"Mr Smee, Set Sail For London!"

After spending 3 months doing the show of Peter Pan, I came home and thought it'd be nice to have a few days rest. Little did know It'd the second day back and I'd be off to watch 2 days of panto rehearsals for ... (you guessed it)..

Peter Pan!

I got to sit upstairs with all the techies and watch what they do to make the show the best it can be.
I think everyone underestimates how much goes into the lights and sound of a show. I never thought it was that complicated but I was so oblivious as I just didn't know how busy the lighting guys were.  Every cue is programmed in and there can be so many in a short space of time. So many different names of lights and they all do different things! You can put them all at different colours, percentages and all sorts. The lighting desks look so complicated. 
   I also sat in the auditorium with the DSM while they ran a few numbers and got to see her at work. Again, another job that I think I've been underestimating.  Every light and sound cue she would call through a head set. Constantly reading a script that would be covered in scribbles while watching the stage to make sure things are going to plan.
It was really interesting to see how a professional panto manage things the day before opening day. Everyone seemed so calm but as I was watching I couldn't believe they had less than 24 hours. I thought the dances were really messy. The singing wasn't exactly tuneful.  One of the main characters was behaving really quite strange. He refused to fly on the harness and would only mark the singing and text. And once he did have the harness on he was fidgety and didn't sing while in the air! A bit of a diva really. But I guess that's show biz!

It was really interesting to be on the other side of the stage, watching, instead of performing. As much as I would've loved to have got up and taken over the role as Tinkerbell myself!
  

The Final Countdown!

ITS THE LAST DAY OF SHOWS. 

It's gone so quick, I can't believe it... maybe the number of blogs doesn't help because I should  have done about 11 but.. quality not quantity right? 

We've got two shows before we pack everything up and fly to Dubai for one night. AND THEN WE FLY HOME TOMORROW! 

I've not had my Laptop for about 2 weeks now so just have random notes in my phone of things that have happened and I'm trying to make sense of them but I'll see what I can do. 

Anyway.. the theatre we have been in for the past 2 days has a thrust stage. We have been used to performing in a proscenium theatre; where the audience is just in front.  We hadn't spoke about adjusting the show for the stage but I just knew to open up so I wasn't facing away from the audience the whole show. I could notice a couple of others doing the same but I'm not sure if others had thought about it. 

As it was the last show it was nice to see everyone pull together after wards and help pack up everything and get everything wrapped and plane ready! 

.. TIME FOR DUBAI.

Once Upon A Time... In Sharjah

Ok after a week in Abu Dhabi we packed ourselves into the minibus, threw our suitcases into the back of the truck, and drove 2 ½ hours to Al Ain (which can only be described as a sandy version of Hollywood)

We arrived at the Hilton hotel and immediately became friends with the happy hour menu and Lana the waitress (who proceeded to give us free shots of tequila over the next 4 days)

The first school we visited was next to a big mountain called Jebel Hafeet, after we did the drop off we got taxi’s up to the top, sat and watched the sunset, took some selfies and nearly froze to death. I didn’t realize how freezing it would be 3000ft in the air of Al Ain.

I must mention that the whole above trip wasn’t the same without Ben the techie(who is typing this as Alana talks because she is to lazy to talk and type right now).

Anyway……

Because we finished the days so late, there wasn’t much time to do anything after work until we got to Sharjah, we worked through the weekend at Sharjah book festival where is was a great experience to work as it was a different atmosphere to the school we usually perform at.

It was the same concept as the Edinburgh fridge festival.

We left all the set and costumes at the venue and only had 15 minutes to Load in and out each day, the Audiences also were a lot different as there were a mixture of ages and cultures attending the show,

Because there were groups performing either side of our show we were very limited to the time we had to pack-down and get changed, everybody had to work at a quicker pace than usual and we managed to be done within the 15minutes everyday! When we are performing at schools its less pressure to leave in a quick time therefore people would tend to have a much slower pace in doing there role in the pack down.

With the audiences at the book fair being public audiences, we got great feedback on social media including tweets like:

“Thank you for the spirit of enjoyment ”

“Thank you for a beautiful show in sharjah book fair have lots of fun”

it was nice to get feedback from people other than 5 year olds and teachers

The best part of performing at the book festival we had all - inclusive meals provided by the organisers,

After having a 3 hour nap I decided to go for a walk to see the Sharjah Fountains it was a 40 minute walk at 11:30pm. Arrived at the waterfront to watch the fountain show but it didn’t live up to the Dubai Fountains I saw earlier in the tour, however it was very colourful. After the fountain show had finished we walked back to the hotel, the thing I was most surprised at was the amount of children running around and family having BBQ’s and picnic at 1:42am, I guess it must be because it was the weekend and also the perfect temperature outside.

Despite realising  I had left my costume at the hotel 10 minutes into the taxi journey and having to turn back for it, having to move rooms 3 times in a week and having a rooftop pool not fit for a goldfish with no sunlight I enjoyed my time in Sharjah

Next week we fly to Bahrain ……….

Surprise!

It's been such a long busy day. We had a 3 show day and the first show was at 8.20am then we had an hour break before the next show and after that a 2 hour break which was nice because we usually go straight from show to show. And before the third show the company manager said "can you all get On stage please I have some notes"

In my head I was thinking of all the things it could be

 - Don't mess about on stage.

