Wow!

Hey Everybody.

I wish had time to sit here all evening and write about all my feelings on the performance last night in great detail but I will aim to do that tomorrow as there is somewhere very important I need to be this evening. Its called our Ammanford Miners Theatre and our final performance and I can't wait!

I was absolutely blown away by the perfromance in Wales last night and I can assure you that our audience felt the same. Lizzie absolutely loved the show and is really ecxcited about the final countdown to their show.

Everyone was focussed and told our stories with pride and dignity. The audience clapped and cheered and whistled and whooped for ages and ages because they knew what a massive achievement has taken place and they could tell how much energy has gone into this project over 6 whole months and more.

Tonight we just need to enjoy telling our story one more time as although we are lucky enough to be able to do an extra performance in Cardiff in 2 weeks time (YAY!) it will be an abridged version and we won't have the lights and special effects in the same way. Tonight really is our shining moment so lets get out there and blow this new audience into the cosmos with our magnificent beautiful and very speacial show.

I have added a photo of Tasha Moore as Anahera to show Anita the costume designer in NZ. Anita, thank you for making our show extra special with your hard work, and of course that same messgae goes out to everyone in SLough NZ and Wales - WOW, what a global team effort!

Break legs guys and see you tonight.

xxxxx

BIG congrats

Just wanted to say a TREMENDOUS congratualtions to Nelson Strangers who have now finished their section of the project, an ENORMOUS well done to Wales Strangers for a terrific opening night and a MASSIVE good luck to Slough Strangers who have another two weeks. It's come around so quickly but i think everybody will agree it was definitly worth the hard work and blood spilled!

Wales- Keep up the energy and focus for tonight's performance and we will (as alex says) ROCK THIS TOWN! (and i may even try not to screw up another sound effect- we'll see....!!!)

Love and lots of respect to all companies

naTasha (Wales)

STRANGERS BECOME FRIENDS

After a final performance the Nelson Strangers group said goodbye through songs, prayer, group hugs and all other manner of things. Over the last 8 months we have become friends rather than Strangers not only with eachother but in sprit across the globe. It was with great joy that we received news by text today that Strangers Brynamman blew the audience away! Myself, L'hibou(SM) and Anita(Costume designer) did a standing ovation on the street for all you Welsh crew!
Last night and today are a little sad for us post-show Nelsonians but it is so exciting to hear all about your Welsh journey as you take Strangers on its next leg. Thankyou for telling our story for us! Can't wait to hear about Slough's live on skype.
Nelson lot get on this blog and share your thoughts on the show, project and any other related themes. Say hi to the other Strangers overseas and make the most of the magic while the vibrations of our play still linger.
Big thanks to all of you, staff, actors, crew, cast in Slough, Wales and Nelson for making this crazy idea I had over 18months ago the beautiful beast it has become today. Mess Up The Mess could not have done it without any of you.
Enjoy your last show Wales! Spread the Strangers vibe!

Sarah-Nelson

OM DAISIES

Well that was our first performance of three lol and it went better than most rehearsals with a few cleverly hidden line mistakes the play was TREMENDOUS. Everyone acted to their upmost ability telling the story and improvising bits that made it even better. Im so exicited about tomorrows performance.! COME ON PEEPS WE CAN ROCK THIS TOWN!

Alex

(Happy Valentines day for thursday) And break a leg to all in Slough. And congrats to New Zealand for achieving this splendiforous task of Strangers.

First night of performance

hihihi peeps!

just got home from the miners theatre and im so hyper. Instead of talking my parents to death I thought I'd post a comment on the blog and share ma feelings.

IT WAS AMAZING !!!!! it was really, really koolio! I cant wait to do it again tomorrow. Its gonna be soooo sad after the last performance.

I hope it all went really well and koolio and amzingly for everyone in New Zealand, and I hope all will go really well and koolio and amazingly for everyone is Slough. yayayayay to everybody!!!!!

lurv
Haddy

Here we go Wales - Lets have fun!!!!

Hello everyone across the strangers globe,

This will have to be very quick!

This is a special message to you all but especially to the Wales Criw who are about to go up in 5 hours time.

BREAK LEGS!!! TYNNWCH COESAU!!!

