Workshop (22) - Almost full cast

"Worst Pies in London":  We began actually staging this number, as the song is very challenging vocally with the timing, so by having set movements makes this song so much easier. Below is what we created:

• "A customer!":   Pop up from behind the counter and look at Rob. Unexpected entrance. Very exaggerated and shows her unpredictable nature.
• "- fright I thought you was a ghost":   Go over to him.
• "Sit ye down. Sit!":   Force him to sit on the chair.
• "Did you come here for a pie, sir?":   Go back to the counter.
• "What is that?":   Fling a bug, of some sort, out of the pie.
• "No you don't! Heaven knows I try, sir!":   Slam bug on the first line, then act as if nothing's happened by leaning over with hand on the desk still. On next line, brush hand down self. Very grotesque shows how unhygienic the time was.
• "But there's no one...":   Give him the pie, then walk back to the counter to get the ale. Then walk back and pour it whilst singing. Give him the ale.
• "Is that just disgusting?...":   Sing this in his ear quite angrily. Angry and frustrated how the pies are no good.
• "The worst pies in London - ":   Walk back to counter ready for fast section.
• "And no wonder with the price of meat what it is":   Head under counter to pick up the dough and then slam it down on the counter on the beat after this line.
• The 'grunts':   Kneading the dough.
• "Wouldn't do in my shop":   On the line prior to this I would have accidentally dropped the dough on the floor, so on this line I would bend down to pick it up. On the two beats after this line I would blow the dust off the dough, and then slam it back down on the second beat. We spoke about using two different pieces of dough - the second one would be behind the counter ready for me to pick up (to look to the audience as if it was the one I had dropped) but it would be covered in flour to make it look like the floor was really dirty and dusty.
• "And I'm telling you them pussy cats is quick":   Put dough back under the counter.
• "No denying times is hard, sir":   Lean on the counter and sing to Todd, a little bit flirtatious.
• "Only lard and nothing more - is that just revolting?":   Head back over to Todd and then sing in his ear, as before.

This was as far as we got with this song. We didn't quite finish the ending of it as we were debating should I end leaning on the counter or perching on Todd's table.

"God That's Good":   In this rehearsal we had the entire cast, apart from Tom (Anthony). However, this was perfect for our number "God That's Good". We firstly experimented with James' entrance. We tried him entering from the back of the audience, through the aisle and singing to and interacting with them. The second way we tried was him entering from behind the curtains and singing on stage. The final way was James entering from the main doors and running up on to one of the stage blocks that acts as a table. We decided against the idea of him coming from behind the audience and singing to them as we have already done a lot of audience interaction and don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. We also decided against him coming out from behind the curtains, because we didn't want to over-do it, because James and Dan both entered from here separately for Pirelli's first appearance. Therefore we decided to go with James entering from the main doors and singing on the block. We also needed to decide how we were going to make it seem like James was outside, so his line "just inside of this door" would make sense. In our first version, we had James in line with the first row of audience and sang this line there, before walking in to the scene - this didn't really work that well as the audience couldn't see James singing. Therefore, we tried and went with James singing it all on the table, but everyone else is frozen - I am under the stage not visible, Rob is up in the tonsorial parlour frozen and both Ollie and Dan are sitting at the table (that James is standing on) frozen. Everyone starts moving in the musical interlude just after the line "just inside of this door"; Rob continues cleaning his razors and I come up the steps carrying a tray of hot pies. Just prior to my line "nice to see you dearie", Lewis and Alice enter from the main doors and sit down in the restaurant. The other part of this that we workshopped was Taylor's entrance - we first tried her entering from the main doors, which worked fine, but we decided to go with her entering from on the stage top right, and coming down to see the customers sitting on the blocks (Alice and Lewis). Taylor would then be able to beg the customers and interact with them, and James would then chase her up the blocks to exit where she entered.

"Epiphany":  We had already staged the beginning of this number up until when Rob jumps down on to the floor. We tried having everyone impersonating Rob and doing similar movements, but this took the attention away from Rob and didn't convey the right sort of feeling - we wanted to show Rob as completely crazy and not in control of his mental state anymore, therefore we wanted to show Rob as completely different to everyone else. This is how we then came up with the idea of everyone else looking the same and being quite regimented whilst Rob moved where he wanted to. Everyone enters from different directions after Rob's line "finished!". They then walk from stage right to stage left and vice versa - everyone is walking in horizontal lines, whilst Rob weaved wherever he wanted. When Rob goes into his dreaming part, where he is keening over his daughter Johanna, everybody stops walking and they then don't walk off until the rest of the song - we wanted to keep the movement quite simple so it doesn't distract the audience away from Rob. Meanwhile, after I have envisioned Rob as having stopped being threatening towards me, and he is on the floor keening, I go to look at the dead Dan, and move him to the top of the stairs. I stand at the top of the stairs to say my line "that's all very well but what are we gonna do about him", and then I kick him down the stairs. This puts Dan in the right place for the beginning of "A Little Priest"

"A Little Priest":   This was the first time we had run this number in the space. Initially we had planned that Dan would have been put on the large stage block in the pie shop, but we soon realised that this would restrict his movements and would be dangerous. We found this number quite challenging in the space, as there was a distinct lack of it! As we have stage blocks and chairs on the floor, to form the pie shop, we have fairly limited floor space. However, we didn't put all of the chairs away, so we can set the audience a little bit further back - but this shouldn't be too much of a problem, as we wanted our audience in rows of semi-circles, thus enabling us to have more space without our audience being too far away. This number didn't go too well today as we were quite worried about the spacing and were unsure on where we should be moving. What we have left to do for this number is to learn the lyrics (so we can do it with a backing track), practice the waltz and rehearse this number with all of the set in place (so we know where we are going and are less likely to have any accidents).

"Prologue":   As we had almost the whole cast at this rehearsal, we did the prologue, as it involves everyone. We put Taylor and Alice into this number, as they had never done it before. Taylor enters with me from under the stage, as we are the two women who love Todd, whilst Alice enters from top stage right, as this is where Turpin's house is supposedly. We are also using Alice and Taylor to help with the sail - I hold the centre, whilst they both hold an end each and sway it to make it look like its moving (this means that Ollie and Lewis can focus on holding the sides of the boat at the right height.