A couple of days later than usual, but here is the latest instalment in our weekly rehearsal update.
As the cast get ready for their first ever performance of Love Never Dies in front of an audience next week, we caught up with the often unsung heroes of the show – the understudies and swings – as they wait in the wings (or in this case, the auditorium!) for their moment in the spotlight…
As you know from our previous blog entry, a majority of the cast arrived at the Adelphi from the rehearsal rooms last week. But our Phantom and Christine made their entrance a couple of days later and we were there to capture their initial reaction on camera – as they saw the stage and set for the first time.
After they were both taken aside for a Health and Safety induction, we popped up to visit them in their palatial dressing rooms (more about those a bit later) where we learnt about microphones, found out what was in store for them on the first day of rehearsals in their new home and witnessed how Sierra helps Ramin with his preparations…
She is a very busy lady at the moment, what with performances on the South Bank Awards Show squeezed in between Love Never Dies rehearsals, but we managed to get Sierra Boggess to sit still for a few moments while we asked her a few questions about her introduction to The Phantom of the Opera, and why other cast members think of her as the Grandma of the company…
07.30 – jump in the shower, shave, dressed, brekkie and some telly to wake up my eyes!
08.01 – received a text saying my car was on its way! (never had a private car waiting for me before, very excited!!)
0815 – car arrives (with blacked out windows, ooo get me!) and on my way
08.50 – arrive at the workshop where today’s fitting is taking place
I am having a full head plaster cast today which I am really looking forward too!! The reason for this fitting is for the complex design for my character Squelch.
So, I am chatting with Leigh and his wife who are going to be ‘plastering me up’, they talk me through the procedure and cover me in plastic bin bags neck to knee as I sit down. They place a bald cap on my head and get to work. They soak plaster strips (the same strips hospitals would use when you break a bone in your leg or arm) and start placing and moulding the strips to the back of my head. Once the back is done, they leave it for around 5 minutes and it starts to get warm; this is part of the setting process!!
Now comes the part I have been excited/frightened about, my actual face!! Gulp…!!! I place a large bowl on my lap filled with wet plaster, my eyelids and eyebrows are covered in moisturiser and the plaster starts to get slapped on. Now, I am trying my hardest not to move and not to make any facial expressions and for anyone who knows me, this is so hard!!
The final part is placing the plaster strips over the wet plaster to really make set. Once it is set they start to pull off the mould, starting with the back then the front. It’s the most bizarre thing, my eyes have only been in darkness for 20mins, but as soon as the lights hit me it’s so hard to open my eyes, they are so sensitive!!
After 5 minutes everything is back to normal, all washed up and ready to head back to rehearsals. Its 10am, my car arrives and off I go.
10.30 – get into rehearsals.
13.15 – lunch!! Today on the menu, paella!!!!
14.30 – the cast head back up to studio 7, but me and Miss Fleck aren’t called till 1530, hhoorraahh, so we sit down and have a little tea and biscuits!
15.25 – head up to the studio to join the others
17.30 – rehearsal over, great work today. On our way to an Equity meeting, Equity is the UK Actor’s Union. As we are a new show, they come in and just make sure we are ok and everything is going well!
18.30 – making my way home. Must look through the score tonight and learn the harmonies!
For now bloggers, take care
Squelch
Adam Pearce's plaster cast
No special birthdays to celebrate in the rehearsal room today, but even without the lure of cake we called in to see how the cast were feeling at the end of another gruelling week. We arrived just as the cast were breaking for lunch and asked them how things were going and for their highlights of the week so far!
Ever mindful of your insatiable appetite for all things Love Never Dies, we popped down to the rehearsal studios on Friday with our trusty Flip camera.
It was a very significant day for a certain US choreographer who has reached the end of a very memorable week!
Aside from a chat with the birthday boy himself, we also managed to catch up with Pip Jordan (Dance captain), our “chubby funster” blogger Adam Pearce, who is reunited with his former Joseph colleague Jonathan Stewart, Ramin Karimloo (The Phantom), and rounded the clip off with a few succinct words from our director Jack O’Brien.
Hi, I’m Richard Linnell and I’m 12. I am one of the 6 boys who are playing the part of Gustave in Love Never Dies. Welcome to my first blog.