Our play is such a beautiful thing and you've all worked extremely hard for 6 months - tonight is the fun bit we've all been waiting for and working so hard to bring together across the world. And guess what? Its not over yet as you get to play it all over again tomorrow AND you all get a copy of the show filmed by Roger and Paz to keep. And we're also going to do a mini performance of it in St Fagans in 2 weeks time...YAY!

Tonight, lets tell our wonderful stories loud and proud and show Ammanford that the Amman and Swansea Valley (and Pontarddulais!) youth here are extremely talented and amazing.

ENJOY THE SHOW!!!!

Peri xxx

GO FOR IT BRYNAMMAN!

We are 2 nights in with only one to go and I woke up this morning thinking of you guys on the other side of the world. I'm so excited for you Brynamman crew because you are going to have a wonderful time telling all our stories.
Everybody over here is so excited about us all getting together in a month or two for a Strangers movie night to watch each groups version of our play and the project doco too. I hear you have inventive ways of showing the battle sequence and I'm intrigued to see how it all fits together. Now hears a funny thing most of my family can't watch the show as Nelson is a bit far to travel of a night however they are all coming to see your show in Wales instead! So remember to tell every single member of the audience your story as I'm hoping for excellent reviews from my mum when she rings on Sunday morning!
Nelson group I'd just like it noted on the blogg for prosperity that I am very proud and humbled by what all of you have acheived. It has been a very special summer and I'm sure you'll top it off with a final cresendo of a performance tonight!
So go do it Brynamman! Hang in there Slough-it'll be your turn too! Keep up the great work Nelson! Strangers rocks!

Sarah- Nelson Director

Hoping legs break all round

Greetings and the traditional wish to the Nelson crew for the big night - also really looking forward to seeing the Wales production this weekend. Sounds like everyone's doing brilliantly and I'm really pleased to have played a part in it. Remember, nerves are good - an actor's fuel!

The Tech is done...now onto the Welsh Dress(er..)

Hey Everyone,

Before I go to bed and dream of strangers and lights and suitcases and a huge wardrobe and masks and fog horns and Mr Sillar's HUMUNGOUS white rocker hairstyle, and cardboard recycled tubes and whistles and all my other favourite things, like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, I would like to post a short note.

I am incredibly excited about our project and our performances at the weekend.

The young people in Wales have given up (pretty much!) their entire half term holiday to dedicate their time, energy, enthusiasm and creative talents and to continue building up a truely magnificent youth theatre company with professionalism to be applauded.



This week is only halfway through but we have already achieved sooooo much.

The set and costumes are beautiful and practical and absolutely perfect to assist us in telling our magnificent stories from around the world. The miming in Brynaman film is AMAZING!!!! Sub real are our favourite film crew in the world and do excellent interviews as well as encouraging an appropriate amount of fun and games during break times including frisbee throwing in the park and bendy sword fighting - BUT NOT ON THE STAGE!!!!!!! The characters are growing larger than life by the minute and voices are getting louder as the days progress...thank heavens!!!!! And most of all, we have an incredibly beautiful and important story to tell that we created ourselves from 6 months of extremely hard work and a passion to pass it on to others.

Peri's grey hair is only growing at is normal rate, Natasha is building up her sound and lighting crew every day, Alex R is keeping the crew calm with coffee and the cast calm with a loud voice ;) We have discovered a saviour in Rhian, and Carrie's commitment and support is absolutley amazingly fabulous and we long to have them on board with all future productions!!!

The youth crew has dwindled slightly but India and Louisa are wicked and pulling the final seams together, literally.

This is a huge big massive shout out to all the strangers across the world - NZers break legs in 7 hours time! We in Wales will join you through the webcam at 8.45am here whilst we have our breakfast at the community centre and long to find out how your opening night goes....

Slough, now that this blog is easily accessible to all, please think of us whilst you bask in your wonderous extra 2 weeks!!!! We're only a teensy bit envious but soooo much more excited and we just can't wait to see Lizzie and Mikey and Dan on Friday and show them our version of your Slough Stories too.

Anyway, I really should probably go to sleep now as I need to get up bright and early for the NZ post show skype and then go great guns on the morning rehearsals pre Wales Dress.

