Today was themed Tech and Rest. We began the day with our first breakfast at Pollock Halls and everyone agreed that the selections were tremendous. But not everyone tried the haggis but there are still seven more mornings to come.
We then boarded the bus to our venue at the Grand Theatre at the Spaces@Surgeons Hall. It is a beautiful location just off the the Royal Mile. The Spaces actually includes several theatre spaces. Part of today's tech rehearsal was to also actually go through the process that we would experience when we give the actual performances . . . from lining up outside the venue to leaving the venue. John and Louis with the Live Arts Tech were on hand to take us through the process and help us with our lights and sound.
After we got off the bus, we circled up and did a chant, and then we entered the Spaces. The advice that was given to us at last night's meeting was to let the tech crew take care of tech and the director take care of actors. As hard as this was for Mr. Kitsu, he did let go and Nathaniel and Andrew took care of the lights and sound. Nikita, Brandon, Christian, and Chelsea worked with John to go over front of the house duties.
I believe because we are so used to performing in foreign spaces, our actual tech set up was done in 30 minutes and we were able to run through 3/4 of the show and all transitions.
We did get a positive comment from another member of the Live Arts staff after we completed our run through. Some thoughts about this process . . . we have less than 15 minutes to set up and get in character when we arrive at the venue (we will be in costume when we leave the dorms), when we ride the bus to our performance, also riding the bus with us will be audience members of AHSTF schools. This will be an interesting experience for the students in that they will try to stay focus while their audience is with them. Once we get there, there may be audience members queued (lined up) to get into our show, again the tradition of not seeing the audience till curtain will be gone. It will be a challenge for the students to keep their focus but I know they will be able to handle it well.
We returned to the dorms by bus and decided to take a break for a few hours . . . had lunch and plan on going down to Royal Mile to shop and tour. We were going to do our street performance to market our show but with everyone's energy a bit low and the hectic pace we have been experiencing, we decided to take it easy.
