The Snow Queen Rehearsal Diary - Week 3

We've reached the half way point in rehearsals and (alongside a game or two) they're well and truly heating up! Here, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School alumni and Peter O’Toole Prize-winner Dylan Wood brings us up to date on all the latest antics from The Snow Queen rehearsal room.

It's the end of our third week and we're right on track! Everything is going to plan and we're really excited to keep powering ahead following the completion of Act One. With loads of discussions, playing, improvisations, trying to find out what will work and what won't, we have built the bones to the first half of The Snow Queen.

So lets go back to the start...

We started the week by running from the top, using the opportunity to edit and fine tune. At this point things are still very much subject to change and as we picked at all the details, that's exactly what happened. It's a very open process so with any new idea, we'd throw it into the mix and run with it. Our show is constantly building, getting better and better, wackier and wackier, funnier and funnier and certainly more beautiful by the day.

On the Tuesday, rehearsals came to a halt when Gwyneth brought out her ukulele. As she started strumming the cords, the company suddenly came out with a huge chocolate cake and started singing happy birthday. It was the most beautiful rendition I've ever heard and it was overwhelming having it sung to me! However, the cake was best bit, obvs!

We then decided to have a crack at the Palace scene, otherwise known as 'The Big One'. This is by far the largest and most complicated scene in the play. Loads of movement, loads of set changes, loads of dialogue, loads of music and loads of visual effects - A lot going on! The majority of the rest of the week was taken up by this scene. It wasn't easy but we managed to get all the way through it and it's looking pretty spectacular I must say. It's certainly going to make tech week interesting!

In and amongst all this hard work, we did manage to get a couple of games in. Our very own Jessica Hayles took the trophy home this week, which, you guessed it, led to tantrums. Sorry, Lee but not sorry!

This Christmas we round off the year with our epic adaptation of The Snow Queen. For more information and to book tickets, click here.