NZers, we're all thinking of you as we go to sleep tonight and REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to talking to you after your show.


BREAK LEGS!!!!

Lots of Love from Peri xxx

THE FINAL WEEK

Wow.... when i looks back its been just under a year now that this idea was first announced with joy in peri's heart to the youth of brynaman (Not many people turned up on the first night now we have had loads of people come and go). The film crew asked me 2 questions today 'whats been your greatest moment' and 'whats been your worst'. Ive had so many great times to name them all and i honestly hand on my heart never ever had one bad moment.

Well im gonna stop before i get to emotional.
This was meant to be a *sob sob sob* message just to wish all they guys worldwide to break a leg!

Alex



(this was one highlight during the october halfterm)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLJ5xPakCo4

Dress rehearsal is here!

Its the Nelson dress rehearsal today! Can't actually believe we are finally 36 hours away from show time. I'll keep this brief as I've got silly amounts to do. Do your self proud Nelson and tell our story with all the detail and excitement it requires. If you do this it will be a beautiful experience for the audience and you as performers too. I'm very proud of all of you and know that you will raise your games even higher tonight and further more tomorrow.

Brynamman enjoy the show! Peri has told me all about it. I'm so dissapointed that I don't get to see your show live as I'm particularly keen to see your version of our battle! I'm confident you'll do the Strangers project huge credit with energetic and inspired performances. Really looking forward to the video.

Slough make the most of this last week or so. Every rehearsal is precious!

Will let you all know how it goes on Thursday morning,

Go be a Stranger

Sarah

Break a Leg!!

A strange expression but meant with only the best intentions. Wending you all Edders and NZedders a big ,warm, smiley, squeezy hug to say good luck this week with last minute rehearsals and opening nights and exciting things like that.

I'm sure there are mixed feelings abound, from mild butterflies to downright jitters and crises of confidence; from quiet anticipation to hyper excitement.

All this is normal and where you will find solace is in the person standing right next to you, feeling the same, playing the game, telling the story with you.

I hope you really enjoy this dive for the line guys. You are amazing. Truly. You have been part of something totally unique and should be soooooo proud of yourselves. The committment, talent, friendship, warmth and imagination you have brought to this crazy venture has really paid off so far and has made Strangers what it is!

Keep up the pace, the focus and the fun! We here in Slough are right behind you, feeling it all with you (and quietly thankful that we have a few extra days rehearsal than you...mind you, we only achieved a full cast last week! AAGH!! But what a cast they are. Yes, you Slough ites. If any of you are reading this).

Big Big Love to all in Brynamman and Nelson.

From your pal in Slough, Lizzie xxxxx

P.s. Can't wait to see you guys in Wales on Friday afternoon. Give me lots of jobs!
Sarah and Co, wish too that I could physically be there to help out and enthuse with you all on Wednesday but we'll certainly be connected in spirit as you storm Nelson audiences.
xx

Very excited!!!

Hi Everyone!

Don't know if any of you will remember me? Worked on the 'Play in a Day' with the Wales branch of this ever growing dynasty. Just wanted to say that I came along to a rehearsal the other night and saw some outstanding acting going on - keep up the good work you talented bunch!

Been with Peri this week helping to get things ready.... all very exciting. Really looking forward to joining in next week with bits and pieces and can't wait for the final performances!!

Loving this blog. Some really interesting things going on here.

I've been doing my yoga (not really) to keep calm in the run up and I'll get Peri to do some too so that we don't have to experience 'Nasty Peri' next week! Good luck to everyone all over the world!!!! :-)

Eloise

Video welcome from Slough

One week to go!

There's only one week to go untill opening night here in Nelson! We spent yesterday working out costume changes which mainly happen live on stage for all 50 characters! It was our first time in the space too which was pretty exciting.

Today we have a run to show the tech team the shape of the show and I hope the cast just enjoy telling the story and work together to solve any problems that sneek up on them!

Am really excited to see how well everything is going in both Slough and Brynamman. Its been cool pulling together to make an international shared programme, sound scape and pre-show project video.

