Backstairs Billy– Week Four

It’s our penultimate week of rehearsals and I can’t believe how quickly time is going! I can see the play taking shape this week. The cast is doing a stellar job and the scenes take on a well-crafted physical and emotional journey, with the comedy beats landing with specificity. 

Michael is drilling down on the details of smaller beats and moments throughout the week, paying close attention to the language of the play to ensure the text sings. We begin to glue scenes together, which gives greater clarity to the character arcs within the play. Our Lighting Designer, Ryan Day, is also in attendance so he can start mapping his lighting plot and discussing some of his initial ideas with Michael. 

We finish the week much like the last, with a day of understudy rehearsals. There won’t be as much opportunity to continue with these rehearsals next week so it’s wonderful to get this time. The understudies have done a brilliant job learning their lines and picking their tracks up so quickly, and these rehearsals mean that they’ll be show-ready by the time we’re in the theatre.