My first full cast rehearsal
10:00AM start at the rehearsal studio. This is the first day all the cast have met to run through so I was pretty nervous! I arrived and went up to the fourth floor. The first thing that I saw as I got out of the lift was a huge pile of pastries and cake, Yum! After watching everyone swam around the pastries we all went into the studio and sat down in the chairs that were set out and Andrew Lloyd Webber started to talk to us all. He introduced himself, Jack (our director), Simon (our musical director) and then we went around the room saying who we are and what we do. When it got to me I was quite nervous but once we had started all the nerves disappeared. Then Andrew told us how Love Never Dies came to be and then I met up with all the people that I knew from previous shows I have been in: Summer Strallen who is playing Meg Giry, who I knew from the Sound of Music where she played Maria and I played Kurt , Dean Chisnall who is in the ensemble, who played Prince Charming in my local Panto 2 years ago, where I was a juvenile dancer and Patrick Stanier one of our SMs here, who was the DSM at Waiting for Godot, where I played the boy earlier this year.
After the break we all sat down at tables to start the run through. I was sitting at the top table next to Joe (Raoul) with Sierra (Christine), Ramin (Phantom), Summer (Meg) and Liz (Madame Giry) on my right, Wow what a line up! As we went through the music I heard all the parts together for the first time and listened to all the scenes. We saw Bob Crowley’s brilliant set designs projected onto the big screen behind us and I realised how incredible, sophisticated, complex and beautiful the show is going to be. I sang my parts with the rest of the cast, which was very nerve racking but I think I did OK, and really enjoyed it. We had a break for lunch and I chatted with the other cast members, they are all so lovely. Funny thing, everyone seemed to have brought tuna fish and cucumber sandwiches to eat. After lunch we continued the run to the end of the show and finished at about 3:15pm.
I can’t say much as the plot, as it is a closely guarded secret, but I will say this, the press are right, this is Andrew’s best musical to date! To all you avid Phantom fans out there waiting for the twentieth of February with your tickets and wondering if it will be as good as The Phantom of the Opera, I can tell you this, it is even better. So hang in there because boy is this one is going to be a doosy!!
Until next time
Richard
Hello!
I’m Duncan and I am an Assistant Stage Manager on Love Never Dies. I’ve been asked to blog and tell you about what is happening backstage to mount ‘The Lord’s’ latest show. As the cast blogs are telling you, we are currently in the early stages of rehearsals.
In order to get the show rehearsed in time, we currently have three rehearsal studios and two production offices. Our main rehearsal studio matches the dimensions of the Adelphi stage and has a purpose-built stage area so that cast can get used to where the main set pieces are and see how the action and choreography will fit on the stage. Our second studio is mainly used for choreography sessions while the third studio is where the vocal calls take place to teach the cast the stunning new music for the show.
The stage management team is currently five-strong. Our role during this early stage encompasses many different areas. Our main priority is to learn the show inside-out so that when we move to the theatre in February we can transfer the work done in the rehearsal studios onto the Adelphi stage. We also look after the creative team (who, being American, require a lot of coffee), the production teams (wardrobe & wigs, sound & lighting etc) and of course the actors.
As well as being present for the main rehearsals, the cast are also currently needed by the wardrobe and wigs departments so that they have time to finely-tune the fitting of all the magnificent costumes and wigs that are used in the show. These fittings, while essential, need to cause minimum disruption to the main creation process of the show. As such, daily scheduling meetings take place to work out who will be required where and when. The stage management team then co-ordinate the movement of the actors according to the schedule which (fingers crossed) allows everyone to carry on undisturbed.
The team also runs all of the rehearsal spaces which includes checking actors’ hours to ensure that they don’t work too long without a break, and setting any props that are required in each scene. During the early stages of the creation process we have to make notes on any new props that will be required and work out timings for scene transitions as well as teaching the cast how the set will be changing around them.
To say much more about what we are currently doing would start to reveal details about the show and therefore potentially spoil the surprise that our audiences will experience. However, in future posts I will say whatever I can about what the stage management team are doing to mount this new show. I can guarantee that this show will be exciting, challenging and – most of all – fun for us to put on… as well as stunning for you to watch.
Hopefully, my next update will not be too far away. By my next post, I will have seen the set taking shape in the theatre and we should be progressing well with staging the show in the rehearsal studios. Until then, take care (and buy tickets!)
Duncan
So.. it has been a long time coming but as you are already aware, Monday marked another landmark day for Love Never Dies.
As Adam reports below, it was the first time all those who will be working together (and many who have already been working on the show for a considerable time) got together in the rehearsal spaces in London.
The word on most people’s lips was “exciting” and there was a real buzz of electricity in the room as we all “Meeted and Greeted” each other and put names to faces for the first time. Jack O’Brien welcomed everyone and, after sharing his horoscope prediction for the coming month, suggested everyone look around the room and appreciate the fantastic array of talent that had been gathered together for the occasion. There was then the short welcome from Andrew which Adam describes above. Jack (despite a very husky sore throat) then took centre stage again and talked about the phenomenonal impact of the original production of The Phantom of the Opera. He emphasised how important it was to remember the unprecedented success of this show meant that to many people the story no longer belonged to Andrew as the composer, but that so many hundreds of thousands of people had invested so much emotion into the show that they felt Phantom in some way belonged to them. It was essential to all these people that Love Never Dies honoured this investment and that everyone should recognise that this piece would be the object of great scrutiny worldwide.
