Jeevan's Connections 2023 Blog

 Despite making notes for the past five months on what to include in my blog, I wasn’t actually planning on writing one because there was nothing that particularly stood out to me, but after a message in full caps where I was full-named and called a weirdo for not doing one from someone who can’t even say yoyo, I was persuaded. So here I am, watching a Bob Ross tutorial while writing my blog…

During the show days of Brexit the Musical last July, before even having the options of what our Connections play would be, the crew was decided: Sarah as director (obviously), John as assistant director (or assistant to the director in a true The Office Dwight Schrute throwback), Sam as stage manager, and Ash as sound manager. Unlike previous years, I decided to actually read each of the potential play choices this year, and only one stood out to me, like I’m sure it did for several others. Come September, we had been allocated our first choice play, The Heights by Lisa McGee; a play about stories… and a psychopath who likes to write them. Other than the script not being updated since 2008, with the front cover stating it can only be performed in 2009 signed by a writing agent that doesn’t actually work for that specific agency anymore, and there being no scene 7 and two scene 19s, it is by far one of my favourite Connections plays in terms of story and characters.

We were given just under two months to prepare for our auditions, however I decided to reprioritise and focus on learning my Lamda pieces and getting through the Miners memorial and the Big Conversation (which I only just about got through). This still left us with two weeks to auditions, which I spent the majority of being indecisive about which character I wanted to play. In the end, after a very quick turnaround of learning lines and somewhat changing jobs twice, I auditioned for Dara and immediately regretted my choice when I realised I preferred Jacob’s character. Luckily, casting came through and I was given Jacob,  double-casted with Cait. Both casts were equally as good as the other, and portrayed their characters in different ways, which is what makes double casting so interesting. In Dr Who, each doctor portrays a different aspect (eg. the tenth shows the sadness whereas the eleventh shows the playfulness, and the thirteenth portraying the cringe and lack of writing skill of Chris Chibnell) - well, that’s sort of like double casting. Each actor creates a different interpretation of the same character. I mostly recognised it with the Daras', with Arwen’s emphasising the disobedience and Eliana’s, the chaos and “buzzy-ness”. 

Commitment. One of the many things I struggle with. However, with Connections this year, because of Sarah’s spreadsheet that tracked our attendance, I felt obliged to turn up to every single rehearsal (not that I wouldn’t have anyway), only missing one rehearsal and being late twice. However, then you go ahead and look at my attendance to Lamda during January and it’s a completely different story, but I had somewhat of a valid reason for that (leaving your Ucas application until the last week is not something I recommend).  

On the topic of being late (which is exactly what this blog is), we managed to get the programmes  delivered on the night before the performances! Over the course of a month, me and Alise designed the posters (we have very different and distinct styles) and then it was up to me to collate them together to create the programme. For some reason, I made it 6 pages rather than 8 which meant the only printing option was an A5 folded leaflet, which are surprisingly hard to come by. We managed to find a company called HelloPrint which produced them for a reasonable price so they were ordered about 4 days in advance. However after a day I was sent a proof, and it turns out there was an issue with some of the text on the comic strip which delayed it, and then issues with the shipping services delayed it even further. Luckily they arrived on time and in good condition. Sadly with the posters that were posted on social media, Fb and Ig did their weird image compression thing which meant it looked like you were looking at them through my glasses two times over! 

Of all the characters I’ve played, I struggled with Jacob’s characterisation the most. All the usual methods we do in Connections helped a lot with his relationships within the play, but it was only until Sarah talked about being playful that I realised Jacob needed to have fun with his narration. Things only fell into place with his characterisation near the end of Connections week, about two days before our local performances. Again, another instance of being last minute. With the Lillie and Jacob scene, I think the most helpful thing we did was splitting it up into different units and giving each one its own energy to play. 

It wouldn’t feel like a Connections play if there wasn’t an awkward moment to face. This year, it’s Jacob’s almost-kiss with Lillie. On our first few tries, I literally could not hold Nat’s hand and also struggled with how one would turn someone sat beside them to face them; a common theme with me because that’s exactly what I struggled to do last year with Brooke in Hunt. However, with a lot of practise, re-staging and the power of Sarah’s disappointed look, the “moment” became one of Cords’, our National Theatre director’s, stand-out moments along with the strangle between Lillie and Dara. 

One of my fondest moments of the rehearsals is when I was standing in for Hattie as Jimmy, and Eliana’s Dara told him to “F@*# off and die!” and I just stood there shocked because I didn’t realise it was in the script and it was very dark. Although now that I think about it, it seems to be a common occurrence with her because in the Sheffield runs, there were some very squeaky coat hangers backstage that I could apparently be hung up on with my weird shirt. Hung. Yeap. But it’s fine because this is coming from the very same person that called a yoyo a zozo.

This bring us to Connections Week, one of the main reasons I enjoy Connections. This is when we do a lot of character work and make sure the play flows properly. Obviously, at this late stage in the rehearsal process, it’s a given that lines should be confidently learnt but… No need to continue that sentence. Every day we ordered in food from Nice Nosh, the chip shop across the road, which was a Connections tradition I was introduced to back in 2017, and although I was intrigued and tempted by their ‘Sloppy Nosh’, I stuck with my regular order of cheesy chips. I also kept up with my daily pack of Pringles (a tradition that came about for me through Brexit the Musical), Batman candy sticks and a Refresher that I literally had to suck till it was soft. After educating some uncultured cast members about the different Batman logos, having flashbacks whilst watching Matthew do music theory, two pub trips with Arwen and spending a hectic day on transitions, the play was just about ready to be performed at Beckets. 

