A Little History Of The World – Rehearsal Blog Week One

5 June 2015

The first week of rehearsals for A Little History of the World is complete and huge progress has been made! The production team have been incredibly efficient with almost all of the props ready in the room at the beginning of the week and the finished set being in the rehearsal space ready for the second.

The play is divided up into sequences and a fair amount of these are heavily movement based so our movement director Lee Lyford has been working closely with the cast and director Paul Stacey to create a shared vision of how each of the sequences will look and whether or not sound or props will be used. Next week we will be going over these sequences in detail which in turn will make the walk-throughs smoother. Over time we can pick up the pace and turn it into a run-through!

One of my favourite elements of the show is how many different ways the central desk to Ernst Gombrich’s study is used; it is moved all over the stage, climbed on and turned over to become an Olympic podium, an operation table and many other things. When you come to see the show also keep an eye out for the chairs that fold over to become ladders that have kept the cast and creative team amused for the longest time! All props necessary in the storytelling are found within the study creating ingenious object manipulation by the cast that works so smoothly sometimes you may not even notice!

With one week down and only three weeks to go I have a funny feeling this month will fly by in a blur of storytelling and history lessons and before we know it opening day will be upon us!

Come and join in on the fun!

Beth Knott
Assistant Director – A Little History of the World