LMSE Purley

On this page I write my last confession

2005-07-27T15:59:00.000+01:00

Okay, so the show's over. Music, props, costumes, staging, all returned back to their rightful owners. In my opinion, Friday night was our best performance. The main reason for this opinion is that Enjolras didn't look at his feet during One Day More. And several other things that just seemed to flow better that night. But that's not to downplay our other nights, we should be really pleased with what we achieved. Not least of which was the £7,500 we raised in charitable donations for Trincomalee. Marvellous, something really special.

We've had so much praise for what we achieved. We raised lots of money, and we successfully performed one of the hardest pieces of musical theatre in a place that's never seen the likes of it before. People have been congratulating me, but funnily enough I couldn't have done it without everybody else - so this is my final well done to you all!

So there will be more of this kind of thing in the future! Everybody should keep in touch and join in the events we'll organise before our next production's auditions. Have a look at the photos, enjoy your summer, and we'll see you again in September!

Signing off,
David.

The time is now, the place is here!

2005-07-15T12:17:00.000+01:00

Well I think we should be rather pleased with ourselves. Yesterday's performance was especially pleasing, and far less stressful for everyone than our first night (which was all very good, just a little hair-raising for the crew and the orchestra). We had a sell-out audience on the Wednesday (220) and a very full audience on Thursday (170), and things are looking promising for Friday and Saturday too. The money is coming in too, and I believe the total collected from those two performances is just over £1500 - but I'll get a clearer picture later.

A big well done to you all - keep it up and don't take anything for granted!

One Day More

2005-07-12T23:54:00.000+01:00

Hold yourselves in readiness - the night is falling fast!

Well, I guess tonight's rehearsal went better than I was expecting! Now that the barricade is working and that people now know how and when to move it, tomorrow should go a little more smoothly :-) I think you'll all do a fantastic job, just keep on the ball, keep going and enjoy it. Remember to Act and React.

And I guess that tomorrow we'll discover what our God in heaven has in store ...

(sorry, couldn't resist!)

Singing for our supper

2005-07-02T21:28:00.000+01:00

My goodness I'm exhausted. From 10.30 to 1.30 today a hardy troup of Les Mis cast performed their hearts out in Croydon. We sang lots of songs from the show. Some of them many many times. Not five minutes went by without singing the people song, but it got people watching! We gave out over 800 flyers for the show, with many people saying how brilliant they thought we were and what an excellent cause we have. So let's hope they all buy tickets! We had lots of fun - my favourite bit being when Garry stepped into Marius' role for A Little Fall of Rain and dragged Carrie (Eponine) to the ground for her death scene!

Here's the obligatory photos from one worn out cast (plus kerry who brilliantly joined us and will helping backstage) - also there for most of our endeavour was Elizabeth (Cosette), James Trimm (Legles) Grace (little Cosette) and Francesca (little Eponine). Well done to your all for all you achieved today.

See you Tuesday - keep practicing!!

A mini revolution

2005-06-24T12:34:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday Graham Mackay-Bruce, who played Marius in the West End in 1996-7, came to give our students a workshop in how to stage a revolution. He was great, they were great, what more can I say?! Graham exuded enthusiasm, and our students soaked it all up, gaining lots of ideas as to how to perform in their character roles. We've already seen the fruits of this in rehearsals, and the rest of you readers will all get to see the fruits of it in the performance! Book now from our website!

Another day another destiny

2005-06-14T13:23:00.000+01:00

My goodness it's taken me a while to update the blog. Largely because I've been crazy busy, my apologies! Not only have I got the show to sort out, I'm also moving house this weekend and major projects at work that take up more than your average 9-5 day. But, as you probably have already worked out, I like it like that!

Yesterday Rebecca and I went with our costumers, Hazel and Heather, to the Miller Centre to dig out costumes for the show. And we did very well! The wonderful people of the Miller Centre are donating all the costumes for free, which is incredibly generous when you consider that we have a large cast and quite a complicated costume plot. In addition to all the rags we now have to pick our way through, we've got many of the major costumes. Waistcoats and shirts for the students, Javert's uniform, Cosette's dress and wedding dress, the Lovely Ladies outfits (all red and black), ball dresses and Mme Thenardier's 'ball dress', Fantine's nightgown, Little Cosette's and Eponine's outfits, peasant tops, caps, arpons, shawls, beggar's cloaks, and even several guns. Plus more things too I'm sure. We'll be going back for another rummage, and we'll take some of the principals along for a fitting in due course too. I'll let you know!

