The OVO blog

Three Sisters is a very great play, but the devil to rehearse. It is written like a piece of music, the equivalent of string quartet, but for twelve players, so imagine trying to practise a double string sextet with parts missing.

Happily, the cast are mostly  OVO regulars, so they are used to rehearsal absences (being themselves people with lives full to bursting) , but there are days when the director gets a little frustrated shunting the noble stand-ins around the stage. “You’re over there now.”  “You sat down a while ago.” “According to my blocking diagram, you’re off stage.”

Mind you, I make those kind of remarks to the regular actors too, whose marginal scribblings frequently disagree with my diagrams, if they have actually made note of their moves, and not left their script in some pub.  But surely such things don’t happen in our disciplined environment?

Imogen

Pudding Lane is alive with youth.

The cast of Our Country’s Good are largely students from Act Now! Performing Arts School – and very good they are too! The audience is also largely under twenty, as the play is a sixth form set text, and teachers all over Hertfordshire are gratefully shepherding their students to Pudding Lane. Matt Corcoran, himself an OVO regular, who is studying the play, decided after seeing the performance last night, that he would be much better off spending an evening watching the play again than at home reading it. We do like repeat business.

I can report that the bar is selling a lot more Coke than wine at the moment.

Auditions for ART by Yasmina Reza, went extremely well, and the play has now been cast.  The auditionees and myself, (director Jo Emery) duly went off to the Boot public house, in order to celebrate.  I think it will be a familiar haunt of ours over the next few months….rehearsals start in December!!

One of the cast for ART also kindly read in for Three Sisters at rehearsal on Sunday 3rd October, as some of the cast were struck down by the flu bug that’s hitting the hood. Thanks Trev!

A Musical Journey  – the first venture from OVO’s new musical  theatre troupe (name yet to be determined) – was a big success. We were once again sold out, with a substantial unfulfilled demand for tickets, which has led to an immediate second date, this time at Whitwell, where we have a bit of a following, thanks to the clans of Widdowson and Woods.

Further gigs are planned for next year.

At this rate we’ll be touring the county next – hang on, haven’t we just stopped  doing that?