Sam Winder is the guest blogger...

Saturday became something of a packed day, but you can’t really complain when it is packed full of YTYT, let’s be honest.

Gold company fell victim to one of my infamous gatecrashes again so I was lucky enough to listen in to the read through of their Christmas show, “The Snow Queen.” It was unusual to be sitting in on the initial steps of a play with a company I am not strictly part of but at the same time it meant I could focus on the play itself rather than where I would place myself within it. This play, as one of the lesser known fairytales – it is not Disney’s Frozen, I assure you - was an honour to listen to; I feel like we almost owe it to Anderson to share it, minus the disneyfication. With friendship being a central idea, The Snow Queen is a play that we can all relate to and, I have utter faith in Gold Company to produce something real and honest. We played lots of games too, that was good.

From Gold Company, three of us from Sapphire and Sarah made a mad rush to Ossett Gala with plenty of powerwalking and some minor miracles in terms of parking. It is unusual for Sapphire to perform something at this time of year and with holidays and the joys of summer, we were a few people down for the performance. Nonetheless, the whole company contributed in terms of the devising process and I am proud of everyone who did perform for representing the company in its entirety, performing professionally and confidently. As a first performance for some, our tribute to creativity which echoed a journey through Yew Tree was quite fitting in their first steps into the world of acting.

Though there were plenty of other things going on, dance rehearsals, Performance UK rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals and more rehearsals, the final rehearsal of the day for me was for Mugged. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re performing it as part of YTYT’s anniversary event as one of the first National Theatre Connections plays that Sarah directed and Yew Tree performed. I have to say, it was great to start working on a script like this and it is certainly helping with the Connections withdrawal issue that many of us face each year. Most of all, it was exciting to put it up on its feet and begin to explore our characters… Playing Marky, a lot of my personality is about being logical, accepting facts and putting my faith in the world and as such, I am going to have to work at the way this influences his actions. Likewise, each character began to build up their motivations yesterday and we saw some quite dramatic changes in personality, specifically by Dec who quickly became a little scary after his 7 day pilgrimage to Lourdes last week. I feel as if I may have to get used to being pushed around a bit in rehearsals.  With such rapid progress after only one rehearsal, I am positively buzzing for next week.

So, quite a white knuckle ride of a day. Even so, it is these days that show us just how much we can achieve in a few hours so I am thankful for it all the same: cheers, Gold Company for having me yesterday; well done Sapphire, you are a team; nicely done Mugged cast, I look forward to next week!


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