And the hard work begins...now!

Its the week back after the Christmas holidays and rehearsals are once again in full swing. The pressure is starting to build for everyone knowing that the opening night is only six weeks away. Rehearsals  for dancing have been on during the week at lunch, chorus rehearsals began again on Thursday and there was a big rehearsal yesterday for all of the cast involved in act one, scene one. Everyone is working really hard to perfect things and get things done.
Yesterday, Saturday the 11th of January, the director, production team, main cast and every other cast member involved in Act one, scene one arrived in the school bright and early for rehearsals. We started off with warm-ups- which included the hokey poky. Then everyone got straight to work. Whether it was practising in a scene, learning a dance, practising a song or running lines, everyone was working hard. The production team was there to help with any jobs that needed doing, Even if that did mean manning the door to let people in and running lines with cast members. Katie even found our first prop!! An arrow!
Major practise was going underway for the scene with the show where Francis fryer dances onstage in Deadwood city. Conor, who plays Francis, looked like he was having a lot of fun learning the dance and lets just say he got really into character. 
In the end they managed to get through the whole of act one, scene one and everyone was out of the school by half one. Well, everyone apart from the orchestra who had arrived for practise at one O' clock who were staying until three.

Chorus Rehearsals

Chorus rehearsals are on every Tuesday from 4 O'clock until 6 O'clock. It is run by the music stage managers Emma, Aoife and Shannon, and also Ms M. The rehearsal begins with voice warm ups and then they get straight to business learning songs. They started with 'deadwood stage', then moved onto 'the windy city'. Next they learned 'keep it under your hat' and then onto 'careless with the truth'.
The main cast involved in these songs also attend rehearsals to sing along to their parts with the rest of the chorus.

Ready, Steady...GO!!!!

And finally rehersals are up and running. On Saturday the 9th of November, all of the main cast came together in a classroom in the St Wolstans for the first official read through of the script. This involved the script was read from cover to cover with everyone reading as their lines for the first time. This gave everyone a sense of the character that they are to portray in this production. It was the first time that the cast got together so it gave them the chance to get to know each other.
During the week beginning the 11th of november, singing rehersals took place for both the main cast, who had one on one rehersals, and the chorus who have started learning the opening song 'Deadwood stage'.
The dancing rehersals have also started, which take place at lunchtimes. There are a lot of different styles of dances being performed;from line dancing to ballet, irish dancing to hip hop. We had a great turn out for dancers so the dances are coming together well.

Auditions finished...Now the hard work begins!

For the past few weeks, auditions have been taking place to decide who would be playing the lead roles in the school musical, Calamity Jane. The first step was to recruit people who wanted to sign up and be involved in the musical. The acting and music stage managers took this job by the reigns and organised list of who wanted to do which audition.Then came auditions, with separate auditions for acting and singing. Students from both St Wolstan's Community school and Salesian college took part in these auditions. 
After the first round of auditions had been completed, a number of students were handpicked for a call back. These callbacks would determine who would play which role. Once the decision had been made, the list of the main cast was posted. Separate auditions also took place for supporting roles and also for dancing.
Well done to everyone who auditioned and congratulations to everyone who were cast as main roles.
Saturday is the first official rehearsal where the entire cast will read through the script together for the first time. It is definitely something to look forward to as the cast can really get a feel for their role.