Ballet Central Diary

April (the hard work continues, more auditions)

Well, we're back at school, after yet another tour (Hexham, Wakefield, Colwyn Bay). This was a very hard tour mainly because we had great distances to travel between the venues but also because they were on consecutive days. This meant 5am starts, 3 hour coach rides between venues, get-in, rehearsals and performance - and then repeat the next day. You can imagine that by Colwyn Bay we were all extremely tired. However we were buoyed up by some very responsive audiences, especially in Colwyn Bay.

The coach became a very strange place in the mornings - a psuedo dormitory with the whole company extending their sleeping hour on the journeys between venues. We had people in the aisles, on top of each other and even the admin team slept on some occasions. Hexham is a lovely town and we were lucky to have two nights there. We arrived late Wednesday and checked into our hotel (luckily right next door to the theatre). That night was spent relaxing and taking advantage of a quasi-lie-in, the next day. Full English breakfasted, we rolled into the theatre and began the usual tasks of; laying the floor, rigging the lights, washing our costumes. Lunch is followed by class and rehearsals, followed by a snack dinner and the performance, the get-out, and bed.

Next morning up very early (very kindly the Hotel laid on a delicious breakfast at 5.30am!!!). To Wakefield and another rake - so class was fun again! The theatre in Wakefield was really nice and despite the rake the performance went really well and the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I must admit there were times when I could not remember what I had just done (probably just tiredness).

The hotel was close to the theatre which was good in some respects but it was quite noisy and so a restless night was followed by a nice quiet sleep in the coach.

Colwyn Bay was good fun. We arrived before the van with all our "stuff" and so some of us went down to the beach and some brave souls even tested the water. The stage was small but the audience were amazing - they really got involved in the pieces and it was a joy for us to perform there.

The week after this tour was quite disjointed, but ideal in terms of recovering from touring. Monday saw us doing class for Royal New Zealand Ballet director Garry Harris. I had been looking forward to this for quite a while - it is a company I would like to have joined, however there were no jobs going on this ocassion. We also later in the week got the afternoon off to go and watch them rehearse Romeo and Juliet, which was great. It is quite strange that even though we all love performing and often get frustrated when we are not, there are times when it is nice just to sit and watch.

We are all now looking towards our Linbury Studio Theatre Gala on the 25th May, as well as other tours up in Scotland......

Posted by at May 5, 2004 05:45 PM