It would be great to hear all the thoughts and expectations of the cast and crew in each project. If you get a chance let us know which bits of the show your really enjoying and maybe what your finding challenging in rehearsals.

Keep up the fantastic work everybody!

Sarah- Nelson Director

Soooo Excited!

Here we are in Wales in rehearsal on the NZ school scene. This is Polly our Julie character and thats Tash our Stage manager in the background - working hard as usual! Unfortunatley Charlie, our Miss Kershaw in the photo on the right, has been poorly this last week and had to be rushed to hospital. However she is making a speedy recovery with a mind to get back into the swing and ready for production week. We all miss her very much though and can't wait to have her back! GET WELL SOON CHARLIE!!!

In the meanitime we have now started working on the chorus in betweeny sections to drive the story forward and things are coming along nicely...we have a half masked chorus as well as full masked shadow people of the Welsh villagers like the baker and librarian and Mine Owner. Our chorus has become very quirky and they're a bit like some of the aliens from Doctor Who!

Anyway, we've now received all of Dan Solo's tunes from Slough and can't wait to start putting everything together tonight. The Wales Film crew Subjective Realities are on the case in prep for the preshow introduction film and the sound bites of the actors introducing themselves - should be ariving the post v. soon!

Its all so exciting now but we must remember to stay focussed, look after ourselves - i.e. make sure we all get lots of sleep and plenty of vitamins and most of all ENJOY EVERY LAST MOMENT!

Hey Guys!

Hope your all well and looking forward to the ever looming performance (only 15 days here! EEEKK!) I know I can't wait to see any dress rehearsal videos or crazy stuff like that! Anyway I just popped on to let you know that I just looked on Carmarthenshire Connect (for those of you lovely people who don't know they're a small team who go round publicising community events like our wonderful project!) Strangers has officially taken over their homepage! there are two video's, one of Peri and one of Alex! (if you scroll down theirs also a picture of Peri from here former days, along with a collection of other randomers also known as BASE from our party on Friday!)

this is the link: Carmarthenshire Connect

(you have to scroll down a bit, past a bit about play areas to get to BASE's photo, but it is worth it!)

Hope your all well! and learning lines!

luvness. Pete xxx

thanks!

Julie's introduction

Hiia everyone,



for us in wales its less than 1 month away!!!! its getting so exciting now!!!!!

i just want to remind everyone in brynaman that there is a santes dwynwen day disco/fancy dress/ singing comp ok? so i hope everyone comes and i hope that all of the plays in slough and new zeland go ok. popb lwc i pawb!!!!



Laura

xxxxx

A plea from the directors

Hi All Strangers Teams

I've just got off the phone from Peri in Wales and checked out the blogg! I love it! I think this project is fab and so are all of you who are making it happen. I'm confident the groups in Wales and Slough are as brilliant creative and talented as mine in Nelson.

The scripts whichever merge you are working too are inspirational, magical and dynamic. You are being supported by brilliant artists (not name checking myself as that would be big headed and after a hard day at work my confidence isn't as strong as sometimes!) so I just want to share a plea on behalf of all the directors leading this project:

Use every second, value every rehearsal moment, explore your potential as people and performers and ensure that this performance is as fantastic as the groundbreaking international process that created it. You are part of a world first and with your individual and group talents you can guarantee audiences in Nelson, Slough and Brynamman a unique and powerful theatre experience.

You'll be pretty gutted when this is over so for yourselves as well as us make sure the last few weeks and the actual performances are as special as you are!

Good luck and enjoy,

Sarah
Director
Strangers Nelson

hello!

hello there! My name is Sam, am actually English but wanted to be involved in some theatre with the kiwi's for a change! Everything is coming together now , slowly but surely! and its been good film editiing too! Everyone's used to each other now and all that jazz and Mr. Scilla has come to life! We had some good workshops with our writer from Wellington too and the set is going to look welllll good!

Hope everyone else is having fun!

:p

I'm On da PAGE? ChurrR!

ah... *cough* ;)
Tena Koe, Tena Korua, Tena Koutou Katoa!
Ciao tutto...
Sup Everybody...

I AM Jesy, Of te nelson strangers group, nice to finaly get on 2 te blog. sum funi clips on it.
rehersals in nelson are rolling nicely now, except i hav an O.C.D for continually bursting out musically, guitar or not. (haha - no?)

