Half term happiness and hyperlinks...

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Some people who are lucky enough to be able to take a holiday at this point in the year like to spend their February half term week resting, others go away to foreign climes, still others enjoy daily excursions to enjoy the coast or soak up one of the many local cultural diversions whilst many more use it as a chance simply to catch up on all of those tasks and jobs that get left behind in the hurly burly of term time life. 

Not me and not the cast of Hacktivists.  We grafted hard…six hours rehearsal every day…fuelled by far too many portions of chips from the shop across the road and an excessive amount of confectionary…seriously we were living the dream…all in the name of creating a National Theatre Connections production to be proud of…

Monday was all about consolidating the work done since the play was cast last November.  It was in pretty good shape by the end of the first day but there were still aspects of it that needed creative solutions and the tasks for the rest of the week were clear…we also had the joy of a visit from some of the What’s Next team who have been busy with auditions this week. Finished off with a Nando's and a trip to the cinema for the majority of the cast it really was the perfect start to the week.

Tuesday was a day of discoveries – a movement sequence here, an extension of a scene there and the staging of a clear and concrete ending and we had our play.  I left feeling very excited about the theatre that we were making.  Hacktivists is very different to any of the Connections plays we have done.  It is incredibly wordy, lots of fast paced dialogue, it’s challenging and contemporary but also entirely relatable to…it’s been a joy to work on.

Wednesday was a full on festival of off text improvisation, character work and getting to grips with the scene that had eluded us up until this point.  By the end of the day the cast had added significant definition to their characters by exploring moments talked about in the script but not included in it.  Each actors character history had become clearer and I looked forward to seeing the richness it would add to the play in the following days rehearsal.

Thursday we really started to see the fruits of our labours…the run we did in the afternoon watched by special guest Hannah was so close to what we are aspiring to that we left feeling accomplished and ready which meant that on…

Friday in addition to running the show we were able to think about how we could ensure we got as many people to watch as possible and the click the link videos were created – there are three (one, two, three) out there already look out for the remaining four released one each day up until the first show…


And so Hacktivists is ready – performances are this week – we’re both excited and nervous about sharing it with you…hope you enjoy it…

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