Born Mad give us a peek at the preparation for their week-long run at Ovalhouse in London. Rebecca Hanbury – Born MadSwipe / click to begin MondayWe premièred Sister back in June as part of Spitalfields Music’s Summer Festival and this is our first performance since then. The first thing we needed to do was recap all the material for the show. We spent the first few days of rehearsal familiarising ourselves with the script, rehearsing the music and getting used to working with the set and props again. TuesdaySister is a tapestry of stories and our performers are constantly switching between characters, each of which has their own vocal quality and physicality. Having not performed the show for over three months, it’s crucial to go back and remember how we developed all of these to ensure we keep each story distinct. We like to do this with lots of physical warm ups – exploring and playing with each character’s individual traits until they feel like second nature. WednesdayRehearsals are led by our director Rebecca Hanbury. When we first made Sister, she kept detailed notes of how the show fitted together – everything from scene changes and prop placement to vocal quality and character’s intentions. She uses these notes to keep a watchful eye over rehearsals and run-throughs as we re-stage the piece, making sure nothing gets missed and that all the details from when we created the piece come through. ThursdaySister involves loads of live sound design and to create it we use a whole bunch of different microphones. All of the music and sound you hear during the piece is created live on stage so it’s crucial that everything is working. As we enter technical rehearsals, we have to do a thorough sound check to test the kit, adjust levels to suit the acoustic of the space and balance everything with the live action onstage. FridayOnce everything is set up we head into technical rehearsals. As we don’t rehearse under full stage lighting, this is lighting designer Ben Jacob’s chance to see the piece under lights again and make any adjustments to his design since the première back in June. It’s also an opportunity for stage manager Emma Collins and composer Alex Groves to rehearse all the lighting and sound cues ready for opening night. Arts PeopleTheatreLink to Author(s): Rebecca Hanbury Published: 21-09-2016 Log in or register to post comments