I had 'Kay' from the "Dominion Post" (Wellington Newspaper) ring me and question me reguards our production. Was hard to ansa questions like "Why/What do you like about it?" when there is many reasons - I spose I was worried about intentional "miss-editing" - don't know if u know what I mean by that but if i try 2 xplain this post will b too long for any1 2 b
botherd 2 read!!!
However I felt brave! She rung bak 5mins after the 1st call tho with more questions. haha?

Well, thats me 4 now, thanks 4 reading, b bak soon

Naku Noa
Grazie, arrivederci
ChUrrr, L8rz

Jesy!!

Hey Im Liam =D

Hey I'm Liam I play Percival and that crazy guy you Sloughish (Sloughish? Is that right?) call Mr Sillar in the Neslon lot. It's great to see the blog I've been on a few times and I thought it was only right to post something. It's lovely to see what everyone has to say and to watch myself on the little clips Chris has put up.

Thankyou, Liam.

man on a bench clip

This is a clip of the lieutenant on the bench, a scene from the Nelson play.

PROPS N STUFF

Hello to all

Just a quick note to ask everyone to keep on the lookout for old suitcases, crates and wooden chairs. Nothing valuable or sentimental obviously! Maybe grandparents etc have old stuff that we could use? If you have any ideas, let me know before you lug it all the way to rehearsals and we'll see if we can use it!

See the welsh lot next tuesday!

naTASHA

HowdyHoThere

Just checking in to see how people are doing with learning there lines and working out how to perform this marvelous construction we call Strangers. lol
Comment.? I know wales have really gone the whole hog this week and worked out the settlers arriving scene. Looking forward to recording our voices tomorrow you'll probably see some on the blog.

Alex

(P.s Check out my new blog for art http://friedrig.blogspot.com/)

ticket

hi all,

in our international production meeting, nelson asked if i could come up with a ticket design. i've been mucking around with this image for it, with a boat voyage feel, but it could always work as train ticket or maybe a weird tube ticket, to cross over the 3 shows. needs more info on it, price, destinations, etc, but hope you like it.

alex r

designy things

hi all,

finally figured out how to use this thing, ish!

from the wales end of the project as you may know, the design has gone through some changes, mainly due to restricted use with the theatre we are in.

so, that acting as an opportunity to focus the design into another area, we've come up with this, a playground of objects to be manipulated into the different scenes we need. it has slough's junk yard feel, but from the workshops last year the Wales Crew came up with the strong idea of lines and suitcases representing the journeys involved. lines especially tie in with the tube map idea of a journey and coloured lines on the floor, representing individual scenes will guide where we move set objects to represent (hopefully sketches below will illustrate this), from a street pavement, to a nelson boat arrival. i think this set offers a lot of play and activity to the large number of performers we have trafficing out stage. post your thoughts and stuff, hopefully this crosses over well between the other 2 shows.

all the best, alex r

Costume Design in Upper Moutere

More Nelson Video

Nelson Video Clips

The cast introduce themselves.

Mr Scilla's Song

Kua mutu for me

Kia ora tatou

Well the scripts are done and mulched together and i think it's awesome! I've had a fantastic and challenging time putting this script together with my peeps in Nelson; Sarah and the writers Jen, Danielle, Alex, Ryan, Comfrey, Becky, Chrissie, Tammy and Jarred. Also I had a primo time working with the actors last week, the group is really talented and it was great to see the words finally come alive and to experiment with different styles within the play. It's gonna be massive! My many thanks to Sarah and Peri. Peri i hope to meet you one day and good luck to you and your crew! Big ups to the Slough crew too I hope the show goes off!
Nelson go hard and i'll see you at your dress rehearsal so you better be good!!!! Just jokes. Have fun and always enjoy!

hei ko nei ra

Jamie McCaskill

Hiia everyone.

just want to say me and tasha had a wicked time when we met Llew. hes osm!!!lmao!!! we've translated a lot of the script with us. and it was nice to find out what he thought of out play. he said he really enjoyed reading it. i cant wait now!!!!! its so close!!!! only about a month or two!!!!! yay!!!! well i havent got much left to say!!! but i'll see some of you on tuesday!!!

