Moon Booth

Alice back, reporting for blog duty. Thank you to those still reading our ramblings. 

What day is it? Where are we? 6 days in a row in the black box sent us loopy and we flew to the moon. Luckily there was a nice lady there to take our picture as proof. 

Unfortunately this did not happen, or at least it sort of did. I am feeling rather delirious, 6 days in the black box that is stage 2, essentially living at Northern Stage, I then went to work today (a busy cafe in Heaton) and I'm not sure I know my own name anymore. My eyes are like a little mole's and I keep seeing extra fingers on my hand. I'm also crying at lurpak adverts. It must be production week right? Making a show whilst rehearsing it at the same time has been quite a ride, and we've all worked our little NORTH brains to the core, no stone has been left unturned and I am now obsessed with the Moon. 

Caroline Pearce, who we'd met in our very first induction week suggested we head to the Theatre Royal on Saturday perchance we were all in town and hanging out together. And we were. That's what we do now. Our little NORTH family. We met Amanda Drago, relationship officer for Dance at the Arts Council and her other unique vocation....The Moon Booth. A feast of little vintage stalls had descended over the four floors of the theatre and nestled in the corner was the Moon Booth. We perched onto the Moon and grabbed our props and that was that! What is not quite pictured in the photos is Michael's glorious choice of accessory, a red fez hat. Never has a hat fit a man so well. Amanda was extremely friendly and put us all at ease (and even let us leave some flyers for the show on her table!). It was lots of fun and we got to take our own little picture away for a fiver. Moon Booth can be booked for events, weddings, birthdays, cabaret nights...you name it! 

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North_NS x

Rehearsal: Week Four

Hi, all! 

Michael, here, taking on the responsibility of blogging our fourth week of rehearsals. This week represents a tricky foray into the blogosphere, as we get closer and closer to the showtime and strain not to give away any secrets! Suffice to say all that can be revealed will be revealed.

Over the last three weeks we have been experimenting, writing and delving deep into Ernest’s Scrapbook to discover more about this fascinating character. However, this has been a week of getting down to the nitty gritty of “The Man Who Thought That The Moon Would Fall Out Of The Sky” or as all the cool kids are calling it “TMWTTTMWFOOTS.”

Monday was spent revisiting the work we had shown at “The Greenhouse” scratch night on Thursday night of week three at Arts Centre Washington, and revisiting our timeline of Ernest’s life. There are so many incredible stories to tell we were almost overwhelmed with where to start.

However, like the devising troubadours we are, we jumped in and over the course of the week have explored many great moments in Ernest's life, including his birth, his first words, his first suit and his first day at work. We have also tackled the relationship between Ernest and She, as well as really focusing upon the moon itself.

George hits the bottle to escape books and letters. 

Meghan demonstrates greater powers of organisation. 

We have been using lots of really interesting but challenging techniques to draw the best out of the material we have found and written, including:

Rule-based improvisation - Improvising around text or ideas where one or both of those improvising have been given specific instructions or rules to employ. Usually neither person is aware of what the other has been told to achieve, which can lead to often bewildering but also magical moments in the rehearsal room.

The “Yes Yes Game” - where we improvised scenes using only the word “yes” or alternatively, “no.” Again, really challenging, but it really makes you think of how other elements of performance inform what you are communicating to the audience.

Scenes with an agenda - This was taking the same piece of text and replaying it whilst changing the emotional context. It’s amazing how easily a scene that has been constructed to be joyous can become fraught with the same text.

Mark Calvert providing a strong foundation for North.

It hasn’t all been work, work, work, though. We’ve had a pile-on in which our director Mark Calvert managed to prop up all of North, with the exception of yours truly, who elected to take a photograph instead! We helped our dramaturg, Susan Mulholland (or “Su-Mo” to her nearest and dearest) to celebrate her birthday with party food and prosecco, and witnessed a rather showy display of walking by her little boy, who celebrates his first birthday today!  

We also unearthed the world’s greatest and most fiercely contested  “Dodgeball” rivalry, played out between Ben Stiller-inspired factions of the North company during our regular morning warm-up. Although dogged by accusations of cheating, poor sportsmanship and above-the-shoulder cheap shots, the action was exciting, fun-filled and thoroughly warming! Special mention should go to Maria Crocker, whose commitment to the cause was second to none, and who took more than a few bullets for whichever team was lucky enough to have her.

On Thursday night , we watched our own Alice Blundell perform a slice of her one woman show as part of "First in Three" at Northern Stage. There was a lot of great work on show and Alice did herself and North proud. Well done to everyone involved!

As we head back to HQ at Northern Stage for the final furlong, we have to say thank you to the wonderful folk at The People's Theatre who have been our hosts for the past four weeks. 

We essentially took over a working rehearsal room, adorned its walls with our thoughts and images, reduced its dimensions daily as more and more equipment and proppage arrived to help us find our way and we have been made to feel nothing less than very welcome during our stay. A great theatre, with great people. They’re showing King Lear from 12th-16th March, and it’s sure to be worth a look! 

Finally, we need to thank you for reading and supporting us through this adventure, but remember to book your tickets for the show! There are various multi-buy deals available to grab a few friends and bring them for a terrific night! And remember you can also see us at the Stockton Arc on March 20th!

See you soon, 

North

North_NS

Rehearsal: Week 3

Alright Chaps

George here, It's been a very exciting week of devising for all of the NORTH team, having spent the last two weeks exploring potential material for scenes and possible relationships between characters we needed to spend some on finding a way to give all our ideas legs to stand on and find a way to tell our bold story of the man who thought the moon would fall out of the sky. A fairly daunting stage in the devising process for any theatre company but I resisted the temptation to hide under a table and we began to work out who this fascinating man called Ernest was, and what his issue with the moon was really all about.

We've focused on his life, as a company we constructed and then explored a detailed timeline of Ernest's life based on the research we've already done on him previously in rehearsal, amassing almost thirty years worth of moments and key events of his life. As a company this was a fantastic opportunity to explore our collective image and understanding of Ernest as a person, the way he lived and how interacted with other people.  Although the photograph on the left implies we let maria do all the work as we all admired Mark's new trainers....



A very cerebral and focused week was round off on friday by an afternoon pumped full of of helium and puppetry. Using basic items of clothing and a hoard of silver moon-esk balloons we explored the possibilities of portraying a character through the use of puppetry and moon iconography to see if we could breath life into Ernest's world from a more abstract perspective. Here's a selection of our ideas to feast your cheeky little eyes on.....

A mini moon chav with a smashing pair of shoes on.

 Maria's 'bubble bath'

The many uses of the generic brown caretaker coat

Alex's somewhat harrowing moonhead...

As show weeks slowly draws nearer we are all extremely excited to see our ideas and concepts come to life before us, as the story we want to tell begins to take form we are all eager to see where our creativity takes us and to discover new details in Ernest's fantastical lunar related journey. 

Keep an eye on the moon for us, it's looks like its hanging by a thread...

Lots of brap from the NOFFICE.

North_NS