Virgins and ...

... hmm ... if I'm not exactly a virgin director, what does that make me? 

Auditions are approaching at an extraordinary rate - this Sunday and next Sunday, note it in your diaries! - and although it's been a while, I guess I do feel a bit like a virgin.

I can't claim the forebearance that a first-time director might beg. But after three years leave of absence, I'm clinging gamely to the hope that directing shares characteristics with bike-riding.

Preparation! There's a very real chance that some of the prospective cast members turning up over the next couple of weeks may actually know the play better than me! No airing of a fresh new work this time but rather a modern australian classic and popular high school favourite; Louis Nowra's Cosi. 

I already know from correspondence and discussion with some of the auditionees that I've several people turning up that studied the play at high school, one that studied it at uni, one that's played a major role in another of Nowra's plays and another that performed in a high school production of Cosi.

I can claim I read the play before I saw the movie, but that's only because I was spending more time at the theatre than in cinemas at the time and it took me a while, with a little trepidation, to get the video out from my local library. It was also because I've made a point of picking up copies of Nowra's plays at every opportunity. I was spell bound by a production of Capricornia at the Playhouse what must have been almost a couple of decades ago. When Miss Bosnia received it's first professional airing in Perth some time back I was approached by a friend to help her prepare for an audition. We couldn't get hold of a copy of the script for love or money and all she had was a monologue from the play to prepare. I remember several truly joyful hours spent exploring this snippet of text in complete isolation from the rest of the play. What if! Some time later I was thrilled to see the truth we'd uncovered in that isolated scene realised in a performance of the full play. And Inside the Island - my favourite Nowra and possibly favourite australian. I nearly, nearly got a professional season of this glorious play up at Camelot back in the mid-nineties.

Cosi? Yes, I've been doing my home work. Ordered a fresh copy of the play, read it four times through in the last couple of weeks, read a couple of synopses of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, have nearly finished listening to the opera again. I've split the play up into readily rehearsed units, drafted some preliminary props and effects lists, put some thought into set, lx and costume design and made up some notes on what I think I might be looking for in the auditions.

I'm always nervous about auditioning when other key production roles aren't yet filled. I just don't feel entirely ready to audition if I've not sat down with my colleagues on the production team and gone over the early lists of requirements, looked at or even settled some design ideas, shuffled some priorities in the budget, discussed some approaches to marketing... but one of the realities of community theatre is that it has often proved difficult to get all these things happening at the right times. It's very reassuring to have the team in place prior to the auditions, but from experience, I know it's not the end of the world if it doesn't quite happen that way.

Thankfully I am working with a company that's demonstrated a remarkable commitment and capacity to stage some extraordinary shows with a tiny cohort of contributors.

:-) 

I'll keep this blog going with regular updates throughout the process.