From

Laura xxxx

The Maori Song

The Nelson Cast (video)

meet the Nelson crew!

Hi all,
How are we??? My name is Julie and I am working together with the Strangers cast to help us all bring this brilliant performance together!! I am going to be mainly focused on the backstage elements of the process and will be using lighting to help create the atmosphere of the Welsh and Slough performances right here from our Nelson stage! :)
How do you all feel about smoke?

hiya people! im jenn (Gwen in the Welsh script) i havn't had internet access so this is my first blog and my first actual look at the site it good to see so many bloggy thingys... Iv'e been with the project since July as a writer so its great to see the performance finally getting under way we've started to talk about costumes.. just wondering what the writers of the Welsh script think that Gwen would wear and if there are any key items of clothing that she might have to represent herself...

Hello from Nelson!

Hi. I'm Danielle from the nelson strangers script. This has been so cool this week to see how the three scripts have managed to form one. I play Isabella in the first settlers scene and Julie when she is in Slough (someone else plays Julie every other time). This week we have been doing heaps of improvisations to find ways to portray things such as Mr Silla and his throne etc. We've got some cool ideas, Mr Silla is actually many different people, and same with his throne. We've started rehersing certain scenes as well. I'm really blown away with how we have managed to put together such a cool, exciting production...especially since we didn't know what half of it was! But i've seen your scripts now and they've been put together with ours and they are really awesome! I'm really looking forward to seeing how much further it will develop and to hear all the new ideas that will be discovered!

oh yes, if anyone fancies the technical and stage management side of the project, please please please let me know!! How the blazes do i get a big title on my post like everyone else has? Hmmmmm

x

SM HELLO

Hello everyone! This is Tasha (SM for Wales) signing in for the first time EVER on a blog! (applause please!) I just wanted to say that I am so VERY excited about the whole thing. Peri, Alex Designer and I had a meeting on monday and it was amazing how much we discussed and how far the plans progressed! We saw the venue too and we have loads of ideas about how it's all going to come together. It's all going to go pretty quickly from now on so I hope everyone keeps their heads up, their thinking caps on and the smile on their face! Hopefully thursday's international production meeting will throw up lots of new things to think about so if i can brave the internet again i will post again V soon!

naTashaSM

Happy new year

Just to say happy new year to everybody from sunny Cardiff. Hope the rehearsals go well - really looking forward to seeing the end product(s).

Hiia everyone

Hiia Everyone!!!!!



Peri has finally added me!!! lmao!!! well we're meeting up again soon so i wont write much. i just hope everyone had a great christmas (and got everything you want!!!) and a happy new year!!! its only about 2 months now!!! i cant wait!!!

well ive got to go but hope to see everyone soon!!!



Bye Bye



Laura

xxxx

Excited Jubilantness!

Hi all!

I just thought I'd put a final post up here before I'm forced to return to the drudgery of school! uch! I can't believe we're now in 2008! eek! only 1 month left before we crash onto stage and perform our masterpiece! It's gone soooo fast! I still remember the first rehearsal I attended! it should have served as a warning! I think we were skyping Slough and it was mental then! I should have grabbed my coat and run as fast as possible! But I'm glad I didn't! I don't know whether it's just me but I can't wait to get into the final stage of rehearsals! YAY!! We restart after the Christmas break on Tuesday and I think we're getting the FINAL merged script! it's certainly been on a very interesting journey! WOOOOOOO! Very exciting!! Can't wait! Hope your all well and had a fab Christmas and a great new year!

Speak soon!
Pete xx

P.s we've now hit the 100 posts mark! yayness!

My first howdy!

Howdy. first time on the blog. been ropped into playing a part so thought i better check out the blog. horrible lack of internet in my house so don't expect regular...posting? is that the word?? Ummm....it's good!And yes im the cling ffilm ninja with the purple mask!

Im the stranger in the wales play. Can i speak to the other strangers? like the character... I have o speak lots of Welsh and look confused, how will you guys do that? (Do you have to do the Welsh stuff??) I get to have some famous Pobl y Cwm welsh soapstar help me and Laura who's Gwen to translate it from English to Wenglish and Welsh

Anti howdy.. Bye bye Tashy

Another day...

