration for rehearsals can come from anywhere and on this occasion the inspiration came from Simon Winder, generous Dad of Amy and Sam who provided us with a wealth of discarded computery type stuff.  Watching the cast first play with it, then build their world of a hackerspace, then bring that world to life with the dialogue of the play was brilliant.  There was definitely a sense of the cast stepping into the role of a Connections company as they engaged with vocal technique maturely and with curiosity.  The two hours flew by and the progress made was significant – it certainly bodes well for the production as a whole.


I returned home at 7pm entirely happy with the day and grateful for the sheer happy creativity of my Saturdays…the sense of achievement making the whole day feeling exceptionally worthwhile.

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