Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play - week 3

Wrap me in a towel with some bottles on my head and call me Lisa Simpson! It’s week 3 of Mr

Burns rehearsals.

We now find ourselves in the penultimate week of the rehearsal period. And that means several

things. Firstly, it was the final week of being “on book” and having scripts in hand. Everyone has

been really hot on lines through the whole process and it’s fantastic to see how detailed our

scenes become when we aren’t staring at our sheets of highlighted paper. My character in

particular has a long unbroken section of speech in act 1. A monologue, for those who don’t

constantly mince their words. It always feels like a big responsibility to have your *big speech

moment* and I particularly felt a drive to perfect it.

Our director Omar was really helpful in this

endeavour, giving me specific notes, reassuring me on what was successful and carving out some

time to work on the monologue, while the rest of the cast looked at a different moment of the play.

This led me to have much greater confidence leading into a run of the whole first half of the show.

We had called this “run” a stagger through, a walk through and then eventually gained the

confidence to graduate to run of the first half. I was impressed with how much had been retained

from everyone and felt really heartened by seeing how all the moving parts fit together. It made it

extremely clear to me which moments to focus on when I did some independent work at the

weekend and aware of what needs my attention going into our final rehearsal week.

The best part of the week for me was easily the PROMO STUFF. There is definitely a better term

to encapsulate this (making of promotional materials?) but it’s not as fun. We recorded a number

of different scenes and musical moments for the show trailer. And filmed cast interviews. I love

seeing PROMO STUFF for a show I’m in, it’s surreal and at the same time solidifies in your brain

“this is really happening!”. It’s also the time when I send the trailer to my friends who promptly

reply that they’ve already booked tickets. Indeed, the show is selling out fast and I’m keen to see

how our trailer serves to increase the buzz that there already is.

Going into next week we’ll be adding more detail to the second half of the show. This act contains

some of my favourite moments (and the infamous “Willy grabbed his rake” line) so I’m really

looking forward to it. The writing is so gripping that I find myself re-reading the script even while

warming up or waiting to rehearse again. So I can’t fathom how brilliant an experience it will be for

audience members. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a play like this and can’t name another one similar,

it’s going to be an absolute treat for anyone lucky enough to nab one of the few tickets left.

Written by Ida Regan