Jack told all those present that this was potentially the start of something truly great and that all those taking part should have fun and thoroughly enjoy the experience. Finally, niceties over, he then made it clear that anyone who was not participating in the first full rehearsal that morning should “get the hell out of here!”…
Before we complied with Jack’s instruction we managed to seize a couple of moments to chat to our leading lady, Sierra Boggess, who had arrived in the UK on New Year’s Eve. She has spent the last week in a flurry of “gorgeous” costume fittings. Sierra wasn’t giving too much away but did say that her (already enviously slim) frame would be squeezed into “lots of corsets!”. She has also faced the trauma of having her full head encased in plaster (mysterious, huh?) having undergone the same experience as Ramin Karimloo in our previous “Disfiguring the Phantom” blog entry.
Ramin also talked about his costume fittings. He joked that the costumes are so amazing he asked if they could make two of each of them so he could get to keep one for himself! Ramin himself is eager to begin the rehearsal process. Although he has thoroughly appreciated a couple of months break from performing as The Phantom, having finished his run in the original production on November 7th, he can’t wait to continue the Phantom story and build on the character he knows so well.
Away from the “glamour” of the rehearsal rooms, at the Adelphi Theatre the set is being loaded in and constructed. Steve Rebbeck, the Production Manager, had taken a couple of hours out of his gruelling technical production timetable to attend the Meet and Greet and confirmed that all is on schedule and that a key piece of set was being put together the following day (more from the Adelphi soon).
Despite the recent spell of adverse weather across the UK everyone who had been invited had managed to make the event, but there was one casualty. Scott Penrose, the consultant who is creating the stunning Coney Island illusions for Love Never Dies confided that he was supposed to be delivering a load of props to the rehearsal room that day but had had to abandon his car on the journey in… so if anyone comes across a carload of very bizarre items which look like they belong in a freak show do let us know!
Before leaving we also took the opportunity to recruit a couple of additional potential “bloggers” who will be doing their utmost throughout the rehearsal period to keep us informed of what is happening in the build up to the big day. More about them very soon…
Adam Pearce’s blog
Well, as Miss Fleck (aka Niamh Perry) has reported, yesterday was the Meet and Greet.
This is where almost every single person involved with the production from around the world all get together in one room and introduce themselves. There were cast, creative, wigs, wardrobe, casting, production, design, chaperones, marketing, digital…the list goes on and on! So, we all sat down with tea, coffee, pastries, biscuits, everything you can imagine. Up steps the Lord to welcome us and he gives us the inside story on how he came up with the idea for the new piece. He had been collaborating with a number of writers, but they just didn’t seem to work. Then he found a great team in – amongst others – Jack O’Brien, Jerry Mitchell, Bob Crowley, Ben Elton and Glenn Slater. Then Jack stood up and said a few words of inspiration. No matter what Jack talks about, you can’t help but be enthralled by his voice. I’m sure if he was even describing on how he opened a packet of crisps, your jaw would drop open and you would end up marvelling at the man!!
So we are making our way round the group, introducing ourselves. The Lord starts, then Jack, and we go round. I’m watching and trying to remember all the names and jobs, low and behold, it has come to my line. This is where I start to panic. I am 5 people away and I have stupidly just taken a giant mouthful of pecan Danish!!! So I’m chewing and chewing… Now 3 away… 2 away… chewing chewing chewing!!! 1 away… I swallow just as I start to stand. Thank goodness!!!…. But then realise I have not put the rest of the Danish down and am now holding it out in full view of everyone (including the Lord) Stupidly, I say ‘Hello, I’m Adam Pearce, and I play Squelch’ and find myself holding the pastry like a glass and am doing a kind of toasting gesture with it!! And to make matters worse, I look around and nobody else is eating, nor even holding any food what so ever!! How embarrassing!! The curse of the ‘chubby funster’!
With week 1 of rehearsals over, the cast have been put through their paces!! For this show, for most of the cast, strength is a big factor. So every morning they have been in 10am -12.30pm doing an intense physical warm up and work out, increasing lower body and upper body strength, core strength and stability, just immense!!! God bless them, and all their blood sweat and tears, but it will hopefully all be worth it!!
We are extremely blessed to have such an amazing group of people here who are going to become family for the next year ahead. Cast, company manager, stage management, music team, creative team, wardrobe, wigs, it’s going to be a great year! Good times!!