18/02/2023 - 19/02/2023 : Local Performances

Despite being late to pretty much everything in my entire life, I was on time both days for the locals, although the same can’t be said for Sarah on the Saturday. Just gonna quickly go ahead and take note of that in my spreadsheet. After doing a tech run, being called a ‘little fella’ and listening to Hattie complain about her hat, it was time to open the doors to the audience, including my mum who, as usual, was the first one in. Personally, I felt that my performance of Jacob was much better on the first night, whereas on the second night I struggled to focus and stay in character, which is why I was glad that we still had Sheffield. You know how I have an issue with not knowing what to do with my life, well being a BBC reporter is a new potential career after a suggestion by Hattie’s dad. For those that were double cast, we had to also do front of house. Socialising. Something that I actually can do now without being overwhelmingly awkward. On the first night, I was just handing out programmes and asking for a donation, but the second night was much more interesting; I got to tell people where to sit whilst aggressively trying to figure out what Eliana’s mum was knitting. Apparently, my baffled facial expressions didn’t go unnoticed. As always, we had a somewhat uncoordinated chat with out National Theatre rep, which was mostly because we were all shattered after so many runs. We got a lot of good feedback about the locals, but two particular ones stood out to me: 1) Conner (not an ex-Yew-Tree-er forgot to bring the tomatoes to throw on stage when I messed up, and also pitched a somewhat good business idea to sell snacks before the show began and 2) Connor (ex-Yew-Tree-er) had some mixed opinions on the plot of the play, along with an unused Gladiator-style speech to motivate the cast. Unfortunately, I read this rallying speech too late for it to motivate me to enjoy playing a boogie-ing shelf in our last performance on Sunday. 

Professionalism (noun): A group of Yew Tree actors backstage trying to do trick shots with an origami jumping frog. 

After a week off where I practically forgot most of my lines, we were back in the rehearsal room preparing the play for Sheffield. A lot of changes had to be made especially with accommodating the thrust stage and with only having three entrances to the stage, or so we thought anyway. Turns out that all the changes we made to entrances and exits and with flipping the props for Lillie’s bedroom around just got reverted back to normal because the theatre decided to add the fourth stage entrance. One standout moment for me during these final three weeks of rehearsals before Sheffield was when Sarah recognised my preparedness for sessions; she had asked everyone to get their phones out to take notes during an exercise we were doing to help us to prepare for the thrust stage, and obviously mine was close by in my pocket whilst everyone else went into the other room. In my defence, at least three others were guilty of having their phones in their pocket but still left the room. 

23/03/2023 : Sheffield Performance

After an infuriating “disagreement” with Eliana about drying clothes and realising how overpriced Westgate’s WHSmith is, we arrived at Sheffield Crucible theatre, and went pretty much straight into our tech run. Since it was only our group performing, we had the entire day to get through a tech, and two full runs. Throughout the excessively long tech run (although it did pay off in the end), I somehow managed to hit my back on the metal railings on the stairs, and we spent a good amount of time on making sure Jacob had a light as this was an issue that was brought up by Cords for the locals (Sarah isn’t gonna let me forget me missing my mark for two entire shows). Luckily, lunch wasn’t as eventful and hectic as last year, with me, Arwen and Matthew heading to Starbucks and having a wander around Sheffield’s centre, whilst everyone else went to McDonalds to give the staff there about 11 more orders on top of the 30 they already had. After John giving Matthew some words of wisdom for his future, accidentally locking Olli out of our changing room and being constantly reminded by Layla that she is in-fact also ill, we’d finished all three runs. At this point, I was in need of the Red Bulls I left at home on my table. After being made fun of for not liking chilli for the second year in a row, being taught how to Zozo and watching pieces of pink note paper drop like bowling balls, the doors were opened up to the public and even at this point, it still hadn’t hit that this is my last Connections. As usual, it was my mum who was first through the doors, surprisingly without a glass of Baileys. Apparently, when my mum was getting a soft drink at the theatre, Hattie’s dad teased that she was getting Baileys - I’m glad my blog is getting the right information out there to the right people! The performances themselves felt like our strongest, and it also felt like we were properly prepared for it so could just sit back and enjoy performing. During our 2nd performance when I was only playing an unenthusiastic boogying shelf, Paul was talking to me backstage about how many Connections I had done - I said four. Turns out that’s incorrect, and I’ve done five - I entirely forgot about Witches Can’t Be Burned. Not gonna comment on what this says about my opinions on this play. As usual after our performances, there was a fair amount of tears from some of the cast and I did admittedly laugh at Layla because it’s been a long running joke that she hasn’t let go of since I laughed at those crying after Hunt last year. To be honest, I don’t think my brains actually realised that this is my last Connections and last term at Yew Tree! Even though my performance as a shelf was top notch, there’s always some that have to criticise; Hattie’s mum confidently said I have no rhythm. I think most people would agree after seeing me “dance” in Merlin & Morgana and attempt physical theatre in the Christmas shows. After falling asleep in the train on the way home (probably the best sleep I’d had in a while), Connections 2023 was done and dusted.

Ceasefire Babies. Look Up. Witches Can’t Be Burned. Hunt. The Heights. Gonna truly miss Connections - they’ve been one of the best experiences in my life so far which I won’t ever forget! Well, maybe one of them I will. But the rest can stay in my memory. 

See you in the next blog, 

Jeev : )