We are, of course, flying by the seat of our pants went it comes to this production. But what do you expect when there's a production team of only three?! If some things appear to be last minute, please bear with us and have patience.

Money is still coming in for sponsorship, we'll let you know if we need to do any fundraising. And working out the ins and outs of constructing the stage, not to mention the barricade, are still ongoing. I might have an update on these two major things later this week.

Incidentally, I think rehearsals are going very well. Sunday's rehearsal in particular went very smoothly and we got a lot done. I'm always very impressed by how well you good people can hold attention - three hours is a long time! We're going to need to hold a final barricades rehearsal for the guys to do their dying scene. We'll organise this after Sunday's workshop with Graham Mackay-Bruce (the guy who played Marius in the west end). This might be rather difficult to do without the barricade itself though, but I guess we'll have to make do one way or another! As soon as the barricade and stage is constructed I promise that barricades rehearsals will be top priority.

Several of you have said that you'd like to do more shows in the future. Well, I think that would be a good thing too. But we'll need more help if we're going to make more shows happen. Rebecca, Chrish and I have been working flat out, but we could really benefit from more members on future production teams. People to look after ticket sales and technical issues for example! But all of that will come in time, God willing!

All the best,
David.

The excitement grows

2005-05-20T09:35:00.000+01:00

Hi folks,
Well after last night's rehearsal (which was clearly far to exciting for people to handle - getting measured up for costumes should make you all realise that it's all real and happening soon!) I can officially say that tickets are now on sale!

The best way to order tickets is at www.lesmispurley.org.uk/tickets.html you can type in how many you require, and then pick them up at a rehearsal. Although the public won't be able to pick up their tickets until June, cast members can get first dibs before then. Just let us know how many you want.

Good luck with your exams everybody!

See you soon,
David.

Flash, bang, wallop ...

2005-05-11T08:56:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,
Here's the two cast photos from last night's rehearsal, let me know what you think of them! You can now post comments without having to sign up first!

As for those of you who didn't bring a black t-shirt/get a chance for your close-up to be taken, make sure you wear a black t-shirt to the next run-through!

Suggestions for names for our group are still wanted (maybe you could post them here?), remember we'd like it to be Purley something Together.

I think you're all doing a brilliant job, yesterday's rehearsal went well and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to the next bit of the show over the next couple of weeks!

See you soon,
David.

Big Day Out

2005-05-08T16:06:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,
Yesterday we went on something of a field trip. Twelve of us went to see the matinee performance of Les Mis at the Queens Theatre and I think it's fair to say that we were all rather excited about it. As director, I concluded that i will never again go to see the production I'm producing halfway through rehearsals - I had to close my eyes a couple of time so I didn't get mixed up about what we're doing! That said, it was an excellent performance, and whilst the inner-prima-donna in some of us wanted to nitpick (their crew was especially noisy and noticeable, their french horn player was probably hungover, valjean did odd things with his eyebrows, enjolras nearly fell from his death pose on the barricade and fantine dropped her lines twice that I noticed) (eh-hem, like I could have done any better) it was an excellent performance, getting a standing ovation from us and most of the dress circle. It was a great thing to do on two accounts - 1) the current cast gave an excellent example to our cast about how to perform the show and 2) for my part, it was wonderful to see our cast getting on so well together. One of them commented to me later that he couldn't imagine anyone else playing their parts in our production, everyone is just right for our group. And I totally agree with him.

Our seats were slightly split with three of our group being in the stalls and the rest in the dress circle - so Caroline, Gareth and Matthew kindly came up to join us in the interval. We were all talking away about the things we liked, and how it related to LMSE and before we knew it the music struck up and Act Two had begun - luckily there were a few spare seats for them to join us. Egged on by a rather determined Caroline, most of us gathered by the stage door to get autographs. The London cast say hi and good luck to us! Here's a photo of our Fantine with their Fantine, Joanna Ampril -

At Tuesday's rehearsal we'll run and tweak what we've done so far, which is most of Act One. And if you're really lucky, good and (most importantly) quick, then we'll do One Day More too!