 - Don't add in lines

 - Tinkerbell, dance better

 - Nana the dog stop weeing On the darling children on stage .. 

Could be any of those. But as we all sat down Kate's friend walked through the door to surprise her! It was so cute and then all of a sudden he said 'I brought someone else' and her mum walked in. They'd been planning it since Kate got the job months ago and no one in the cast knew. I cried and text my mum 'expecting you to walk in any... Minute.... Nowww....' Unfortunately she's still in Leeds. After work we went out to the Dubai mall and had some dinner and it was amazing! Right outside the Burj and the Dubai Fountains. Then after we showed them the fountain show and we walked around and took some nice holiday pics! We got back quite late and completely forgot that we had to pack up everything as we were travelling to Abu Dhabi the next day. After the next morning we got back, cleared the apartments and packed ourselves into the minibus. It took us about 3 times longer to get there than planned but it was eventful.... I'm now an expert at guess the intro and the game where you think of a word for every letter of the alphabet for example if the animal is categories it would go like this: 

Ant, bear, caterpillar, dragon, elephant, frog, giraffe, horse, iguana, jellyfish, kangaroo, Lima, monkey, narwhal, octopus, pig, quail, rhino, snake, tiger, Umbrellabird, Vulture, whale, Xenon , yak, Zebra .. 

And if the category was modes of transport it would go like this: Airplane, bus, car... I think you get it.

How Its Made

I find it quite hard to get back to the apartments and write about what's happened during the day as so much  happens in one show I end up missing out details. I also find it useful to write as things are happening because if something really excited is happening or something really funny then you write with those emotions therefore your blog is different... As I don't have wifi at all during the day I write up all my notes on my phone and then I have another read through when I get home to make sure it makes sense then I send it to myself on Facebook and upload it onto my blog page using my laptop. 

Me: A Name I Call Myself

It's 5.34 and I'm only awake enough to write one sentence. 

6.25 an hour ish later and after breakfast and my brain is now at least half functioning enough to write more than a sentence. We're about to get our 6.45 taxis to the theatre. 

It was a long day at work today, another 12 hour day. We've got a 3 show day at one of the biggest schools I've seen.  As we walked in to set up the set last night, the school had to screens in reception that would show a child's school headshot photo and their exam results of the last test they took next to it! 

We're also filming for a short advertisement clip for the Book festival in Sharjah next week. The last show is at 1 then we have to go to Sharjah, about 40 mins away, to do a full get in and set up the floor cloth, video screen, put chairs put, costumes, props and lights.  

... I'm always really dramatic about how much energy the show takes but as Tinkerbell, I don't speak and have to Mime nearly everything. Tinkerbell is also the comedic character of the show and I have to throw myself off set, give an Oscar award winning performance of me drinking poison and dying, then give an Oscar award winning performance of coming back to life etc.. It takes A LOT of energy and I have to create that before I start the show otherwise the audience don't get emotionally attached to Tinkerbell which means when she dies later on in the show they're less likely to get as involved when bringing her back to life as it means the audience clapping/cheering/stamping until Tinkerbell is full of life again! 

.. A few days off and we come back into work with a 4 show day. I thought 3 was tiring! Waking up at 5am and getting back to the apartments at 6pm is draining. It took us so long to get to the next theatre and drop off all the set/costumes and everything else. But if there is a positive to come out of all of this, the amount we sweat must be doing something for our figure!

Act 1: Scene 2: Week 3

So as a cast member of Peter Pan we have to move from venue to venue and every morning we set up the props, costumes, and lights etc. On an average 2 show day we will wake up around 5.30 make sure we have all the costumes that we've washed the night before and had them ironed. We get our instruments and we go down to breakfast while we wait for our taxi pick up which is usually around 6.45/7. Once we arrive at the venue we will get into the theatre and set up. We do the shows, and then we all chip in to do the get out. Me and Kate, who plays Wendy, are on props and costumes. Michael is on lights. Mr Smee's jobs is to take up all the wires and floor cloth. Captain Hook, the narrator, John and Peter Pan all have the job of taking down the video wall. The video wall is essentially a HUGE TV made up of 60 little TV's to create our background. It shows the street, the nursery, Neverland and on board The Jolly Rodger. This is the main feature of the show as it has animated scenes that make us look like we're all flying to Neverland. It takes us all about 45 minutes to get everything out the building and loaded onto the truck ready to move to the next place. After we have done the drop off we head back to the apartments and relax for the rest of the day! 

It's the 3rd week in and this week has been really quite chilled out as we've only had 5 shows in 3 days work. It's going to start getting more tiring as we are slowly approaching 18 days straight of work. There is a place about 30 minutes out of Dubai where we are staying called Sharjah and there is a book festival there so we will be performing at that over the weekend which would usually be our days off to then fly straight to Bahrain to perform the shows again. It's all worth it though as I get to go to Abu Dhabi and see the richest city in the world! .. I think it's known as a state actually but for the blogs sake and to make it sounds more dramatic I'll say city. 

As we're approaching a hard weekend of relaxing with an iced hazelnut frappe, watching the Dubai Fountains, going up to the top of the Burj Khalifa, visiting the world biggest water park and having a touristy view on all the little back alley markets.. I'll try and remember what it was like to do house work and keep on top of every day life activities.. But for now.. I'm off to the Party beach. 34 degrees, sun, music and a lot of happy people!