Alex Haddy tash and peri have just ben shopping in swansea for wonderful delights for our party.! Pink paper and masks! hardcore and now were messing around with peri in the community centre!!! !!
In this blog you get to meet our local superheroes. The Bubble Wrap ninja (Green), The Cling Film ninja (Purple) and Tin Foil ninja (Blue) they are super cool so do not mock!!










Anothers hard day work in Brynaman!

'Stay in school kids and dont do drugs' MACCDYS SUPERHEROES!


Lots of love and kind wishing upon your new year!!!! (haddy says face)

Alex Hadd and Tash!!!

New year... how grand!!

Hello

Adrian Designer of the slough section here.. sorry its been too long, but i am here and ready to go.

OK, so design ideas so far, Lizzie has already said some, but just a few morw ideas, costume wise, we have been discussing black and white, i think it will give it a really clear and crisp edge by which the actors can be seen clearly against what may be a black and white based set (more later)... so most of the basic costumes in black and white, reflecting slough in its many forms through the ages, so a mixture, of street, sotemporary, with a variety of clothes from days gone by, a real mix, but based in balck and white so still very subtle, then these will be acessorised with items of characters, turbans, sari, shawls etc.. we have been discussing using masks as ensemble moments, groups scenes to create a whole, almost none discript, common mass, as groups pof people in slough, wales and new zealand... so colour will come through the accessoires.

The set.. at the moment.. butobviously these may change considerabley... all ideas more than welcome...

using the ideas of journeys we have looked atmany options and have come to the idea of many lines, like a map, where there are different lines for different places, roads and rivers, even thicknesses of line for the value of the road.. so we have the idea of haveing a grid made of lines creating ever different sections on the floor in which we can light as small sections to reflect differnt areas and time, and also to create a large open space for larger ensemble moments..lines will also go vertically up from the stage at the juctions of the lines where the differnt cloured lines on the floor will then be represented on the poles going upwards.

These vertical poles will give us more ways to hang cloth and gauzes on which to project at different times within the performance,

A large screen / fabric / gauze on the stage will hope fully become a costume, making it very fluid, and cinamatic, fast paced and exciting... we hope.

At the moment the ideas are very much still on the table, and much help would be gratefully appreciated, we are really ecited about combining the three pieces visually and verbally..

Hope all are well

Adrian

Liverpool Nativity

Hi all!

Firstly Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a great day and Santa was kind!

Anyway! I was surfing through the channels last night and saw the Liverpool Nativity on BBC 3, i watched it and really enjoyed it! I thought it really showed how we could use technology in our shows, if you didn't see it, then they basically re-enacted the nativity story all over Liverpool and used internet linked camera's to beam the different scenes to one main stage, where the bulk of the audience were situated and the show was led by Gabriel who kept the audience clued up about where the scene was to avoid anyone getting confused. They used a modern version of the nativity where Joseph was a migrant and Marry was just a normal girl from Liverpool, it looked really good and seemed to echo the kind of concept that us in Wales (I'm not sure about New Zealand and Slough) were thinking of using. If you can i would search for it on Youtube and see what you think, although i don't think the whole thing is on there. If you have any ideas or comments on it please let me know! I would love to hear what you think about it! It certainly showed me how multimedia projects can work really well and look great!

Speak soon and much luvness!
Pete xxx

Hey Strangers!!

Hey all you strangers out there... Damn, I feel like a stranger from this site! I haven't been on in a while...

I just wanted to say that I am so shocked and happy about the progress that has happened SO quickly with this project! Keep up the good work!

On another note - I'm going away for a while on a drugs and alcohol rehabilitation course... which I am not looking forward to AT ALL! ... So I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Xmas and I hope that everyone gets a great start to the New Year! When are the performances starting?

ANYWAY!
Have a good Xmas and I cant wait to hear how the performances went and hopefully see a video on the blog...
Mel
xx

Newest strangers

Hey all mr silla and eva introducing our newest stranger Rudolph the Red nose stranger!!!! say hi all

Off to rehearsals now!!!!!!!

Haddy and Alex