The stage is set ...

2005-04-25T18:30:00.000+01:00

I spent my lunchtime today in the church with a nice gent from Point Source working out how we were actually going to stage the show! Firstly, the steel decking isn't much of a problem to raise the stage a foot or so off the ground - this should make us a lot more visible to the audience in the church, and protect the rather nice floor from the barricades and such like. They could do a rake for us, but this looks rather more time consuming (and expensive), so it might not happen.

The apron to the stage will happen though, and to get in lighting towers at the front to cross-light the stage we'll remove the pulpit and the front pew to give us more room! We'll also be able to have the footlights and the backlight like I'd hoped, so Lovely Ladies and Empty Chairs will have a far more ghostly feel to them with the footlights on and the barricade can be lit up from behind, so with some smoke it should look quite effective. We'll also have a star cloth at the back. The exact possibilities will be drawn up during the week. All very exciting!

As for sound, they can tap into the church's sound system which will be just fine for what we need (it's actually rather good). I've asked them to quote for 8-12 radio mics, plus a few stage mics at the front. But you're all so loud anyway, I'm more concerned that we'll need the mics for the orchestra!

So what with spending a lot of Sunday in the church with Fantine and Thenardier (to block out all their main songs - the fruits of which you'll see at this week's rehearsals), I'm feeling a little bit holier than normal!

We're going to need help with the crew. Whilst they are happy to provide someone to oversee operations, and indeed a whole crew, it's kinda expensive to do that. So if there are any technical wizzes out there who fancy getting their hands on a lighting board they should let me know!

At the End of the Day

2005-04-20T18:22:00.000+01:00

Last week was a bit hectic rehearsal-wise, and by the end of Thursday's rehearsal I could see that I had tired out pretty much the entire cast. It was particularly mad for me because our virtual rehearsal pianist (a CD-ROM) wasn't working properly, so I was playing the piano as well as trying to see what was going on on the stage - very confusing! The end result for both the Chain Gang scene and At The End Of The Day was very pleasing, I just hope that everyone remembers their moves and their lines! We'll practice it again soon, and then I'll add in one or two extra touches to really make it come alive.

I'll be meeting the guys who will be sorting out the stage, sound and lighting for us on Monday which is all very exciting. I'll show you all drawings when they're ready. And I've finally cracked on to how the cart crash is going to work! The barricade has been modified since some of you saw drawings - we'll attach two or three removable flats to it to make it look more like a street scene for Act One. All good stuff. One parent has already said that they have a whole load of timber and floorboards from some work him and his neighbour had been doing, which is marvellous. Just need some furniture donated!!!!

I've got to put the finishing touches to Lovely Ladies and the cart crash ready for tomorrow's rehearsal - should be fun!

Welcome M'Sieur, sit yourself down ...

2005-04-12T02:04:00.000+01:00

Today there are only 93 days until we perform Les Mis School Edition (LMSE)! I thought I would start this blog to record the progress we make while we attempt to put on this incredible show. It's for the benefit of the cast and crew, and for the interest of anyone else who is keeping tabs with our progress.

So far we've held rehearsals for some of our principals - we only got started last week! I decided that the best way to go about things was to have singing and characterisation rehearsals with each principal, going through all their songs, and then blitz large scenes with the chorus. So far I've rehearsed Fantine, Javert, Eponine, Cosette and Marius. And with the last three we've even blocked out most of their scenes, particularly the robbery and the Rue Plummet when Marius and Cosette meet.

Tomorrow will be our first chorus rehearsal, with the Chain Gang scene. We'll also practice the men's singing parts for the rest of the show too. And then Thursday we'll have pretty much everyone for At the End of the Day, one of the most impressive scene in the show! Goodness.

On Monday last week, Rebecca, Chrishanti and I went to see the West End production in its new home at the Queens Theatre. It was as excellent as ever, and I thoroughly recommend that the cast go to see it soon. The current Valjean is particularly excellent. The performance didn't make me cry (it's just a show after all ... :-) but I realised the scale of some of the things we ought to be doing and that nearly bought me to tears!! Don't worry, the barricades been designed and if you ask me it's all rather clever!

We still need sponsorship though, we're about one-third of the way there, but we still need more! If anyone is interested in helpinig out with the costs of the show then please let us know.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted!

David,
your director.