The Opening Night...

Tonight was the show's official opening night.

The show's opening image
(as seen from the Gavin's music pit)

The opening night is the first for which an audience pays full price for tickets. As such they expect to see a show that is technically sound and has been road-tested with an audience.

Following yesterday's preview, tonight was in fact our second performance in front of an audience. Second performances are notoriously dangerous. Having met the challenge of the first night, a collective sigh of relief occurs within the company. So it's very easy for everyone to arrive the next day feeling relieved, slightly unfocused, perhaps even complacent. There are often slip-ups on a second night that hadn’t occurred on the first when everyone had been so switched-on!

I get very fearful on second nights and almost will myself to get nervous, so that I have the necessary focus. But it's difficult because one is battling against tiredness caused by the on-going stresses of the past few week.

Gabriel (Lauren) plotting with Wise Gold (Lucy, left)
and Angel (Rina, right)

In the event, our second show was fantastic. It felt as though we took a huge step forward in terms of revealing the richness of show. The audience seemed to enjoy many more strands of the story.

Matthew had given us notes in the bar after the first preview the following evening. We'd also had a technical rehearsal this afternoon, to iron out a number of technical problems and to integrate sound cues to cover a couple of transitions. And, of course, as a result of the first preview, we've started to understand how to navigate our way through the show given the audience’s reactions.

The Stable Scene, involving Donkey (Frazer), Narrator (Neil),
Mary (Elaine), Joseph (James) and Shepherd (Laura)

We've started to learn where laughter might occur and when therefore we need to pause momentary, in order for an audience to hear a subsequent line that may be an essential element to another story strand (with its own subsequent pay-off). It's not quite a simple as it sounds this, because the need to pause must be balanced against a need to maintain the pace of the action and the rhythmic demands of the dialogue. In fact the quality of the laughter determines how quickly one might overlap it with the next line and this will vary from night to night, depending on the particular audience.

It’s a fascinating process, almost like a science.

The next milestone in the history of our run will be Press Night next Tuesday. Between now and then we have three shows, including a matinee tomorrow. We'll continue to receive Matthew’s notes, work sections of the show in order iron out any minor technical issues and to clarify the story, whilst deepening our understanding of how to navigate our way through the show in relation to the audiences responses. 

I’ll write again following our Press Night on Tuesday 14th.