Fundraiser tomorrow.

Fundraiser is tomorrow guys! Come down to LS6 at 7.30 for some nice music and a our raffle for which we have managed to obtain some amazing prizes:

• A meal for four at Headingley Taps
• A meal for two at Headingley Taps
• a £20 voucher for Café Lento in Headingley
• 4x Season card for Box, Arc and Trio entitling you to huge discounts on food and drink for a year
• 2 Coffees at Mint Café and Deli in Headingley
• And we’ll be auctioning off a £50 voucher for Voodoo cocktails!

A huge thanks to all the companies that donated prizes! Everyone was so generous and friendly.

So see you tomorrow! Entry is £3 and raffle tickets are 50p.

Ben, Lucy and Sammy's Excellent Adventure

Today the production team clocked up 12 straight hours of work on the play from 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM and beyond. Fortunately for them it has proved a hugely successful day thus preventing any major panic attacks or stresses, except when their lack of mathematics ability proved a stumbling block.

On the road again, the servant team pick up some garlic naan
to keep them going.

9:30 – The team assembles at Monatgue Burton (AKA Servant HQ)
10:00 – The team travels to 7Arts to discuss technical facilities with their staff.
10:30 – We leave 7Arts to visit Swiss Cottage, an Aladdin’s cave of antiques and second-hand furniture to source props and set. The first great success of the day as the staff prove incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and only too happy to help.
13:00 – After a short break for tea and a visit to LS6, the team begins trawling local businesses asking for donations for our raffle for our fundraiser this coming Friday.
15:00 – Success! The team is once again bowled over by the generosity on show as a number of amazing commitments from cafés, bars and restaurants ensuring that our fundraiser has fantastic prizes available for all of you to be in with a chance to win.
16:00 – A speedy lunch/dinner so the team can get to…
17:00 – Rehearsals only tonight with a twist. Tonight is the last night of blocking scenes for the play. From here on out all rehearsals will be devoted to run-throughs and polishing scenes to ensure we have the best and smoothest production possible.
19:30 – Back to Servant HQ to source the final necessaries for set (cue lengthy mathematical equations that boggle the brains of English students) and to put the finishing touches on other miscellaneous bits and bobs.
22:30 – This blog post goes live to you! 

raffle prize are being announced on the facebook event as we speak!

Costumes

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the costume gems we’ve unearthed with the help of the lovely people over at PCI wardrobe department.

Silvio (Oli) and Clarice (Emily) looking dashing

Fundraiser!

The Servant team are proud to announce their fundraiser! Having had a couple of issues securing a venue, we have found ourselves in TG's popular hangout, LS6.

We are looking forward to a night of live music and potentially a food raffle  as for those that know the play, food is a very central theme. Anyone and everyone is welcome, so please pop down. It might be a nice stop off for a drink or two before hitting the town: click here for the Facebook event

P.S Servant is also supporting TG's A Play in a Day, whose proceeds are going to Comic Relief. Why not check out their fundraiser too? Click here for the Facebook event

Curry and Costumes

As the week draws to  a close the servant team will only have 2 full weeks of rehearsal before production week. EEK. Time is flying by at a terrifying pace.

Cast warm up games.

Our plans for set and costume are getting underway. Lucy and Ben are off to the West Yorkshire Playhouse wardrobe tomorrow to check out their array of 18th century gear. Our set designs are completed, and we are all off and about next week sourcing props.

This week of rehearsals has been highly successful  as we mentioned in our last blog post. bits are really starting to come together, with the cast off script for act one. Lets hope the act two and act three run throughs next week go as smoothly.

Our first cast social was also this week, which saw the whole cast and directing team trouping down to Akbar's on Eastgate. In a desperate and shameful display of male bravado, every male member of the cast undertook the chef’s challenge as did our producer Sammy who would shame many of the boys who could simply not compete with her. The chef’s challenge consisted of gluttonous amounts of rice, chicken and lamb keema and one of Akbar’s famously over-sized naan breads. This combination of carbs and spice proved too much for Harry or Oli to complete but Ben, Connor, Callum, Jack and Sammy all managed to see off the challenge. Just for good measure, the accompanying chilli was seen off too and the reactions from Ben and Jack upon discovering quite how hot those chillies were, were almost as hilarious as the play itself.

Busy Busy

From our first read-through it's been non-stop Servant action, with planning, rehearsals and stress taking up every minute of our days. Surely all this hard work is paying off?

Well from the look of our Act One run through, it seems as if all the frustration hasn't been for nothing. Much to the Production Team's surprise, the cast arrived at the rehearsal with lines learnt and enthusiasm in abundance. It was just the lift we needed to get us thoroughly excited and confident for the weeks ahead, prompting much (metaphorical) back-slapping and high-fiving.

The rehearsal process thus far has focused on individual scene blocking and character development. Our first rehearsal consisted of the cast creating for their characters back-stories, memories, typical nights out and favourite songs, ranging from Money, Money, Money by ABBA to No Scrubs by TLC via a healthy dose of Beyonce. The Production Team seem to draw a disproportionate amount of pleasure from getting the cast to sing these songs to themselves as a rehearsal warm-up. There's nothing like someone screaming an out-of-key version of Single Ladies to get everyone in the mood for THEATRE.

The space at Seven Arts

Also in the last two weeks has been the Production Team's visit to Seven Arts, our venue for the play. Getting a sense of the space has not only helped us get very excited, it's provided us with a basis for the set, the designs of which are coming along nicely. Costumes are also on the agenda, so it will be corsets and ruffles from here on in. Dilemmas on the staff front have left the Directors also in charge of designing and making the set, as well as designing and sourcing the costumes. But what can we say? If you want something done properly, you'll have to do it yourself!

Another exciting development is the planning of our fund raiser which will be coming soon. Further updates to follow.

Ben looking dramatic

Rehearsal Schedule

After a whole weekend of headaches, paracetamol and lots of cups of tea the rehearsal schedule is finally done. The directors and producer only have nine rehearsal free days in the next six weeks. It seems lots more cups of tea and headaches are on the cards. We are very excited to start rehearsals  tomorrow with our whole cast coming to our character/team building workshop.  We'll keep you updated as things progress.

The rehearsal schedule in the making

Auditions!

We started our search with two evenings of open auditions, involving a character based warm-up, led by Lucy, followed by some script work (thanks to all who came, we genuinely had fun watching everyone!).
Having whittled down the numbers,  callbacks happened on Friday. We decided to start with a workshop-style warm-up, focusing on the actor's interaction with one another, based on various characters in the play. We then got the actors to do some improvisation, this ranged from the crude (a priest and a choir boy), to the bizarre (a pirate with an eye-surgeon son). This was ensued by script work, a complicated (and carefully organised) process of switching scripts, partners and characters.
Congratulations to all the cast, we can't wait to start working with you. We'll be updating the blog on how rehearsals are going, along with some pictures, over the following weeks.